A pivotal film in Peckinpah's oeuvre described by Jim Kitses as "One of Hollywood's great broken monuments", straddling the old-fashioned charm of 'Ride the High Country' and the brutal nihilism of 'The Wild Bunch' after Peckinpah discovered Leone.
Set exactly a century earlier, 'Major Dundee' was more lavishly produced and better looking than his later Western psychodramas; but already marked by blood, sweat and tears during it's making (after a difficult shoot in the wilds of Mexico that began before the script was complete and ended with Peckinpah nearly getting sacked, after which he found out the hard way he didn't have final cut).
Peckinpah's regular stock company (largely recruited from television) was meanwhile already coelescing, with John Davis Chandler filling in for Strother Martin. Peckinpah as usual shows little interest in women, and the gorgeous Senta Berger takes an hour to appear, when the callow young narrator describes her as "pretty, if somewhat old".
Set exactly a century earlier, 'Major Dundee' was more lavishly produced and better looking than his later Western psychodramas; but already marked by blood, sweat and tears during it's making (after a difficult shoot in the wilds of Mexico that began before the script was complete and ended with Peckinpah nearly getting sacked, after which he found out the hard way he didn't have final cut).
Peckinpah's regular stock company (largely recruited from television) was meanwhile already coelescing, with John Davis Chandler filling in for Strother Martin. Peckinpah as usual shows little interest in women, and the gorgeous Senta Berger takes an hour to appear, when the callow young narrator describes her as "pretty, if somewhat old".