PERSONAL FAVES: Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid

"It feels like times have changed."

Background
Everything augered well: a director coming fresh from his biggest commercial success to date, returning to the western genre of his first five movies; a script by a young but brilliant writer (Rudy Wurlitzer) seemingly attuned to the zeitgeist; a story based around one of the best known and most mythical histories of the Old West; a cast of genre stalwarts including Chill Wills, Slim Pickens, L.Q. Jones, R.G. Armstrong and Jason Robards, headed up by screen legend James Coburn and folk hero Kris Kristofferson; and a soundtrack by heir apparent to Kristofferson Bob Dylan, the singer-songwriter debuting in a supporting role. What could go wrong?

James Aubrey, that's what. Aubrey was the president of MGM and a hatchet man. He culled, curtailed and compromised MGM's film production, slashing budgets and fucking over filmmakers, and funnelled the money into the corporation's hotel/casino interests. Of all the producers Peckinpah battled with over the years, it is Aubrey who can properly be reckoned his nemesis. Their antagony was evident from the outset. Budget and shooting schedule were set way under what Peckinpah deemed necessary. The services of an engineer Peckinpah wanted on location (to ensure the cameras didn't suffer from the inclement weather conditions in Mexico) was denied. Consquently a damaged flange went undetected, rendering a week's worth of footage out of focus. Aubrey forbade reshoots. Peckinpah re-shot every bit of compromised footage on the QT.

Essentially, 'Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid' played out the way 'Major Dundee' had: Peckinpah rebelled against the studio while on location, going overbudget (by more than $1.5 million) and overschedule, only for the suits to take their revenge when he returned from location shooting. Every one of Peckinpah's films (except for 'Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia') suffered from post-production interference, but this usually happened once he'd turned in his preferred cut. 'Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid' arguably has the distinction of being the one Peckinpah film for which a director's cut never really existed in the first place. With Aubrey dead set on muscling Peckinpah out and stripping 'Pat Garrett' down to an hour and a half of shoot outs and fuck anything resembling character development or narrative coherence, Peckinpah found himself bartering scenes while editing was still in progress, offering to make cuts here and there in order to safeguard, for example, the raft sequence.

A fine cut was produced for which two preview screenings were permitted. Since Peckinpah was not present at its erstwhile screening for the suits, and since so many compromises had been made already, it's dubious as to whether this can be considered Peckinpah's final cut. Aubrey wanted the length reducing and shanghaied the editing team into working to this end behind Peckinpah's back, threatening that non-compliance would result in his turning it over to less experienced editors whose only remit would be to hack it down to 90 minutes. What happened next is the stuff of legend. Remembering that a work print had been left in a screening room, Garth Craven and Sergio Ortega, assisted by Peckinpah's driver Chalo Gonzalez, gained entrance to said location under the cover of night, Mysteriously, the print wasn't there next morning. It was soon realised the print didn't have any sound. Funnily enough, another disappearance occurred.

The Aubrey-approved cut-to-ribbons 96 minute cut of 'Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid' was released in July 1973 to muted reviews and average box office. In October of the same year, MGM ceased film distribution and sold its entire back catalogue to United Artists, an event which precipitated Aubrey's resignation. "Mr Aubrey is no longer employed," Peckinpah mused shortly afterwards; "so maybe I have done something good for the world." A pyrrhic victory, maybe, but the fact still remains: James Aubrey was unemployed and Sam Peckinpah went on to make another five films.

Synopsis
Las Cruces, New Mexico, 1909. Ageing Sheriff Pat Garrett (James Coburn) is in dispute with landowner John Poe (John Beck) over a lease agreement. Garrett and Beck's association goes back to 1881 when Garrett tracked down his former friend and partner in crime Billy the Kid (Kris Kristofferson), but they've come to a parting of the ways. With Garrett old and embittered and publically critical of the Santa Fe Ring, Beck and his business partners consider him a liability - an embarrassing throwback to the old days - and are planning to assassinate him. In his last few moments alive, Garrett relives those infamous days and the terrible denouement that made him a sheriff and the Kid a legend.

Analysis
I've kept the synopsis short for two reasons: (i) 'Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid' is a simple story in the way that 'The Wild Bunch' is simple, ie. narratively (Peckinpah collaborator Gordon Carroll summarised the plot as "a man who doesn't want to run ... pursued by a man who doesn't want to catch him"); and (ii) this article's waltzing towards the 1,000 word mark and I haven't even started analysing the film yet.

There's probably another 1,000 words that can be written about the opening credits sequence. Events in Las Cruces, 1909 (Poe's betrayal of Garrett) and Fort Sumner, 1881 (Garrett's reunion with the Kid a week before he takes the post of sheriff, ie. just prior to his betrayal of Billy) are intercut. When Garrett rides into Fort Sumner, he finds the Kid and his minions amusing themselves shooting the heads off a bunch of chickens buried up to their necks in the dirt. At Las Cruces, Poe's henchman mumbles something about checking a harness, instead pulling a rifle from a saddle roll; another gunman crawls through the sagebrush, ready to take up his position. The shots that follow cut between target practice and cold-blooded murder. Billy's men blast the heads of chickens; Poe's open fire on Garrett. Timeframes overlap. So does the soundtrack. "Damn near perfect," one of Billy's acolytes declares, apropos of a summarily despatched chicken ... but the words echo as Garrett takes a shot and slumps to the ground. Peckinpah's use of editing ramps up the emotional impact of the sequence: a potshot Billy takes at a chicken seems to travel through time and strike Garrett; purposefully aimed coups de grace by Poe's men result in the heads being blasted off helpless fowl.

