Not sure why they didn’t just use the 88 cut and “finish” it by adding some of the music. The song was definitely present in the theatrical cut.
I think Peckinpah vacillated over it. Jerry Fielding didn’t like it. Perhaps it would have been in the TCM cut otherwise.
I gave my take earlier in this thread:
Going by the mantra of dialogue basically being icing on the cake (i.e. a great film should still be pretty good even when watched in a language one doesn’t understand), then [Jerry] Fielding makes a good point [that the scene speaks for itself]. However, the reference is more oblique with song lyrics than dialogue so perhaps it’s easier to get away with it. Personally I found it obtrusive even when Leone included just the single word “Yesterday” in OUATIA, but I remember quite liking the inclusion of the lyrics to “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” here. I think I’ll need to watch both versions back-to-back to compare. Either way, it’s one helluva great scene and I’m glad no-one actually says anything!
Regarding the theatrical version of Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, nowadays one can get the impression that this film did not get any recognition before a longer cut appeared in 1988, but that is not true. Peckinpah’s film found a lot of admirers from the beginning on. Having returned to Hardy’s Western encyclopedia, I also reread his entry about Pat Garrett, which was written before the longer cut was released, and it starts with “A masterpiece, despite being mangled” and ends with “This film is essential viewing”. I easily agree, and in between there is this quote: "Peckinpah offers what one critic has called ‘a paralysed epic’ ". Paralysed epic, that wonderfully describes the fatalistic view of the film, in which (unlike the exploding The Wild Bunch) everything implodes.
The theatrical cut is actually very good. Although I am more partial to the Preview version, I understand why a lot was removed. I think it works better without the sequence with the prostitutes, which comes across looking more like a cheap softcore porno to me. I’ve watched the film several times again recently and I think every version has its charm depending on my mood. The scene that the theatrical cut really does miss the most, however, is the one with Chisum.
I can definitely see Pat Garrett being revisited in the future when it finally gets a Blu-ray. I hope that the theatrical cut is included. It’s strange that it has been confined to VHS and Betamax tapes.
Yes, for me the essential misses of the shorter version are the framing montage and indeed the Chisum scene.
I even think that could be the perfect version, with some bits here and there added.
And the Ruthie Lee scene, which comes directly before the orgy and which is oddly missing in the longer version, is better and more important than any of the other scenes which are not in the theatrical version.
If you ask me, this scene is far less interesting than some of the dialogue that can only be found in the preview cut. The theatrical cut works very well but it would be perfect if it had the Chisum scene and some of the humour. Why did they cut the line, “he needs one to get it up and four to get it down”? (I’m probably misquoting it but you will remember the line). It’s the script that makes this film so watchable.
By the way, am I right that the “bunkhouse scene” you refer to is the one that shows Poe interrogating the men? I actually don’t think it’s out of place at all and would work well next to to the Ruthie Lee scene. I think both scenes were intended to be cut together.
For me it is at first the directing, like in all Peckinpah films. Even if it is kinda true that some of the scenes are not that well directed compared to Peckinpah’s previous films. And some of the editing of the violence and the action should be done different, are not so brilliantly intercut like Peckinpah did this in his other films. But of course the script is filled with strong ideas.
He he, actually I don’t remember that line …
The Ruthie Lee scene is interesting for the way Pat behaves, I always liked that one.
Apart from being one of the weaker directed scenes, it is out of place because it changes the narrative point of view. Every other scene is about Pat or Billy, but this scene has neither of them, and if one breaks such a point of view (and some films do such things by purpose) he should have a good explanation for that. I have none.
And this scene has nothing of any importance to tell, so it just slows the film down.
Funnily enough, I was just thinking of this film after watching My Name is Nobody a few weeks ago. I was wondering if the slow motion shot of Nobody shooting the glass in the bar scene was inspired by the shot of Billy the Kid shooting the dimes into the the lawman. They’re both slow motion shots towards the camera and the grave with Pecinpah’s name shows Tonino Valerii was familiar with him.
I finally watched this lil’ masterpiece a couple of weeks ago, aaaaand it’s been sitting on my mind a while because… I didn’t really like it that much. That’s what’s been bothering me - I hate it when I don’t get it! 
I saw y’all talking about all the different versions this movie’s got and I wonder if it’s the version I watched that made me not like this. I watched an 115 minute version (1hr55). Not sure which version that is.
Anywho, yeah, I have a lot of qualms with this movie, but I’ll only name some big buggers. I thought it was very boring and slow and had a lot of unnecessary-ness goin on. The biggest offender of this was that scene when Garrett had him an orgy. What did that contribute to the plot? Like, nothing I ain’t already know (he don’t wanna hunt his friend, buying time, big whoop). But apparently that scene was 100% Peckinpah. Ain’t know that. I also don’t think Kristofferson was a good Billy, being that he was so old and so “hat-no-hat”, and Bob Dylan’s Alias character also suffered the same “hat-no-hat” issue for me. However, a good point was brought up here that those performances kinda match the movie’s grit and charming-haunting-awkwardness. With that said, I did like the scene where Garrett was fucking with Alias and the big dude (who talked about somebody’s tits - I don’t remember) and the other outlaw who was on Billy’s side. And with that said, I liked James Coburn’s performance okay! I also liked Katy Jurado’s cameo… even if I expected a bigger part – but that’s more a me problem than a Peckinpah problem, hehe.
