JohnDoe
Bryn
Brenton
The Wild Bunch (1969)
The Wild Bunch: 2 Disc SE
DVD Covers
Directed By:Sam Peckinpah
Writers: Waylon Jennings & Roy N Sickner
Starring:William Holden, Robert Ryan, Ernest Borgnine, Warren Oates, Edmond O Brien, Ben Johnson, L Q Jones, Strothers Martin
Picture: Widescreen Audio: Dolby Digital
“If they move, kill em”- Pike Bishop (William Holden)
Bad ass motherf*&^%#, Sam Peckinpah (The Getaway, Straw Dogs, Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia) was the penultimate action director, creating poetry through violence. His life often reflected his art and he worked on his own terms. Drugs, alcohol and hot mammacitas were his pleasure, conflict inspired him. A man with demons, his volatile rage and conflicted ideology was often expressed onscreen and off.
A tidal wave of blood, bullets and brutality, on its release The Wild Bunch decimated the censorship board. Reality came crashing down on the western and changed the landscape of the genre and with the help of Bonnie and Clyde, modern cinema forever.
Opening with the Bunch’s brutal bank hold up and getaway, innocent god fearin’ folk are slaughtered in a tomato sauce soaked, slow-mo sequence that is pure cinema. From there they forge their way through this harsh land, often in symbiosis. Fate and pride inevitably collide when these men of iron seek moral redemption in mass carnage.
Groundbreaking and influential, in Peckinpah’s west bullets hurt, blood flows and the traditional good guys in white versus bad guys in black are blurred in a haze of moral ambiguity.
Sex is unromantic and love is replaced with loyalty and honour. Women are naturally beautiful, enticing, large breasted creatures that fill a primal need but always contribute to man’s demise.
Character driven, putting a microscope on the male honour code and the cost of a lawless life. This epic shows how technology and civilization made these hard men pioneers, extinct.
John Doe says: 9.5/10
Sam Peckinpah once said he felt he was “born about 100 years too late” and The Wild Bunch is his ode to the men of this era. The film is an exercise in style with substance, violence with emotional resonance and will forever force me to question the macho male ideals of the men of old and today.
I was 13 when I viewed it for the first time. By the time I saw just what the birth of the Gattling gun meant in an age of 6 shooters, I was numb from head to toe. Belittled by the experience I knew that I had a lot of life to live before I understood the adult world of war and pain.
William Holden (Sunset Boulevarde), Ernest Borgnine, (Dirty Dozen) Warren Oates (Alfredo Garcia) and the rest of the Bunch provide character performances of a standard seldom seen.Undoubtedly ranked within the top 5 Westerns of all time, A classic that has not dated and will take you to another time in history.
The DVD:
This “Directors Cut” 2 disc set really is the definitive version, the restored scenes really add to the tapestry of the film. The quality of the transfer is superb and the film historians commentary is loaded with anecdotes and inside details. The 3 documentaries on the second disc are of varying quality but will defiantly please fans of the film and its crew.
Writers: Waylon Jennings & Roy N Sickner
Picture: Widescreen Audio: Dolby Digital
“If they move, kill em”- Pike Bishop (William Holden)
Bad ass motherf*&^%#, Sam Peckinpah (The Getaway, Straw Dogs, Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia) was the penultimate action director, creating poetry through violence. His life often reflected his art and he worked on his own terms. Drugs, alcohol and hot mammacitas were his pleasure, conflict inspired him. A man with demons, his volatile rage and conflicted ideology was often expressed onscreen and off.
A tidal wave of blood, bullets and brutality, on its release The Wild Bunch decimated the censorship board. Reality came crashing down on the western and changed the landscape of the genre and with the help of Bonnie and Clyde, modern cinema forever.
Opening with the Bunch’s brutal bank hold up and getaway, innocent god fearin’ folk are slaughtered in a tomato sauce soaked, slow-mo sequence that is pure cinema. From there they forge their way through this harsh land, often in symbiosis. Fate and pride inevitably collide when these men of iron seek moral redemption in mass carnage.
Groundbreaking and influential, in Peckinpah’s west bullets hurt, blood flows and the traditional good guys in white versus bad guys in black are blurred in a haze of moral ambiguity.
Sex is unromantic and love is replaced with loyalty and honour. Women are naturally beautiful, enticing, large breasted creatures that fill a primal need but always contribute to man’s demise.
Character driven, putting a microscope on the male honour code and the cost of a lawless life. This epic shows how technology and civilization made these hard men pioneers, extinct.
John Doe says: 9.5/10
Sam Peckinpah once said he felt he was “born about 100 years too late” and The Wild Bunch is his ode to the men of this era. The film is an exercise in style with substance, violence with emotional resonance and will forever force me to question the macho male ideals of the men of old and today.
I was 13 when I viewed it for the first time. By the time I saw just what the birth of the Gattling gun meant in an age of 6 shooters, I was numb from head to toe. Belittled by the experience I knew that I had a lot of life to live before I understood the adult world of war and pain.
William Holden (Sunset Boulevarde), Ernest Borgnine, (Dirty Dozen) Warren Oates (Alfredo Garcia) and the rest of the Bunch provide character performances of a standard seldom seen.Undoubtedly ranked within the top 5 Westerns of all time, A classic that has not dated and will take you to another time in history.
The DVD:
This “Directors Cut” 2 disc set really is the definitive version, the restored scenes really add to the tapestry of the film. The quality of the transfer is superb and the film historians commentary is loaded with anecdotes and inside details. The 3 documentaries on the second disc are of varying quality but will defiantly please fans of the film and its crew.
We are the baddest of the bad and because your wrong, we are gunna kill ya all."
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Film & TV on DVD
Make sure you come back and tell me what you think of it.
Old Movies
Cane Toad Warrior
Film & TV on DVD
i actually got mine in the Sam Peckinpah Box Set from the U.S.A. Ride The High Country, Ballad Of Cable
Hogue, Pat Garret and Billythe Kid 2 disc Directors cut and The Wild Bunch.
If you want to see the best Peckinpah has to offer I also recommend the Getawaywith Steve Mcqueen
andStraw Dogswith Dustin Hoffman.
Film & TV on DVD
A good film, Not his best work but it has several moments of brilliance and the premise deals with all the Directors usual themes. Echoes of the Wild Biunch throughout.
Old Movies
Cane Toad Warrior
Old Movies
Cane Toad Warrior
I'd be interested to know which scenes were 'new'.
Oh, and I thought the film was great.
Film & TV on DVD
As for new scenes......Where pike is caught in bed with the wife is an add on. In fact both Pike flashbacks are new. Also the telegraph station battle was extra too.
All up there is about 20 minutes of restored footage, I dont think any of it is extra carnage.
Old Movies
Cane Toad Warrior
Film & TV on DVD
Canby contacted producer Phil Feldman, who basically said one of the reasons they were cut was so theatres of the day could have another daily showing. To confuse the issue, an international print was slapped together with the excised scenes and an intermission (one assumes this occured just before the train robbery).
I agree that the cutting of Ryan's capture pretty much undermined an important aspect of the story - that being the relationship between Judas Thorton and bunch leader Bishop. Ryan's performance as the bitter and twisted traitor who is forced to lead the "egg sucking, chicken stealing gutter trash" bounty hunters is one of the film's major strengths - one that should have been given the best supporting actor gong by the academy.
Film & TV on DVD
These restored versions of classic films that are available on DVD offer so much for cinephiles that have only ever read about the excised content.
Again I find myself agreeing with you that Ryan should have certainly received the statue. (Gig Young won, but of the 1969 nominees Nicholson should have gotten it for Easy Rider, IMO)