#750) The Wild Bunch (1969)

#750) The Wild Bunch (1969)

OR “The Dirty Half-Dozen”

Directed by Sam Peckinpah

Written by Peckinpah and Walon Green. Story by Green and Roy N. Sickner.

Class of 1999

The Plot: On the Tex-Mex border in 1913, a group of aging outlaws led by Pike Bishop (William Holden) pull one last job robbing a railroad payroll office. After a violent showdown, Pike and his surviving men (Ernest Borgnine, Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, Jaime Sánchez) return to their hideout, only to learn the robbery was a set-up and that the “silver” they stole are worthless washers. Needing one more job to retire, the bunch, along with the crotchety Freddie Sykes (Edmond O’Brien) head to Mexico and strike a deal with General Mapache (Emilio Fernandez) to rob a train transporting U.S. Army ammunition so the General can continue his fight against Pancho Villa and the Mexican Revolution. All the while, Pike and his men are being pursued by bounty hunters led by Pike’s former partner Deke Thornton (Robert Ryan). Released just as Old Hollywood was dying out, “The Wild Bunch” showcases a Wild West in its final days, mixed with some of the bloodiest action sequences ever filmed.

Why It Matters: The NFR write up for “The Wild Bunch” is brief but flattering, calling it no less than “a true American classic”, praising Peckinpah, the cast, the cinematography, and the editing. An essay by film critic Michael Wilmington is equally effusive.

But Does It Really?: “The Wild Bunch” is one of the last “established classics” on the Registry that I had never seen before, and I enjoyed it. The film succeeds as the next evolutionary step for the western, with a realism and grittiness that would have been unthinkable just a few years earlier. Yes, the violence is intense, but it’s reserved for a handful of sequences, and the rest of the film is filled out with great performances by the entire ensemble and a script with much to say about loyalty and morality at the end of a lawless era. “The Wild Bunch” isn’t the greatest movie ever made, but it should absolutely be considered among the greats, and its NFR inclusion is a no-brainer.

Everybody Gets One: The original story of “The Wild Bunch” came from Roy N. Sickner, a stuntman who had doubled for the likes of Marlon Brando and Richard Harris. Sickner conceived the role of Pike for his friend Lee Marvin, who agreed to play the part, but bowed out for a bigger paycheck in “Paint Your Wagon”. The initial screenplay was written by documentarian Walon Green before being fleshed out by Sam Peckinpah. “The Wild Bunch” was Green’s first produced screenplay and Sickner’s sole writing credit.

Seriously, Oscars?: Despite its controversy, “The Wild Bunch” received two Oscar nominations: Best Original Screenplay and Best Original Score, losing both to “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”. Sam Peckinpah’s screenplay nod was the only Oscar nomination of his entire career.

Other notes

When we last saw Sam Peckinpah, he had parlayed the success of “Ride the High Country” to direct “Major Dundee”, but that film was recut by the studio, and stories of Peckinpah’s difficult on-set behavior got him fired from his next project, “The Cincinnati Kid”. Desperate for work, Peckinpah returned to TV, receiving critical praise for his adaptation of the short novel “Noon Wine”. This got the attention of Kenneth Hyman and Phil Feldman at Warner Bros., who courted Peckinpah to direct the African adventure film “The Diamond Story”. Peckinpah agreed and proposed “The Wild Bunch” as a backup project. Warner Bros. noticed the similarities between “Wild Bunch” and “Butch Cassidy” (in pre-production at 20^th Century Fox) and let Peckinpah go ahead with “Wild Bunch” to have it released before “Butch Cassidy” (“The Diamond Story” was never produced).
With “The Wild Bunch”, Peckinpah wanted to make a western with more realistic gun violence in the wake of the Production Code’s dissolution in favor of the MPA rating system. He was inspired by the brief but unflinching violence in “Bonnie and Clyde”, as well as the gruesome imagery of the ongoing Vietnam War being broadcast on the nightly news. Peckinpah more than succeeds at creating the film’s unforgettable violence, aided by the cinematography of Lucien Ballard, who experimented with various frame rates to draw out the bloodshed for maximum impact. Bonus shoutout to editor Lou Lombardo; at a time when the average movie had less than 1000 cuts, “The Wild Bunch” contains anywhere from 1800 to 3600, including some that last a fraction of a second. These quick cuts enhance the overall chaos of the film’s action.
This movie hooked me in the opening credits as the bunch make their way to the train office posing as Cavalry men. It’s a lovely display of tension, mixed with Jerry Fielding’s excellent score and some interesting freeze-frame negative images over the credits. It’s all capped by Pike’s order of “If they move, kill ‘em”, followed by Peckinpah’s directing credit.

This opening shootout has a lot going for it, and I’m sure in 1969 it was an intense sensory overload. Even amid the bedlam, Peckinpah establishes some key character dynamics and story elements, an incredible feat in and of itself. Also, even though Peckinpah avoided using Warner Bros.’ stock sound effects for this movie, listen closely for a Wilhelm.

