[quote=“SARTANA DJANGO BALLADS, post:34, topic:358”]FACE IT : WIld Bunch 1969 is a PILE OF BORING CRAP as Radish (drugs ?) said
WHY is Wild Bunch 1969 BORING CRAPPY I tell you :
It has a cast of MEN only and very UNATTRACTIVE Borgnine pffff, Holden ufffff no lady
It is extremely LONG and tedious 2hour plus of watching Borgnine come on pfffff
The plot is extremely thin. NO MYSTERY, NO REVENGE, NO SUSPENSE, quite dull.
This Peckinpah is a director full of holes ??? He picks bad/slow casts, no women urgh
Wild Bunch 1969 is just tolerable and I have it at about number 340 in my Western List
I LOVE Good bad Ugly 66, Fustful Of $, Death Rides Horse 1968 and Max. Schell/Mason
but SORRY Peckinpah is one of the slowest most tedious directors but Straw Dogs OK[/quote] As i say in another thread, there are women very present in this film…a vital and ironic part of the background in the role of bitches and whores… like other poster … you hve totally missed the point of this film… watch it again with the volume at a level that you can hear the words and with your mind plugged in and switched on…
Wild Bunch 1969 is a film that clearly divides opinions with admirers and haters of it.
The FACTS are though that it is overlong (2 hours +) and has a middle aged men cast.
The VIOLENCE elements are handled brutally, realistically and may have a deeper side.
The DIRECTOR Sam Peckinpah comes very low down my list of western directors. :’(
Personally for me it would score overall a maximum of 10.5 out of 20 at most.
Yeah I will watch [b]CATHERINE SPAAK :-* :-* and LEE VAN CLEEF [b] all day/night
instead of those 2 “beauties” urgh Ernest Borgnine and Willy Holden !! :o
[quote=“IMMORTAL 1960s, post:44, topic:358”]Yeah I will watch [b]CATHERINE SPAAK :-* :-* and LEE VAN CLEEF [b] all day/night
instead of those 2 “beauties” urgh Ernest Borgnine and Willy Holden !! :o[/quote]
I watch this movie almost once a year and I like it a lot.
Fist time I was overwhelmed by the violence. When watched several times more you pay attention to other details and the violence is more or less present. According to me it is a movie about friendship and living a life that has no prospect. After each robbery there will be need for more money. The fun is out of their lives and it just goes on.
The beginning of the film is also the beginning of the realisation that they have outlived their time. The rule of the gun is slowly passing away and technical innovations are about to overhaul the way of living.
In Mexico they find some rest, in the village of Angel. When they ride away, they will ride to their end and somehow you can feel that in the way it is filmed and scored.
When they finally decide (“Let’s go”) to do something with their lives there are some fantastic moments: “the walk of death” and the indecisive moment after killing general Mapache. They could have walked away at that moment…
I think both in score and directing this is a wonderful movie. Also side characters are well casted and played, for instance the 2 bounty hunters (Strother Martin and LQ Jones) that argue about everything and Edmond O’Brien as the old-timer. The choreography of the violence is well chosen and new at that time of filming.
The film owes a lot to the Hollywood western (depicted by William Holden and Ben Johnson) and the Spaghetti western by the way of freedom in filming violence.
Oh yeah SDB: there is a dramatic love interest in the film ;D.
Angel finds out his girlfriend left him and shoots her when she flirts with general Mapache. There are not much films where the girlfriend is shot.
[quote=“LooneyElmerFudd, post:46, topic:358”]Oh yeah SDB: there is a dramatic love interest in the film ;D.
Angel finds out his girlfriend left him and shoots her when she flirts with general Mapache. There are not much films where the girlfriend is shot.[/quote]
There’s another dramatic love interest in the film: Pike had a dramatic affair with a (Mexican?) woman when he was young; this is revealed in a series of flashbacks, that also explain his great difficulties to mount his horse.
Those flashbacks were cut from a lot of versions, but re-installed in the recent DVD release.
