Again, I'd only recommend this movie to someone who admires Sam Peckinpah's masterpieces ("Ride the High Country", "The Wild Bunch", "Junior Bonner", "Cable Hogue", "The Getaway"," Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia", "Straw Dog"s, and the Director's Cut of "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid"), and is especially valuable for someone looking for how "The Wild Bunch" emerged. In 1864, due to frequent Apache raids from Mexico into the U.S., a Union officer decides to illegally cross the border and destroy the Apache, using a mixed army of Union troops, Confederate POWs, civilian mercenaries, and scouts. Heston liked the film and called Peckinpah, saying, "I'd like to work with you." I've seen this film at least 10 times, it never gets old, its similar in 'theme' to "Alvarez Kelly" which is also never gets old to watch. Chuck, needs Richard and his Rebels to track down an Apache Warrior who flees to Mexico after slaughtering some settlers and the hunt is on. Major Dundee Somewhere in the development of this Jerry Bresler production the central premise was sidetracked and a maze of little-meaning action substituted. Some of these sequences – particularly the scene where Warren Oates’ is tried for desertion – are fantastic on their own terms. I believe this Sony Italy release is OOP and is identical to an expensive U.S. release. At the Rostes Ranch, the Apache Sierra Charriba uses a Halloween party as cover for attack. Jones, James Coburn, Lupita Peckinpah, Chalo Gonzalez & more. You can argue that everything he learned getting burned on Major Dundee he then turned to his advantage on The Wild Bunch – his first, unassailable masterpiece. And this is before the film is taken away from him, cut without his approval, has a score commissioned he detests and finally released to almost universal critical disdain and box-office failure. I watched this twice, once with the new soundtrack, once with the original Amfitheatroff soundtrack. [1] Heston, for his part, might not be the greatest choice for a Peckinpah movie. Major Dundee is a 1965 Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring Charlton Heston, Richard Harris, Jim Hutton, and James Coburn.Written by Harry Julian Fink, the film is about a cavalry officer who leads a contentious troop of Army regulars, Confederate prisoners, and scouts on an expedition into Mexico to destroy a band of Apaches who have been raiding United States bases in Texas. Includes the 2005 4K extended cut scan & original theatrical cut. I couldn't tell the difference between the "Extended Cut" and the original. Armstrong referred to the original cut as "Moby-Dick on horseback". That he failed has led Major Dundee to be hailed as something of a lost masterpiece; like The Magnificent Ambersons, a classic example of an auteur’s vision compromised by the interfering hands of a studio. An excellent soldier with arete knows no boundary of political, religious, social, or racial division and transcends the subjectivity of time. With Charlton Heston, Richard Harris, Jim Hutton, James Coburn. Major Dundee; Major Dundee; Dobrodružný / Válečný / Western. As with Gil Westrum and Steve Judd in … High Country, or Pike Bishop and Deke Thornton in The Wild Bunch, Dundee and Tyreen represent opposite sides of the same character. Reviewed in the United States on February 17, 2021. But now, 40 years later, most of the missing footage has been located and restored, with the entire soundtrack r The Twilight Time Blu-ray is the definitive version of the film with the 2005 cut … A Union officer, he’s transferred in 1864 to command Fort Benlin, a PoW camp in Texas, as disciplinary action for fighting “his own war at Gettysberg”. Nearly forty years after Major Dundee’s release, the 11 Mar 2005 DV announced Sony Pictures Entertainment’s plans to re-issue a restored version featuring twelve minutes of added footage. When Peckinpah went over budget and over schedule during the Mexico shoot, unshot scenes were canceled and the footage rudely cut by the studio. When Peckinpah went over budget and over schedule during the Mexico shoot, unshot scenes were cancelled and the footage rudely cut by the studio. This is an example of producers putting their dirty greedy palms where they don't belong. Reviewed in the United States on December 6, 2019. Rentals include 30 days to start watching this video and 48 hours to finish once started. And what a great cast! Major Dundee is by far the most stacked release from Imprint Films to date. An offbeat Western adventure film about a Union officer in charge of a jail in the Southwest. I'll put the Dundee material in italics. Instead, Major Dundee became one of the worst experiences in a director's life: even before shooting had started, Columbia cut the $ 4,5 million back with one third, his material was edited against his will, and the studio further demolished his work. Packed in a very durable and quality hard-cover box, that looks like something the Marlboro Man should be holding on Rodeo Drive, both the theatrical and extended cut come … Heston headlines Peckinpah's 'lost-masterpiece', now restored to near glory, “Tell me, who will you send against me now..?” These are the words of Sierra Charriba, leader of a band of murderous Apache warriors, during the opening minutes of Sam Peckinpah‘s Civil War epic Major Dundee. But Heston – a huge box office draw in 1965 – manoeuvres convincingly between blue-eyed hero and broken, Ahab-like obsessive. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. At … Shot in Mexico (at great expense due to incongruously selected locations) by Sam Leavitt, Major Dundee is a beautiful mess that unfortunately will … Sadly, this isn't really that much different to the movie you've sat through on a Saturday afternoon watching it on ITV4! Geoffrey Macnab welcomes its return The two-disc set features both the 2005 reissue based on a preview version of the movie and the version released theatrically 48 years ago. Directed by Sam Peckinpah. Every album reviewed! Although the liberals won the war, both sides had run up sizable debts to Britain, Spain and France. Major Dundee is a film "not like they make em anymore". The last part of our Ultimate Record Collection: David Bowie trilogy is here now. It weaves US Civil War Confederate tunes like Dixie and Lorena into the action, highlighting the conflicts within the motley band as they fight the Indians, the French and each other. During the filming of Major Dundee, the director will find himself besieged by studio execs, battle budget cuts, face a mutinous cast and crew and have a sabre drawn on him by his leading man, Charlton Heston. One or two scenes are a little bloodier (nothing on the scale of THE WILD BUNCH!!) The problem seems to be that Peckinpah didn’t have a finished script. "old school" is still cool. Subscribe to Uncut today and never miss an issue. An excellent way to get Major Dundee in High Definition. Major Dundee is a 1965 Western film written by Harry Julian Fink and directed by Sam Peckinpah. The prisoners become part of the Union troops. This restoration of Sam Peckinpah's 1965 western Major Dundee is nothing short of magnificent, a noble attempt at restoring a famously wrecked masterpiece. The sprawling screenplay told the story of Union cavalry officer Major Dundee who commands a New Mexico outpost of Confederate prisoners. There's a problem loading this menu right now. Check the record! Having only ever seen TV screenings of the movie, I knew the film had been badly cut by studios on it's release in the 60's (it was a troubled shoot) and I hoped that this extended version would,to some extent, redress those issues. Major Dundee is a flawed film by Sam Peckinpah with some great performances and a true sense of realism. Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 23, 2020. Major Dundee: Return of a classic Forty years after it was butchered by the studio, Sam Peckinpah's Major Dundee has been partially restored. EXTRAS: 4* Great, informative commentaries from Peckinpah historians, as well as a short but hugely enjoyable doc in which the grizzled old survivors of the shoot (Coburn, Armstrong, Jones, Berger) recount the film’s grim back story. Except that Peckinpah wanted to bury Ford’s myth of the Cavalry coming to the rescue. After overthrowing the dictator Santa Anna in 1855, liberal forces established a republican government. Major Dundee This restoration of Sam Peckinpah's 1965 western Major Dundee is nothing short of magnificent, a noble attempt at restoring a famously wrecked masterpiece. There is enough here to partly qualify the film’s status. Continuing his 75th birthday celebrations, we present the deluxe expanded Ultimate Music Guide to Bob Marley. Dundee is the square-jawed, solid if rather dull leader; Tyreen a charismatic, moustachio’d rake. Major Dundee is (almost literally) Peckinpah’s version of a John Ford Western (Ford was the first choice as director.) ; Columbia cut short the film’s shooting schedule and kept reducing the running time from over four hours (!!!) The director disowned the results. Once filming began, Peckinpah and Saul – along with Heston and Harris – continued rewrites as they went, and the film just unravels. Disappointing. This wouldn’t be the last time Peckinpah found himself improvising pages of script on set, but at this early point in his movie career he doesn’t really have the skills to pull it off. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. If you feel, as I do, that Sam Peckinpah is the finest Director of movies, then "Major Dundee" provides an excellent Case Study for how a great movie can be destroyed. The experts say that Major Dundee could never be reconstituted in Sam Peckinpah's cut; even if all the daily negative and audio could be located, the producer did not retain his all-important work picture or documentation that could make a recut possible. But here in 1963, Peckinpah was making his big budget picture debut – $4.5m as opposed to the $800,000 allocated for his previous film, Ride The High Country – and for the first time the intransigent, adversarial director got bloodied fighting to get his vision on screen. In Starbuck, the Bunch use a temperance parade as cover for their escape. I received a used copy in as new condition. Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 1, 2016. Top subscription boxes – right to your door, © 1996-2021, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. This restoration of Sam Peckinpah's 1965 western Major Dundee is nothing short of magnificent, a noble attempt at restoring a famously wrecked masterpiece. Recycled In Space: R.G. Major Dundee(1965) has to rank with Greed(1925), Que Viva Mexico(1931), Metropolis(1927), and The Magnificent Ambersons(1942) as some of the most maligned films in motion picture history. Angry Frenemies Fighting Uncommon Enemies, Reviewed in the United States on January 11, 2014. Peckinpah's 2nd movie. Select the department you want to search in. An excellent hard working cast for this semi-bizarre Western Indian War meets Civil War meets European War in Mexico story. Dundee's first scene, cut from the final film, is a massacre at the Rostes Ranch. The first hour of so, as Dundee assembles his posse, is brilliantly gripping, Peckinpah layering in the inter-personal dynamics of his characters, setting up conflicts to come – particularly between Dundee and Tyreen, which gives the film its emotional focus. But a lengthy interlude in a Mexican town, to essay in a love-triangle between Dundee, Tyreen and Senta Berger’s widow Teresa, undermines the film’s pacing. Major Dundee (1965), an American western film directed by Sam Peckinpah, cogently translates a balanced, objective equilibrium to test the validity of the soldiers’ virtues on the continuum of the Homeric arete in the background setting of the American Civil War. I can confirm that the music soundtrack has been changed/added, easy to confirm when playing the credits at the end where Mitch Miller's jaunty sing-a-long has been replaced by an orchestral sound. 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