Major Dundee
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Major Dundee was a 1965 Western film written by Harry Julian Fink and directed by Sam Peckinpah. It has become notorious for the feud between Peckinpah and the producing studio, Columbia Pictures, during its production and editing.
Plot summary/historical basis
The plot of the movie involves the title character, played by Heston, a Union cavalry officer during the American Civil War, who was relieved of his combat command for misconduct and sent to command a prisoner-of-war camp in New Mexico Territory. After a family of ranchers and a relief column of cavalry is massacred by an Apache warlord named Sierra Charriba (Michael Pate), Dundee seizes the opportunity for glory, raising his own private army of Union troops (black and white), Confederate POWs led by his old friend and rival, Captain Tyreen (Harris), several Indian scouts, and a gang of civilian mercenaries to pursue Charriba into Mexico. Dundee's force pursues Charriba, engaging him in several bloody battles, as well as coming into conflict with French troops who are occupying Mexico under Emperor Maximilian of Mexico. Also, an Austrian doctor (Senta Berger) who is sympathetic to the Rebels under Benito Juárez joins up with the army, causing further tensions between Tyreen and Dundee. The film is narrated by Tim Ryan, a young bugler played by Michael Anderson, Jr., whose diary is meant to serve as an ironic counterpoint to the action, though in the cut version this intention by Peckinpah/Fink does not come across very well.
The screenplay, written by Harry Julian Fink (who also wrote the film's novelization), Oscar Saul, and Peckinpah, was loosely based on historical precedents; however, contrary to claims by the production team at the time, it was not actually based on a true story. During the Minnesota Sioux Uprising of 1862, Union forces in that state were forced to recruit Confederate prisoners from Texas to make up for their meager numbers in fighting the Indians. Unlike in the movie, where there is much animosity between the Union and Confederate troops in Dundee's command, the Rebels, called "Galvanized Yankees", fought well and without much complaint. Both Union and Confederate forces also battled Apache, Navajo, and Comanche Indians throughout the war along the U.S.-Mexico border, making the scenario of the movie at least somewhat plausible.
Some critics of the film have also pointed out similarities between this and Herman Melville's classic novel Moby-Dick. Many of the characters are similar to those from that book, with Dundee as Captain Ahab, Tyreen as Starbuck, Ryan as Ishmael, and other minor characters, with Sierra Charriba and his Apache tribe substituting for the whale, as is the general plot line (an obsessive idealist drives himself to destruction, disregarding the effects on others). These references to Moby-Dick were likely intentional on the part of the screenwriters. Some have also pointed out similarities of the plot to the Vietnam War, which are highly unlikely to have been intentional, as the war had not significantly escalated by the film's original production. (It should also be pointed out that the characterization of Dundee was closely based off the infamous Colonel George Custer.)
Besides the above, the superb cast also includes Jim Hutton, James Coburn, Brock Peters, Mario Adorf, and Peckinpah regulars Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, L.Q. Jones, Slim Pickens, John Davis Chandler, and Dub Taylor. Veteran character actor Karl Swenson also puts in a brief appearance as Dundee's second-in-command at the POW camp. Jody McCrea appeared in an early deleted scene as Lieutenant Brannin, the young leader of the relief column killed in the movie's beginning.
Production
Peckinpah found the script in late 1963, and began making the movie into a complex character study about Dundee, making him a glory-hungry officer who would do anything to gain fame and recognition. He had the full-throated support of Heston, who had seen and enjoyed Peckinpah's previous film, Ride the High Country, and was eager to work with the director. Actor R.G. Armstrong, who had a small part as a Reverend who tags along with the expedition, referred to the 156 minutes version of the film as Moby-Dick on horseback". However, the production of the movie was very troubled: Peckinpah was often drunk on the set, and was supposedly so abusive towards the cast that Heston had to threaten him with a cavalry saber in order to calm him down. Peckinpah also fired a large number of crew members for very trivial reasons throughout the shoot. Columbia studio executives feared that the project was out of control, and that Peckinpah was too unstable to finish the picture, so they cut the shooting schedule of the film by several weeks. Heston, however, gave up his entire salary for the film in order to keep Peckinpah on the project - a gesture rarely equalled in Hollywood history. However, the studio forced Peckinpah to wrap up shooting very abruptly; Heston alleged that Peckinpah, towards the end of the shoot, simply became drunk and wandered off the set, and that he (Heston) had to finish directing many portions of the movie himself.