If you were a classic Hollywood star in the late 1960s as New Hollywood started taking over, your options were A) embrace the change, B) resist and decry the change, or C) retire. The likes of Holden and Borgnine were about 15 years past their movie star prime by 1969, but they clearly went with option A, relishing the chance to play more nuanced characters and mutter things like “son of a bitch” and “you lazy bastard”. As leader of the bunch, Holden is the glue keeping everything together, and can convey all you need to know about Pike with a simple look or a raise of his eyebrow. Holden’s understated work is nicely balanced by Borgnine’s bigger performance as Dutch. He’s not at a “Poseidon Adventure” level of hamminess, but he’s very explosive and emotive by comparison, crucially never crossing the line into overacting.
The rest of the bunch is…also there. As the Gorch brothers, Ben Johnson and Warren Oates are fine, but thankfully they have more noteworthy performances in their near future. Jaime Sánchez does okay as the hotheaded young buck Angel, and Edmond O’Brien is having fun as the kind of Walter Brennan-type comic relief these movies are required to have.
My viewing of “The Wild Bunch” was of the “Director’s Cut”, which features 10 minutes of sequences cut after the film’s premiere without Peckinpah’s input or approval. Amazingly, it wasn’t the carnage that was initially excised, but rather quieter scenes that served as supplemental character development. Among those cuts: a flashback explaining Pike’s falling out with Deke Thornton. Why would you cut that? We need that!
Robert Ryan is playing a much more internal character than his other NFR work, but he’s always a welcomed sight, speaking volumes with his permanent hangdog look. Among the members of Deke’s posse are Peckinpah go-to L. Q. Jones, and Strother Martin in one of his more grating performances.
“The Wild Bunch” was filmed entirely in Mexico, which means that at long last we have an NFR movie where the Mexican characters are played by actual Mexicans! The one exception is Puerto Rican Jaime Sánchez, who Peckinpah cast after seeing his performance in “The Pawnbroker”.
General Mapache is played by Emilio Fernandez, who longtime readers may remember as the director of “La Perla”. Is it me or does he kinda look like Adolphe Menjou?
Yeah, Peckinpah had issues with women. Every woman in this movie is either a literal whore or is treated as such, and several of them have violent on-screen deaths. Men would rather create a watershed revisionist western than go to therapy.
The next big action sequence – the bunch’s train robbery – isn’t until the movie’s halfway point, and is another compelling sequence, played out with almost no dialogue. The subsequent chase scene is another reminder of how much easier crossing the US/Mexico border used to be.

Thanks to my viewing of “La Venganza de Pancho Villa” for this blog, I had a general idea of where the Mexican Revolution fit into all of this. While Pancho Villa doesn’t make an appearance here, he gets name-dropped a few times, and his troop attacks Aqua Verde in yet another scene cut from the theatrical release.
In addition to all the action this movie has, it contains a healthy dose of juicy dialogue, most of it mumbled in a way that, while appropriate for these characters, doesn’t give you the time to fully appreciate it. My favorite exchange (and one of the film’s main theses) is between Dutch and Pike about Deke: “He gave his word to a railroad.” “It’s his word.” “That ain’t what counts! It’s who you give it to!”
The film’s most iconic non-violent scene is a shot of Pike, Dutch, and the Gorch brothers, weapons in hand, walking down a street en route to rescue Angel from Mapache. It’s a simple moment that does an excellent job of ramping up the tension in anticipation of the inevitable showdown. Most remarkably, the sequence wasn’t in the script, with Peckinpah creating it on the day.

The final shootout is what I assume the ending of “Butch Cassidy” could have been. Most remarkably, it doesn’t last that long. Maybe five minutes? In any other movie it would have been 20 minutes minimum. And no spoilers, but the last line of this movie is Edmond O’Brien’s cackling. Always leave ‘em laughing, I guess.

Legacy

“The Wild Bunch” opened in June 1969, three months before “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”. While “Wild Bunch” ultimately trailed behind “Butch” at the box office, it was still a financial hit, recouping its budget with a profit of about $3 million. Critics at the time were mixed on “Wild Bunch”, with its violence serving as the major dividing line. Since 1969, “The Wild Bunch” has received near-universal acclaim, frequently popping up in lists and polls of the Greatest Movies Ever Made (it is tied at #136 on the 2022 Sight & Sound Greatest Films poll).
Sam Peckinpah followed up “The Wild Bunch” with the significantly less violent “The Ballad of Cable Hogue”. Subsequent Peckinpah films include “Straw Dogs”, “The Getaway”, and “Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia”, most if not all of which generated some form of controversy around the film’s content or Peckinpah’s behavior. Sam Peckinpah died in 1984 at age 59 from heart failure.

Walon Green has a handful of post-“Wild Bunch” screenplays to his name, including “Sorcerer” and “Eraser”, but his primary writing has been for such TV shows as “NYPD Blue” and “Law & Order”. Green also directed the documentary “The Hellstrom Chronicle”, for which he won an Academy Award. And because I have nowhere else to put this: Walon Green is the man with a millipede crawling over his face during the weird tunnel scene in “Willy Wonka”.

“The Wild Bunch” continues to get referenced, or at least alluded to, in practically any movie with a violent standoff. More overt references popped up on “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer”, which featured characters named Angel and Lyle & Tector Gorch. As for direct parodies, it begins and ends with Jim Reardon’s “Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown”.

Hollywood has been threatening us with a remake on-and-off for the last 20 years, at times attaching such names as Tony Scott, Will Smith, and Mel Gibson (!), but thankfully it has stayed in development hell where it belongs.
And finally, Peckinpah’s goal with the excessive violence of “The Wild Bunch” was to so overwhelm the audience that they never wanted to see on-screen violence again. Unfortunately, moviegoers loved the violence, and the movies have spent the last 50-plus years out-goring themselves. Not every great movie’s legacy is what the filmmakers intended.

Further Viewing: Even this film’s making-of documentary is good! Consisting of 16 mm footage of the film’s production in Mexico, Paul Seydor’s “The Wild Bunch: An Album in Montage” was released in 1996 and nominated for the Best Documentary Short Oscar.