Peckinpah's signature freeze frames are used as bluntly and brilliant as in 'The Wild Bunch'. As Garrett struggles to rise from the dusty ground only to sink back defeatedly, Peckinpah isolates the moment. He uses this image to accompany the film's title. He arrives at his "directed by" credit in equally iconoclastic fashion. The 1909 prologue documenting Garrett's death throes gives out the 1881 Fort Sumner sequence, and a very much alive - and younger (though still notably middle-aged) Garrett comes riding into town. Billy the gang don't notice him, so busy are they decimating the local feathered populace. Hopping off his horse, he hefts his rifle and, while Billy's still aiming, sights on a chicken and blows its head off. Billy's boys go diving for cover, panic written on their faces. Billy turns round, slowly and wryly, and greets his old friend with a grin. Some spiky banter ensues (it's clear some of the Kid's hangers-on aren't too happy to see Garrett), then the two of them head off to the bar for a couple of shots of whisky and the business at hand:

Garrett: Times are changin', Billy. You want it straight?
Billy: If that's what you're here for.
Garrett: The electorate want you gone. Out of the country.
Billy: Well, are they tellin' me or are they askin' me?.
Garrett: I'm askin' you. But in five days I'm makin' you, when I take over as sheriff of the county.

Peckinpah's directed by credit appears at this point, in a freeze frame that enforces the pause between "I'm makin' you" and "when I take over as sheriff". It might not be as quotable as "if they move, kill 'em" in 'The Wild Bunch', but by God it gives the line some weight!

The dynamic has thus been established: Garrett and the Kid are equally protagonist and antagonist. Neither are exactly heroes, though Peckinpah both empathisizes with the weight of world-weary experience that seems to be etched into every line on Garrett's face, and appreciates the self-aggrandizing behaviour of Billy (particularly in his escape from the Lincoln County jail). Neither are entirely villains, either, even though Billy is a notorious outlaw who refuses to change his ways, and Garrett is a former outlaw who commits the greater sin (certainly in the grand scheme of Peckinpah's aesthetics) of not remaining true to himself and trying to change with the times.

Oh yes, Garrett is the first (and last) of Peckinpah's western protagonists to break with the tradition of Steve Judd, Pike Bishop and co. and Cable Hogue. This is perhaps the most significant element of the dynamic/antagonism between Garrett and Billy - it's summed up during their conversation just after the opening credits:

Billy: Sheriff Pat Garrett. Sold out to the Santa Fe Ring. How does it feel.
Garrett: It feels like times have changed.
Billy: Times maybe, but not me.

Which makes it pretty clear that, since neither Garrett or the Kid are entirely good guy or bad guy, the real villain of the piece is the changing times. Or rather the men who are responsible for changing them. The men responsible for political corruption, financial chicanery, corporate conspiracy and the fencing off of frontier territory, the free and open spaces partitioned, owned, leased and jealously guarded. Men like high-living politico Governor Wallace (Jason Robards), eminence grices Holland and Norris (the power behind Wallace's throne), grasping landowner John Chisum (Barry Sullivan) and toadying parvenu on the make Poe. If 'The Wild Bunch' and 'The Ballad of Cable Hogue' depict technology as the instrument of change, then 'Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid' looks back to 'Ride the High Country' ("the days of the forty-niners are past and the days of the steady businessman have arrived") - only here the steady businessman has been replaced by the rapacious businessman, the dollar-obsessed businessman, the businessman who rapes the land and values human life lower than his profit margin. Corruption and bribery are rife. At an interview with Wallace, the Governor offers Garrett an incentive towards Billy's expedited apprehension:

Wallace: We're offering a reward of one thousand dollars for the Kid's capture. You can have five hundred now.
Garrett: Well, I aim to bring the Kid in. But until I do, you'd better take your five hundred dollars and shove it up your ass and set fire to it.

One of the most curious aspects of 'Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid' - and I'm damned if I can work out whether it's a flaw or a masterstroke - is how determinedly Peckinpah keeps the Chisum/Wallace/Poe conspiracy offscreen. True, all three of them get at least one significant scene (Garrett's encounter with Wallace is thorny; with Chisum, cautious), but they remain backgrounded, shadows that creep around the edges of Garrett's pursuit of Billy. The depiction of Chisum in particular is borderline bland. It's as if Peckinpah is saying "yup, these are the villains, these are the guys hellbent on destroying the old ways, these are guys without souls who answer only to money and power and influence, but by Christ they're nobodies - they ain't really men".