So this a 5/10 for me… maybe I should re-watch it if I watched the (arguably) wrong version, lol…
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Nothing wrong with that version, for me it’s the best, but actually the film is for me a masterpiece in every of the 3 versions.
The orgy is indeed a scene I would maybe cut out, but not because it does not contribute much to the plot. Actually there are many scenes which don’t do much for the plot, but which create a certain atmosphere of total fatalism, which is one of the film’s aims.
I can only say that I was also irritated when I first watched the film, but it began quickly to grow in my estimation, and some of the things which seemed odd at a first look became then the film’s strength
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I was about to say the same thing, i didn’t like it much on the first time.
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I still think it wildly overrated - People make excuses for it because it’s Peckinpah … and that old “end of the west” allegory bit which supposedly means it’s ‘art’ !
It’s full of loathsome characters held up as lovable rogues … which seems to be the way Peckinpah thought of himself … to me it’s a macho fantasy which doesn’t work no matter how it’s cut or represented.
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Quite a wide spectrum of opinions here, but I’m with Stanton. Peckinpah’s best film in my book and one of my favorite westerns. It’s more subtle and introverted than the loud and ultra-violent The Wild Bunch, which may be a con for some, but for me it makes for a stronger film. Dylan’s soundtrack is very good as well, I’ve always thought of Knocking on Heaven’s door as one of his very weakest songs but it works in the context.
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Nobody needs excuses for such a beautifully crafted film.
Which does not mean that everybody has to like it. In the contrary Peckinpah is still a director who gets negative reviews, unlike Leone who now seems to be liked by nearly everyone. And that speaks imo for Peckinpah.
Pat Garrett has some weaker directed (or maybe only edited) scenes, but in the overall fatalism of the film’s episodes, and it has an episodical structure, this does count far less than in other films. And it is for this episodical structure that the film was already a masterpiece for me in the mutilated theatrical version, which works in parts differently from the longer versions. Which had developed some qualities of its own.
Despite similar themes both films feel rather different.
TWB is a film in which everything explodes, while in PG&BtK every conflict seems to implode.
People will stand by and make ‘excuses for’ any side they have decided to take, no matter how absurd their reasoning - sticking up for Peckinpah, in this case, who was a drunk and drug addled egomaniac, who could barely function on set due to his addictions and lack of self of control … and yet out of all that chaos a masterpiece is created !!!
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You got it, so it could work with Peckinpah. It could, but it did not necessarily.
Peckinpah was such a talented director that even his lesser films like The Killer Elite and The Osterman Weekend had some great scenes, and being far from great are at least good films.
And Pat Garrett was always a film that had the potential to fascinate its viewers. Long before any longer version was available.
I first watched the theatrical version via a full frame VHS, and despite the above mentioned first irritation, I watched it 4 times within a week. Surely not because I was searching for excuses. And it is since then one of the films I watched the most. Also in cinema.
And actually reading books about Peckinpah shows that those who love his stuff are at the same time also very critically towards him. The idea that fans are automatically uncritical towards the people they admire is a bit short sighted. Some may do that, but others are also overly critical towards their idols, if they don’t deliver what they expect.
And btw despite my admiration for his work, I don’t like much of his person according to that what I read about him.
It simply doesn’t work that way - perhaps what you admire so much about the film is it’s production design, photography, costumes, locations and cast, etc … which are all top notch, with a few exceptions in the cast, (Kristofferson)
The film undoubtedly looks great because it had a great production team … for me, it fails to be a great film because the man at the helm is out of control, lacks good judgement and therefore produces an incoherent,self indulgent, boring film about supposed “tough guys”, who smile with mutual admiration for each other, as though they were great infallible warriors … and I think the audience is supposed to be as charmed by them as the director obviously is.
I have (original) copies of all Peckinpah’s movies, which might suggest that I’m a fan - but I am more curious about their history and how nearly all of them are nearly great, but not quite … and there’s always something in his films which leaves a nasty taste in the mouth … not the stylish violence or those controversial aspects which are so infamous … but that there is a meanness and pettiness at their heart which I don’t believe to be intentional … it’s a reflection of Peckinpah’s own character. Yes he had a lot of talent, but he always seemed to screw it up when it came to delivering the goods.
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I agree, I particularly love that scene where Garrett begins the meaningless gunfight with the man on the boat. I think it portrays the pointless violence of the fading west in a way that almost makes you feel nostalgic for it, the same way Garrett himself might. Roger Ebert didn’t care for the edited version of the film he saw, but in his review he actually mentions that scene as one which, “remind[s] us of the Peckinpah['s] vision.”
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I’m not sure why people dislike the shorter theatrical cut so much. I actually think it works really well. I have it on VHS but I’d love to see that version in HD.