Sam Peckinpah had a knack for showing us what it was like at the end of the “Old West.”
Most of his films tended to take place in that rather grey area just at the beginning of the 20th Century when the cowboy was on his way out of favor, as it were.
A time when carrying wire cutters was illegal. (Actually, I think it still might be in Texas. Maybe even a few other Southwestern states.)
I’m sure that this was a violent time. I mean, everyone was carrying a gun.
Ev-rey-one.
But Peckinpah’s vision of the end of the West was a particularly violent one. Older men were fighting against the end of everything they’ve ever known. They wanted one last grab for glory before it all went tits up.
Ride The High Country and The Wild Bunch were only made seven years apart, but they may as well have been made thirty years apart. But they’re very close to the same movie. I love them both and think they work well together almost as bookends to a great Western career…even though Peckinpah made tons of Western television before (and one movie that no one remembers) and a few great Westerns after.
None of them, though, had the power of The Wild Bunch.
RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY (1962)
Written by NB Stone, Jr
Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott play Steve Judd and Gil Westrum, respectively. They are old friends who have fallen apart. Judd is a former lawman who is hired by a bank to transport some gold. He decides that it’s time to get in touch with his old friend to help him with this rather dangerous job. Gil brings along Heck (Ron Starr), his young ward. Judd trusts Gil with his life, but maybe he shouldn’t. Maybe time has eroded more of that friendship than he knows. And maybe Gil and Heck are going to double cross him to steal the gold.
Of course, there’s a girl, but she’s hardly the point. She just kind of gets in the way of the story of two men looking at their last job. Even though they’re sort of on opposite sides of that job, they know that their time is over. The new generation has to take over.
That doesn’t keep them from facing the bad guys in “the old way” one last time. The final scene is perfect.
This was Scott’s last film and very nearly McCrea’s last film. Neither would die for many years, but they knew that their time had passed, too. It’s a great capper to two amazing careers and basically the beginning of another one for Peckinpah. But it’s still very much a Hollywood film. No true violence and only inferred bloodshed. It did manage to get his favorite theme going: desperate men at the end of their ropes doing desperate things. He would only make one film between this and The Wild Bunch (1965’s Major Dundee which is largely considered a failure because of studio and Charlton Heston tinkering), but that was enough to teach him that Hollywood was not really the way to go if he wanted to tell his stories.
THE WILD BUNCH (1969)
Written by Walon Green/Sam Peckinpah/Roy N Sickner
The 60s just weren’t ready for The Wild Bunch.
Oh, they thought they were, what with Charles Manson and Bonnie And Clyde. But this “ballet of blood” was a bit much for audiences of the time.
The Wild Bunch was peopled by William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Edmond O’Brien, Warren Oates, Ben Johnson and LQ Jones. Old men in a New West. They got together for one last score and managed to get in and out of the bank, but they knew that their time was over.
As they ran from the law they lived out their hedonistic dreams: drinkin’, whorin’, and basically being Capital M Men.
Then Angel (Jaime Sanchez), the youngest of the bunch, gets captured by some Mexican ne’erdowells. These guys have a secret weapon. Something they bought off the American cavalry. Something…big…and new…and dangerous.
The Bunch, against their better judgement, go to rescue Angel. The blood bath that ensues is legendary. Slow motion and spewing squibs rule the day. The Old West is dead. All hail the New West.
Luckily, the entire movie is damn near perfect. In 1969, there were only a few critics who stood up to defend it at its festival premiere (including Roger Ebert and Pauline Kael), but time has told us that it’s a masterpiece. It shows us the end of the West in a way that no other film ever could.
Peckinpah would, as I said, go on to make a few more great films. The Ballad Of Cable Hogue (also about the end of the Old West), Junior Bonner and Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid are all Westerns and worth checking out.
Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia is a Western in the sense that No Country For Old Men is a Western. It may take place in modern times, but everyone may as well be wearing cowboy hats and six-shooters and riding horses. Of course, there’s always Straw Dogs, too. Not a Western in any way, but a great film.
But The Wild Bunch will always be his masterpiece. It’s the one that everyone will go to to talk about what a great filmmaker he was. He changed everything in two and half hours.