Peckinpah has more time for Deputies Bell (Matt Clark) and Ollinger (R.G. Armstrong), the latter completing the triumvirate of fanatical religious types the actor specialised in (following on from Knudsen in 'Ride the High Country' and Dahlstrom in 'Major Dundee'. Both are in the way when Billy liberates himself from Lincoln Country jail. Kristofferson's characterisation of Billy melds ruefulness and cold determination when he comes up against Bell. It's a different story with Ollinger. The two men have already entered into a spirited disagreement over spiritual matters, Ollinger committed to making sure Billy "gets with god" ("I'll take you for a walk across Hell on a spiderweb") and Billy responding to Ollinger's pious "On your knees" with a pithy "Kiss my ass". Billy's summary dispatching of Ollinger burns with the visceral and iconic intensity that fuelled Peckinpah's reputation as "Bloody Sam".

Peckinpah has more time for Sheriff Baker (Slim Pickens) and Black Harris (L.Q. Jones), whose exchange of fire after Garrett co-opts the former to help in smoking out the latter results in Baker's agonisingly slow passing, stumbling down to the river, gut-shot, and sitting by the slowly flowing waters, the silvery play of light on the surface, as his breathing grows shallower and the life ebbs out of him. At the same time terrible and utterly beautiful, it's one of the greatest scenes Peckinpah ever shot. Likewise the narratively pointless but poetically eloquent scene where Garrett, in a playful throwback to the outshooting-Billy-at-Fort-Sumner scene, accidentally provokes an exchange of fire with a passing raftsman, only for both men to pause, reflect and lower their guns at the critical moment. Both of these scenes are redolent of Peckinpah the humanitarian, Peckinpah the poet, Peckinpah the wounded romantic, desperately aching for a time that's changed and bitterly regretful of the forces that changed it. They give the lie to the cliche of Peckinpah as a purveyor of violence for its own sake.

Peckinpah has more time for a coffin-maker named Will ... of whom more tomorrow. I've expended about 2,500 words already and I think that one short scene between Garrett and Will (who serves, variously, as conscience, ghost and alter ego) deserves an article of its own. For now, I'll just say that 'Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid' - given its troubled production, its director's tendency to drinking to insensation on set, the disservices done to it in editing, and its rejection of propulsive/exciting/urgent pacing typical of a chase narrative - ought to be a complete mess. And certainly there's a wonky, woozy, slightly off-kilter feel to the film. Watching it is like being punch-drunk. But it's also multi-layered, a film that repays repeated viewings. A film that worms its way under your skin and disseminates its genius slowly and subconsciously.

Passion & Poetry: The Ballad of Sam Peckinpah

Many thanks to Mike Siegel for sharing with me a fascinating behind-the-scenes account of the making of 'Passion & Poetry: The Ballad of Sam Peckinpah', and for the stills that accompany this article.

The title 'Passion & Poetry' is an excellent encapsulation of Peckinpah's approach to filmmaking and his visual/emotional achievements in the field. It applies equally well to writer/director Mike Siegel and his passionate commitment to bringing his documentary on Peckinpah's life and work to the screen. The phrase "labour of love" is often bandied about - it's almost a cliche - but in Mike's case it's a statement of fact.

The project had its roots in a retrospective of Peckinpah's work in Padua, Italy, which Mike organised in 2000. The festival ran for 10 days and was attended by actors and crew members from Peckinpah's films - including James Coburn, R.G. Armstrong (who was 82 years old at the time!), Ali MacGraw, Susan George and 'Wild Bunch' co-writer Walon Green - as well as members of Peckinpah's family. Their reminiscences provided a wealth of first-hand testimony on Peckinpah's life and work: his turbulent life, the struggles to make films his way. Mike determined that his next project would be an in-depth documentary about Sam Peckinpah, drawing from the memories and experiences of those who knew him closely.

There was one immediate problem: financing. Mike had only made one film, had no real cachet in the industry, and was wary of wasting precious time trying to find backers or distributors. In true guerilla filmmaking style, he decided just to make the thing and finance it himself. For most people, this would entail back loans, scrounging from family members and a lifetime of bad debt and ruined credit rating. Mike took a different approach: he started selling off his expansive collection of movie posters and lobby cards. " 'Passion and Poetry' might be the first bigger film that was totally funded through sales at eBay," says Mike.

It took two years to raise enough funds for a working budget, including equipment and travel costs. Fellow filmmaker Patrick Gleason and former close friend and associate of Peckinpah Katy Haber came on board. With their help, Mike undertook a five week shoot in Mexico and Los Angeles. Shooting in Mexico was particularly interesting: Mike intended on the documentary to begin and end at the now abandoned hacienda which serves as General Mapache's headquarters in 'The Wild Bunch'. There was just one problem: actually locating it! Via an internet forum, Mike made contact with a septuagenarian originally from Texas who lived close to the location; he volunteered his services as Mike's guide.

With the location shooting completed, Mike continued filming interviews with Peckinpah collaborators during 2003 - 2004. It was during this period that Mike was approach to compile a photo-book based on the materials he'd accumulated on Peckinpah. Boasting over 1,000 pictures and running to nearly 600 pages, 'Passion and Poetry - Sam Peckinpah in Pictures' was published in late 2003. Editing work on the documentary took place during in 2004 and the film has screened at festivals around the world and secured a DVD release in the five years since then.