They also add extra meaning to the scene in which Pike drinks from a bottle of whiskey after having had intercourse with a Mexican girl: she represents all his love interest once was and what he never had in his life.
A great, melancholic scene in a tremendous movie about middle-aged men who have outlived their time
Of course it would have foolish to cast younger men in Holden’s and Borgnine’s parts (let alone Catherine Spaak!)
And if it all came down to women, Hannie Caulder would be the greatest western of all time.
Raquel Welch has never looked better than in that movie and it’s very hard to find an actress that looks better than Raquel Welch!
I am deadly serious and I have spoken on the Wild Bunch 1969.
RAQUEL WELCH as mentioned by Scherp not only looks great/beautiful/stunning on
screen but is also one of the BEST TALENTED Actresses of the 1960s/1970s.
Despite my criticisms of the Wild Bunch 1969 and it being about number 340 on my
all time Favourite westerns list, I still enjoy the film when I see it, but nothing “special”.
But I was relating to your always “great” way of arguing and delivering thereby “deep insights”.
And I was relating to the fact that this is now about the 15th or 20th time that you are repeating these “deep, deep insights” about TWB and Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid. On-topic and off-topic. And always the same again and again and again and …
And we both know why you are always so keen on “commenting” on both.
I imagine I have said this before somewhere on this forum; but, my favorite Peckinpah movie is actually RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY.
But, THE WILD BUNCH is right behind it…tied with PAT GARRETT & BILLY THE KID.
There is no denying the importance of THE WILD BUNCH to the history of cinema, though!
It is just that I find myself watching–or re-watching-- RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY with much more frequency.
As for the tie with PAT GARRETT & BILLY THE KID…I waffle back and forth as to which of the two I like best, so I figure I like them equally (even though I am aware of the flaws the PAT & BILLY film has).
[quote=“Chris_Casey, post:54, topic:358”]I imagine I have said this before somewhere on this forum; but, my favorite Peckinpah movie is actually RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY.
But, THE WILD BUNCH is right behind it…tied with PAT GARRETT & BILLY THE KID.
There is no denying the importance of THE WILD BUNCH to the history of cinema, though!
It is just that I find myself watching–or re-watching-- RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY with much more frequency.
As for the tie with PAT GARRETT & BILLY THE KID…I waffle back and forth as to which of the two I like best, so I figure I like them equally (even though I am aware of the flaws the PAT & BILLY film has).
Just my two cents, amigos y amigas![/quote]
Of course Ride the High Country is marvellous, but I have a soft spot for Peckinpah’s first western, The Deadly Companions, as well as for The Ballad of Cable Hogue.
I still can’t keep my mind up about Major Dundee
Worst Peckinpah : The Osterman Weekend - The sentence ‘The book was better’ sounds frightening when that book was written by Robert Ludlum. Rutger Hauer once said on Dutch television that it was an honour to work with Sam, but that he didn’t have the slightest idea what the film was about.
Ha ha, I’ve read the book, and no, the film is much better, much more intelligent. The best ideas in the film are all not from the book.
But the TOW remains Peckinpah’s weakest work together with The Killer Elite, but I don’t think that both are bad films, both have their moments. I would call them good, but far from great.
TOW was made in 1983 and I always looked at it as an interesting contribution to the forthcoming Orwell year. But unfortunately the film does not bring to bear the full potential of the material.
And despite some great scenes there are also weak ones, the action scenes work mostly against the film (some are superfluous, others are too long, even the slo mo isn’t made too well).
Screenwriter Alan Sharp had claimed, that the producers had worked with an unfinished screenplay from him and was surprised about it being used. This could explain the logical holes in the script.
And Peckinpah hadn’t much freedom (and interest) while shooting it.
But if you watch the film twice and don’t pay too much attention to it’s shortcomings, or don’t expect too much in the beginning, the film can be viewed as a small intelligent thriller.
Again, Junior Bonner is probably my favorite, starring Steve McQueen. Didn’t get a lot of play or praise in the United States, but it’s a regular on ENCORE Westerns these days. Political movie with an anti-development theme.