Peckinpah's qualms with the movie continued into the post-production. The length of Peckinpah's original cut has been disputed. According to some sources, including the 2005 DVD commentary, the original cut was 4 hours, 38 minutes long, which was initially edited down to 156 miutes. Included in the unseen longer cuts were several slow-motion battle scenes which were inspired by Akira Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai. The movie was also fairly gory for the standards of 1965, and a lot of the more bloody and violent scenes were cut out. A bombastic musical score by Daniele Amfitheatrof was added to the film despite Peckinpah's protests, as was the title song, the Major Dundee March, sung by Mitch Miller and his Sing-Along Gang. (Ironically, though the song has gained a negative reputation over the years, it became a major hit at the time - unlike the film, which tanked at the box office.) One of the most bizarre parts of the score was the use of an electornically altered sound (the employment of three anvils of different lengths, played-back at half-speed) [link] every time Charriba or the Apaches would be seen or even mentioned ("Until the Apache is taken or destroyed" was one of the film's catch phrases). At the film's initial release, it was 136 minutes long; after a disastrous premiere - the movie was almost universally panned by critics - an additional thirteen minutes cut out, despite the protests of Peckinpah and producer Jerry Bresler. Many viewers of the original movie feel that these cuts ruined the movie's scope and created significant plot holes, though others argue that these plotholes exist even in the extended version.
Restored version (April 2005)
In April of 2005, the New York City based Film Forum premiered an "expanded" version featuring several restored scenes, along with a new musical score by Christopher Caliendo. This expanded version (which was actually the 136 minute cut authorized by producer Jerry Bresler before he left Columbia Studios, and had recently been unearthed in Sony Pictures' archives) played in selected cities in North America and has been released on a Region 1 DVD.
All of the cuts were edited out of the release version at the last minute; it is highly unlikely that Peckinpah's director's cut - which presumably would have included the night-time Apache massacre which originally opened the film and has gained a measure of notoriety through screenwriting and film classes - will ever be fully restored.
A number of small inserts, such as individual shots or lines of dialogue, were also included, but three major scenes were restored, them being:
Spoilers
- A brief scene, after Dundee, Sam Potts (Coburn), and the other Union troopers survey the massacre at the Rostes Ranch, where Tyreen and his Confederates attempt to escape through a mountain stream. They were trapped by troops from the fort and Dundee's command, leading into the "assembly" scene where Dundee announces to the fort's prisoners his need for volunteers. It is important as it introduces the character of Tyreen, who is only awkwardly introduced in the original cut, and gives the reason why he and his men are to hang later in the film (they killed a guard during their escape attempt).
- Dundee recovering from his leg wound in Durango, while being tended to by Melinche (Aurora Clavell), eventually falling in love with her.
- A scene where Dundee and his officers - Tyreen, Potts, Lt. Graham (Hutton), and Sgt. Gomez (Adorf) find an Apache trail marker, and then debate strategy on how to fight Charriba. At the end of the scene, we learn the fate of Apache scout Riago (Jose Carlos Ruiz), who had earlier in the film been accused of being an agent of Charriba's by Dundee and others. In this version, he is found crucified in a tree. In the theatrical cut, his character disappeared without a trace.
- Available as extras on the DVD are an unfinished knife fight scene between Potts and Gomez in a Mexican village, a longer version of Teresa and Dundee's interlude at the lake, and several silent outtakes - including a master shot which would have opened the massacre scene at the beginning, of Lt. Brannin and his men riding past a sheep farmer to the Rostes Ranch.
New Caliendo score
The new Caliendo score in the 2005 expanded version was composed and recorded with a small studio orchestra to authentically sound the way director Peckinpah might have approved it had he been alive at the time of the film's restoration, and the way the music might have been done in its original 1965 release as opposed to today's larger orchestra-type scores.The new score is regarded by some critics as being better than the original, which was disliked by film experts, though many concede it is far from perfect. Due to an inadequate amount of sound dubbing and recording, the new version of the film suffers from awkward silences during many sequences where new music was not put in.
Major Dundee has long been considered a lost masterpiece due to studio tampering. It also helped cement Peckinpah's image as a renegade film maker, which he would enhance with the conflicts on his later films, such as Straw Dogs, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. Others, namely Peckinpah's biographer David Weddle (author of If They Move, Kill 'Em: The Life and Times of Sam Peckinpah), argue that Peckinpah is just as much to blame for the final product as Columbia and Jerry Bresler. Since its release on DVD, Dundee has begun to get recognition and notice from the public at large, and not just Western fans.
External links/references
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