Contributors to the documentary include actors James Coburn, Ernest Borgnine, Kris Kristofferson, Ali MacGraw, Senta Berger, L.Q. Jones, R.G. Armstrong, Isela Vega, David Warner and Bo Hopkins; critics and film historians Garner Simmons and David Weddle; friends and associates Chalo Gonzalez, Gordon Dawson, Katy Haber, Dan Melnick and Martin Lewis; Peckinpah's sister Fern Lea Peter, and his daughter Lupita Peckinpah.

Mike's persistence in securing the participation of Borgnine and Jones is almost legendary. Borgnine had responded to Mike's many calls by protesting that he probably wouldn't remember much; when Mike called him from the Mexico location of 'The Wild Bunch', it prompted such wonderful stories from Borgnine that the long-anticipated interview was finally arranged. Arriving at Borgnine's home, the legendary actor opened the door and announced, "Hi, I'm Ernie Borgnine," and Mike responded, "Hi, I'm the pain in the ass," prompting good-natured laughter from the actor and a friendship that continues to this day.Mike had communicated with L.Q. Jones by letter and phone, but the actor repeatedly refused to appear on camera without being paid. It wasn't going to happen; Mike's budget had already been eaten up by equipment costs and travel. Mike made one more call to Jones and, getting his answerphone, left a message calling him a horse thief! Jones threw in the towel and agreed to an interview.

Ultimately, Mike's two-hour film 'Passion & Poetry - The Ballad of Sam Peckinpah' was the product of over 30 hours of footage; enough that Mike was able to craft two entirely new documentaries, one for the Sony DVD release of 'Major Dundee' and one for the EuroVideo German release of 'Straw Dogs'.

The DVD of 'Passion & Poetry - The Ballad of Sam Peckinpah' is available here. It is the work of a man as passionate about Sam Peckinpah as Sam Peckinpah was about cinema.

The Ballad of Cable Hogue

"In some ways he was your dim reflection, Lord."

Background
Opting for a complete change of pace after 'The Wild Bunch', Peckinpah threw himself enthusiastically into 'The Ballad of Cable Hogue'. It went overschedule and overbudget (which Peckinpah production didn't?) but on the whole the shoot progressed smoothly. The problems started when Peckinpah found out that producer Phil Feldman had acquiesced to the studio heads who wanted 'The Wild Bunch' cut down to a commercially preferably two hour running time. Peckinpah's reaction was one of vociferous outrage, even threatening legal action against Warner Brothers. The result was, in Stella Stevens's words, that the studio "didn't release 'Cable Hogue' - they flushed it."

Synopsis
Betrayed by his partners Bowen (Strother Martin) and Taggart (L.Q. Jones), disillusioned prospector Cable Hogue (Jason Robards) is left for dead in the desert. Miraculously, he finds water. Better still, he finds it slap bang on a stagecoach route between the towns of Gila and Dead Dog. Excavating a well, he sets up shop, charging 10 cents per drink of water. Along comes the Reverend Joshua Sloane (David Warner), Hogue's second customer. (Hogue shoots the first after he demonstrates a marked refusal to fork out the 10c.) The preacher reminds Hogue that there's such a thing as land rights. The determinedly anti-social Hogue "goes in among them" and heads into Dead Dog to register a claim. It's here he meets saloon girl Hildy (Stella Stevens), with whom he gradually forms a romantic relationship. Meanwhile, with a bank loan to fund the building of a way station around the watering hole (which Sloane has named Cable Springs) and a contract with the stagecoach line, he begins to develop a successful business. Although Hogue's feelings for Hildy are sincere (in stark contrast to Sloane's rampant lechery), ultimately he finds himself torn between Hildy's dreams of moving to San Francisco and his long-held grudge against Bowen and Taggart.

Analysis
The release of 'The Ballad of Cable Hogue', unattended by any whisper of publicity, can be interpreted in one of two ways: (a) the studio were taking their revenge on an outspoken and troublesome director; (b) the studio didn't know what the fuck they had on their hands and had even less idea of how to market it. For my money, it's a little bit of Column A and a little bit of Column B. Whether I'm right or wrong, it's easy to see how studio incomprehension contributed to its demise at the box office.

Thematically, it's a natural and organic follow-up to 'The Wild Bunch'. Its hero is a man who has outlived his times; a man at odds with his former partners in crime. Its dominant theme is the encroachment of technology/modernity into the Old West. Subplots effect a comparison of the ties of loyalty and friendship between men with the transience of romantic relationships between men and women. To further 'The Wild Bunch' comparison, Strother Martin and L.Q. Jones play Bowen and Taggart as a reprisal of Coffer and T.C., the bickering bounty hunters from the previous film. Rounding out the Peckinpah Irregulars, Slim Pickens and R.G. Armstrong return from 'Major Dundee'. Yes, sir, 'Cable Hogue' has all the markings of Peckinpah's cumulative aesthetic as a filmmaker thus far.

And yet it's sooooo different. For a start it's a comedy. Granted, most of Peckinpah's films are imbued with a degree of humour (sometimes of the gallows variety: cf 'Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia') but entire set pieces are played as broad comedy: Hogue's first encounter with Hildy (a scene defined by laddish close-ups of her decolletage and bug-eyed double-takes on Hogue's part), Hogue visiting Hildy as a paying customer and suffering the detumescent effects of a gospel meeting outside ("lost it," he opines ruefully), Sloane taking a pratfall down the stairs in the saloon, Hogue and Sloane's comic banter as they build the way station, Sloane lecherously pursuing a young "widow" only for her husband to prove inconveniently alive and well ... Apart from the opening scene after Bowen and Taggart double-cross him, and the last quarter of the film which details Hogue's settling of the score with them and Hildy's return from San Francisco, virtually every scene is played for laughs.

The dialogue sparkles. Take Slim Pickens' stagecoach driver, urged by one of his passengers not to tarry because "it's getting dark". "Surely does about this time," he observes; "damnedest thing I ever saw." Or the exchange between Hogue and Cushing (Peter Whitney), the banker he approaches for the loan:

Cushing: Are you trying to tell me you've found water?
Hogue: There's a preacher out in my diggings. He'll tell you. You wouldn't doubt a man of the gospel, would you?
Cushing: Of course. That's the first man I'd doubt.
Hogue: Well, I'll be damned. Looks like I came to the right place after all.

Or there's Sloane, warning Hogue against his obsession with avenging himself on Bowen and Taggart, quotes scripture: "Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord, and I shall repay." "Well, that's fair enough by me," Hogue muses, "just as long as He don't take too long and I can watch." Earlier, when Sloane first stumbles upon Hogue's watering hole, he pleads "Cast thy bread upon the water and let this man of God have his just needs." Hogue's reply: "Ten cents, you pious bastard, or I'll bury you."

Which brings us to the subject of religion, and 'The Ballad of Cable Hogue' makes another divergence from Peckinpah's other works. R.G. Armstrong was in four of Peckinpah's six westerns; in three of them - 'Ride the High Country', 'Major Dundee', 'Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid' - he plays, respectively, a lay preacher, an ordained preacher and a deputy who comes on like a preacher with a badge and a gun. All of these characters are God-fearing and convinced that everyone else should be fearing Him as well. In 'The Ballad of Cable Hogue', Armstrong plays the gruff stagecoach boss who never once pulls out a Bible, quotes chapter and verse or pistol-whips someone in the name of the Lord. No, sir, it's David Warner who's wearing the collar and preaching the word here, and that's because the Reverend Joshua Sloane is a preacher of a very different ilk from the standard issue R.G. Armstrong characterisation.

For most of the film, Sloane's biblical reveries have about them the ring of an actor revelling a great Shakespearean solliloquy, savouring the words, indulging in the performance of them. But it's clear from very early on that he's interested less in salvation than fornication. He carries pictures of his "congregation" ("Why, that one's as naked as a jaybird's ass," Hogue observes when Sloane shows him the snaps). He rides into Dead Dog with Hogue declaring "If I cannot rouse heaven, then I intend to raise hell". He almost gets his wicked way with an emotionally vulnerable woman, only to be interrupted by her husband. Put simply, Sloane is the kind of person Knudsen, Dahlstrom or Ollinger would take outside and forcibly secure the most heartfelt repentance from. And yet, in the bittersweet final scene, it's Sloane who delivers a heartfelt eulogy and truly expresses something that is profound and poignant.

Maybe it's because Hogue has rubbed off on him. For all Sloane's priapic obsessions - and despite the fire and brimstone preacher at Dead Dog whose gospel meeting is interrupted and inadvertently made a mockery of by Hogue; and whose self-righteous congregation run Hildy out of town - it's Cable Hogue who communes with God. Left in the desert by Bowen and Taggart, Hogue begins his long trek out of the wilderness. Peckinpah plays this against the opening credits sequence, employing arguably the most effective use of split screen that any filmmaker has ever achieved from that ordinarily rather hokey and gimmicky technique. Richard Gillis's almost impudently optimistic song 'Tomorrow is the Song I Sing' unspools for a couple of verses, split screen returns to full screen and Hogue tilts his eyes grouchily towards the heavens and offers up a succinct conflation of prayer, observation and request: "Ain't had no water since yesterday, Lord. Gettin' a little thirsty. Just thought I'd mention it. Amen."

A few more credits, another verse or two, more split screen images depicting the continuing plight of our hero (the sun seems higher and brighter; his face is burned, his lips cracked), then he communes with the Almighty again: "Yesterday I told you I was thirsty and I thought you might turn up some water! Now if I've sinned, you just send me a drop or two and I won't do it no more. Whatever in the hell it was I did." A pause then, with a little more humility: "I mean that, Lord."

But Hogue has to reach a point of acceptance, a point where he's practically at death's door, before the miracle is delivered. Collapsed, his eyes barely open, a sandstorm howling around him, he is at first embittered and defiant - "If you don't think I put in my suffering time, you ought to try going dry for a spell ... Careful now, you're about to get my dander up" - then finally resigned: "Lord, you call it, I'm just plain done in. Amen." And here, at his lowest ebb, having laid himself down as if to die, Hogue finds water. And this during the opening credits! Even as his director's credit appears, Peckinpah has established 'The Ballad of Cable Hogue' as something of a parable. The desert setting and Sloane's christening of the way station Cable Springs reinforce the parallels. Hogue and Hildy's romantic idyll points up the Garden of Eden metaphor.

Of course, in any Garden of Eden there is always a serpent. There are several snakes in 'The Ballad of Cable Hogue' - he uses them as a key ingredient for the 'desert stew' he serves to stagecoach passengers, as well as employing those not yet consigned to the pot against Bowen and Taggart when he eventually comes face to face with his old enemies again - but this being a Sam Peckinpah film, the real serpent is modernity, personified here (pace 'Ride the High Country' and 'The Wild Bunch') in the form of the automobile. "Ugly lookin' damn thing, ain't it?" Slim Pickens' stagecoach driver says, both acting as a mouthpiece for Peckinpah (using the exact same turn of phrase levied at Mapache's car in 'The Wild Bunch') and subtly implying that the effect of motorised transport will be as detrimental to Hogue's business as to the stagecoach.

No more can be said here without compromising the ending. Let's just say that there's a reason that it's Hogue who truly finds God. Cable Hogue exemplifies - perhaps more fully than any other character in Peckinpah's filmography - one of the director's most enduring thematic concerns: that a world defined by machines is a godless place.

Major Dundee

"You were whipped, major. Burying your dead isn't going to change that."

Background
Among the many admirers of 'Ride the High Country' was Charlton Heston. He and producer Jerry Bresler were developing a property provisionally entitled 'Then Came the Tiger' - a synopsis by Harry Julian Fink that had all the makings of a full-blooded cavalry epic - for Columbia. Heston and Bresler's previous collaboration, 'Diamond Head', had done solid business at the box office. Peckinpah didn't need asking twice when he was offered directing duties. Fink got the nod to write the script proper, Bresler talked up the production as a big-budget roadshow release, and Peckinpah headed to Mexio to scout locations. The first problem was the script: Fink's first draft was unfocussed and - crucially - unfinished. Oscar Saul and Peckinpah himself worked on it, but essentially the now retitled 'Major Dundee' started shooting without a finalised screenplay - never a good indicator for a film.

Then, with principal photography well underway and half of Peckinpah's cast and crew stricken with illness, the money men at Columbia decided to slash budget and schedule. The epic destined for a roadshow release was now downgraded to a two-hour western. Peckinpah, unimpressed by Bresler's subservience to the studio, completely ignored his paymasters' edict to cut scenes, use fewer set-ups and expose less film. He continued to shoot every bit of footage he needed to make the film as he envisaged it. 'Major Dundee' went massively overbudget and behind schedule. In post-production, the studio took Peckinpah's two hour fifty minute original cut out of his hands, hacked it down by a third, had actor Michael J Anderson record a truly horrible narration which sloppily papers over plot holes and gaps in the chronology, and saddled it with an equally appalling score.

Between his very public criticism of Bresler and Columbia and his removal from his next project, 'The Cincinnati Kid', Peckinpah became a pariah within the industy. Four years in the wilderness followed, before he came storming back, all blood and thunder and very much unbowed, with his masterpiece 'The Wild Bunch'.

Synopsis
Transferred to the command of a prison garrison as part of a disciplinary measure, Major Amos Dundee (Charlton Heston) arrives at his new post to witness the aftermath of a raid on nearby homesteaders by marauding Apache warrior Sierra Charriba (Michael Pate). Already balking at a posting that takes him out of the theatre of conflict, Dundee goes renegade: he puts together a makeshift army of volunteers and prisoners. (Technically, many of the prisoners are volunteers given a choice of volunteer or be hanged.) He appoints his one-time friend and now sworn enemy Captain Benjamin Tyreen (Richard Harris) as his number two, and they set out to hunt Charriba down. An ambush during a river crossing costs lives and the loss of supplies. Dundee leads his men to a small Mexican town where the soldiers of a French garrison hold sway. Effectively liberating the villagers, Dundee is moved enough by their destitution to share with them the supplies looted from the garrison. He meets Teresa (Senta Berger), the Austrian widow of the town's doctor, and they begin a brief romantic relationship. The idyll is interrupted when Charriba's men stage another attack, and Dundee is forced into battle not only with the Apaches but a battalion of vengeful French troops.

Analysis
The Sony Home Entertainment DVD I'm basing this review on bills itself as "a restored masterpiece". The back cover blurb continues: "over 40 years after Sam Peckinpah's classic western was released, missing footage has been located and restored. The new scenes complete the electrifying depiction of an obsessive Union officer ..." etc, etc. Now, while there are many reasons to be thankful for this version - a much improved transfer; correct ratio; the removal of the fucking awful opening credits music by Mitch Miller's Sing-a-long Gang - claiming that an extra ten minutes or so "completes" the film when well over half an hour is still missing is stretching it a bit.

'Major Dundee' will forever remain a frustrating viewing experience, for two reasons. Number one: Richard Harris declared the original cut to be the best film he'd ever appeared in (this from a man who already had indisputable classics 'This Sporting Life' and 'Red Desert' under his belt!). Number two: Peckinpah had the opportunity to restore it to his original vision ... and declined!! Five years on from the debacle, with 'The Wild Bunch' in the can and 'The Ballad of Cable Hogue' in production, Peckinpah was still publically berating Columbia for their desecration of 'Major Dundee' and describing the original cut as still his best film. Columbia called his bluff and offered him the chance to re-edit and re-release it. Citing his involvement with other projects, Peckinpah replied that he didn't have the time. David Weddle, in his indispensible biography, postulates that the film was "more useful as a lost masterpiece than a rediscovered failure".

So what of the two hours and ten minutes that remain? The first half, certainly, is taut and compelling filmmaking. Dundee's hell-raising address to the prisoners; the countdown to Tyreen's hanging, curtailed only when he volunteers; the departure from the garrison, tensions already rising; the attack on the French fort; the execution of a deserter on the trail - memorable scenes, all. Two in particular are worthy of comparison to anything on Peckinpah's CV. The first has the Confederates launch into a lusty rendition of 'Dixie' as the rag-tag ad hoc battalion rides out from the garrison. Affronted, the Confederates strike up with 'The Battle Hymn of the American Republic'. As the two groups try to drown each other out, the small (and evidently politically unaffiliated) cluster of men bringing up the rear shrug their shoulders and start belting out 'Clementine'. It's one of Peckinpah's occasional, brilliantly observed comedic moments (like the passing of the whisky bottle, Warren Oates finally getting a go at it only when it's empty, in 'The Wild Bunch' or the supposedly under-attack stagecoach later revealed as a playful re-enacted by an Apache raiding party in 'The Deadly Companions').

The second - and the best scene in the film - has one of Tyreen's men, O.W. Hadley (Oates), summarily tried after going AWOL. He pleads that he only went back to the Mexican village to see one of the women. Quizzed on the details (Dundee is cognizant, by this point, that the French have sacked the village in retribution), Hadley reveals himself as a liar. Dundee stands as judge, jury and if not executioner then certainly all too eager to give the command to the firing squad. Not that it gets to that point. Hadley pleads with Tyreen, asking if he's really going to stand by and let Dundee have him killed. "I'm obliged to, lad," Tyreen replies; "you should have remembered you belong to the major and not to me." Hadley, blinking with the realisation that he's reached the end of the line, faces up to it, addressing Dundee: "Hell, major, you're just doing what you've got to do. But damn your soul to hell for it, and God bless Robert E. Lee!" Even as he speaks Lee's name, Tyreen's pistol roars and Hadley pitches forward dead. In killing Hadley himself, Tyreen cheats Dundee of the satisfaction. He then swears to kill Dundee once Charriba "has been caught or destroyed".

Sadly, things go south after this. Dundee's liaison with Teresa slows the film down. Gaps in the narrative become more prominent and the voiceover more tenuous. 'Major Dundee' becomes, in its last hour, episodic, fragmented, unfocused. A sequence that was presumably longer (and more coherent) in Peckinpah's original cut has Dundee, recovering from wounds sustained during a surprise attack, debase himself with a whore (at the cost of his relationship with Teresa) in a fly-blown Mexican town. Coming on like a dry run for Pike, Dutch and the Gorch brothers' collective moment of self-loathing in 'The Wild Bunch', what works as visceral psychological portraiture in 'The Wild Bunch' just seems out of place in 'Major Dundee'. Dundee's debasement is apropos of nothing, nor does it prefigure the cathartic self-destruction of Pike and co.; Dundee simply rejoins the battalion and snaps back into grizzled, macho leader of men mode.

The denouement is unsatisfying, too. The long-awaited showdown with Charriba is unengaging and over quickly. The subsequent battle with the French troops is a hell of a lot more exciting, but it's still just the resolution of a subplot. The whole film builds towards the destruction of Charriba, and - whether this is due to the script never fully cohering, Peckinpah muffing the sequence (hardly likely given his facility for extended, actionful set pieces) or clumsy fingers in the editing room when the only criteria was reduction of the running time to two hours - it's a case of not with a bang but a whimper.

Elsewhere, however, Peckinpah proves himself as an actor's director. Charlton Heston, as can be expected, plays Charlton Heston, but everyone else is superb. Harris, working with Peckinpah for the first and only time, has a field day with Tyreen. The supporting cast solidifies the Peckinpah Irregulars: Warren Oates, L.Q. Jones, R.G. Armstrong and John Davis Chandler return from 'Ride the High Country', while James Coburn, Ben Johnson, Slim Pickens, Dub Taylor and Aurora Clavel fill out the ranks. Even the much put-upon Senta Berger (her performance critically mauled, even though she does a decent salvage job from very thin material) would reappear, twelve years later, in 'Cross of Iron'. Armstrong kicks ass in the name of the Lord (doling out a retributive beating to one of Tyreen's men guilty of racially harrassing one of the battalion's black contingent) and Pickens, cruelly underused, gets an iconic moment when he reels into Dundee's office, drunk as a lord, and announces "If you want an injun-fightin', mule-packin', whisky-drinkin' volunteer, sir, well by God you've got one." It's tempting to imagine that the full version of 'Major Dundee' brings these colourful secondary characters out of the background and gives them life - a damn sight more life than Heston's misery-guts protagonist.

Peckinpah on the small screen

The Rifleman

'The Rifleman' ran from 1958 to 1963 and chronicled the adventures of Lucas McCain (Chuck Connors). Although a spin-off from "The Sharpshooter", a one-off episode of 'Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre' written by Sam Peckinpah, and although Peckinpah was the creative driving force behind the first season, the producers only retained him as a story consultant and there was soon a parting of ways. This owed to a (predictable) difference of opinion between Peckinpah and the producers as to the direction they envisaged the show taking. Peckinpah wanted to develop the character of Lucas's son Mark (Johnny Crawford), subsequent seasons charting his growth towards manhood, the series gradually edging into darker, grittier territory as Mark matures and the scales fall from his eyes and he witnesses the realities of life.

If Peckinpah had had his way, the five-year run of 'The Rifleman' might have played out as a cohesive rites-of-passage story plotted against a profound and emotionally honest character arc. The producers, concerned with ratings and sponsorship and advertising, wanted something more suited to family viewing.

A total of 168 'Rifleman' episodes were produced, with a staggering 40 comprising the first season alone. A complete and comprehensive episode guide can be found here. The episodes Peckinpah was directly involved in are as follows (first appearances of actors later cast in the films noted where appropriate):

"The Sharpshooter" (writer) - a slightly re-edited version of the earlier 'Zane Grey Theatre' episode.

"Home Ranch" (writer).

"The Marshal" (writer/director) - featuring Warren Oates, R.G. Armstrong and James Drury.

"The Boarding House" (writer/director) - featuring Katy Jurado.

"The Money Gun" (co-writer/director).

"The Baby Sitter" (co-writer/director) - Peckinpah's only season two contribution.

Other series writers included N.B. Stone (whose screenplay 'Guns in the Afternoon' Peckinpah would significantly overhaul for 'Ride the High Country') and Harry Julian Fink (whose 'And Then Came the Tiger' was the genesis for 'Major Dundee'). Appearing in non-Peckinpah episodes, but destined to work with the director a little further down the line, were Dennis Hopper, Edgar Buchanan, James Coburn (in an episode entitled "The High Country"), L.Q. Jones and John Davis Chandler. Other directors who worked on the show included Arthur Hiller, Richard Donner, James Clavell and Ted Post; season three episode "The Assault" was directed by Ida Lupino, who Peckinpah later cast in 'Junior Bonner'.

The Westerner

'The Westerner' ran for only one season, comprising 13 episodes, between September and December 1960. Again, it developed from a one-off 'Zane Grey Theatre' episode, "Trouble at Tres Cruces". The, ahem, "hero" Dave Blassingame (Brian Keith) was a world-weary saddletramp, a man with a marked predisposition to being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Peckinpah went for a more authentic aesthetic than he had been permitted on 'The Rifleman', incorporating story elements such as mob violence, prostitution, attempted rape, alcoholism and anti-heroism. Blassingame makes mistakes, hesitates at the crucial moment. Kind of like a frontier version of 'The Sweeney', full of moral ambiguity and endings that weren't afraid to be untidy and challenging to the audience, 'The Westerner' was something audiences hadn't seen before - and probably weren't prepared for, hence the non-appearance of subsequent seasons. Peckinpah's contributions:

"Jeff" (co-writer/director) - featuring Warren Oates and marking Peckinpah's first collaboration with director of photography Lucien Ballard.

"School Day" (co-writer) - featuring R.G. Armstrong and Dub Taylor.

"Brown" (director).

"Mrs Kennedy" (co-writer).

"The Courting of Libby" (director).

"The Old Man" (writer).

"Hand on the Gun" (director).

"The Painting" (director).

Peckinpah Irregulars Katy Jurado and Slim Pickens make appearances in non-Peckinpah episodes. Other directors included Andre de Toth, Elliot Silverstein and Ted Post.

Noon Wine

Peckinpah was rescued from his spell in the wilderness, following the box office failure of 'Major Dundee' and his firing from 'The Cincinnati Kid', by producer Daniel Melnick. Melnick approached him to adapt and direct Katherine Anne Porter's short novel 'Noon Wine' for the 'ABC Stage 67' drama series. Its critical success, earning Peckinpah Writers' and Directors' Guild nominations, set him on the path back to film directing - and 'The Wild Bunch'.

'Noon Wine' is the only one of Peckinpah's features I haven't seen, by dint of it being basically unavailable. In his biography of Peckinpah, published in 1994, David Weddle highlighted the problem: "By the mid-1970s ABC had destroyed all the master tapes for the 'Stage 67' series to make room for storage space in its vaults ... Today it's possible to see mint-condition copies of the show, in colour, in only three places: the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, the Museum of Broadcasting in New York City, and Jason Robards' house in Connecticut." (Since Robards' death in 2000, I wonder what's happened to that third copy.)

Robards starred alongside OIivia de Havilland, Per Oscarsson, Ben Johnson and L.Q. Jones. Evocative analyses of the production are offered in Weddle and Seydor's books, neither of which I can read without gnashing my teeth that 'Noon Wine' isn't available on video or DVD. There's also a lovely piece on Moon in the Gutter, Jeremy describing 'Noon Wine' as "Peckinpah's forgotten masterpiece".