Major Dundee

Summary

Introduction by Peckinpah scholar Garner Simmons, author of Peckinpah: A Portrait in Montage – The Definitive Edition: 50 Years After “The Wild Bunch” from the Writer Who Knew Him Best:

Based on what Peckinpah had achieved on a minuscule budget with Ride the High Country he was hired by producer Jerry Bressler to adapt a screenplay and direct a film based on a treatment from writer Harry Julian Fink. Titled “Major Dundee,” it was a cavalry Western set near the close of the Civil War. The title character Major Dundee (Charlton Heston) is the Union commander in charge of a prison fort along the Mexican border where a number of Confederate prisoners have been incarcerated.  To complicate matters, the senior rebel officer Captain Benjamin Tyreen (Richard Harris) and Dundee have a long and acrimonious history predating the war.  When a nearby ranch is brutally ravaged and burned by a band of renegade Apache led by a chief named Sierra Charriba, Dundee feels compelled to go after them.  Short-handed, he is forced to recruit both Rebels and civilians to fill out his ranks.  The result is a makeshift microcosm of America with northern and southern whites, blacks and Hispanics all forced to ride side-by-side as Sierra Charriba leads his raiding party across the Rio Grande into Mexico.   With a one-armed scout named Samuel Potts (James Coburn) showing the way, Dundee takes his men in pursuit despite the fact that Mexico is occupied by the French under Maximilian I.  Fighting with Bressler at every turn, Peckinpah refused to surrender his sweeping epic vision.  A flawed masterpiece, Major Dundee reveals the promise of greater things to come.

Review:

“Have you ever stopped to think why they made you a jailor instead of a soldier?”

In 2005, Sam Peckinpah’s film Major Dundee was restored to include additional footage. This extended edition of the film helped to paint a truer picture of the intent of Sam Peckinpah before his control of the film was taken away and the film was recut. Major Dundee was Sam Peckinpah’s big opportunity after what had amounted to an art house success he had achieved with Ride the High Country. As was the case with many of Peckinpah’s films, Peckinpah found himself at odds with his producers and financiers and they tried numerous times to wrestle control from the director. In order for Sam to be kept on the job, Charlton Heston eventually forfeited his salary to cover some of the budgetary overages. It was an extreme act of confidence, especially considering some of the very formidable disagreements that Heston had with Peckinpah while they worked on the picture. Without Heston’s backing, it is highly unlikely that Peckinpah would have been allowed to finish shooting the picture.

Major Dundee had issues from the beginning of its production. One issue was that the film’s script was not completed before principal photography began. The final act of the film still needed some serious reworking. The other large issue was a self inflicted mistake. Peckinpah picked out numerous locations to shoot in Mexico, but he did not account for the amount of travel time between locations. This caused all sorts of issues during the filming. When Sam turned in his final 156 minute cut of the film (the exact length of this cut has been debated,) the studio recut it into a 122 minute version which was released in 1965. The extended version runs 136 minutes long and is based on the producer Jerry Bresler’s cut of the film which had been pared down by the studio for the theatrical release.

Major Dundee stars Charlton Heston as Major Amos Dundee. The film takes place during the Civil War. In 1864, a tribe of Apache led by Sierra Chiriba have massacred an entire camp of soldiers and civilians. Major Amos Dundee arrives with his men on the scene of the massacre and he puts a plan together to gather up a force of men and ride towards Mexico to rescue the stolen children and eliminate the Apache threat. Dundee has been assigned to oversee a prisoner of war camp due to some unspecified infraction in the Battle of Gettysburg. Dundee, partially with hopes of restoring his honor and partially out of his desire to climb the ranks, enlists men from his Union cavalry along with a ragtag group of Confederate soldiers and former slaves turned Union men. In order to convince the Confederates to join him, he is forced to work with a man he once betrayed, Captain Ben Tyreen (Richard Harris.) If the Confederate soldiers will help him and his team, they will be given a chance to return home to their families. They will not be allowed to turn back until the Apache are taken or destroyed. Also along for the ride is a one armed scout named Potts (James Coburn,) the inexperienced Lieutenant Graham (Jim Hutton,) a minister ( R.G. Armstrong,) and a survivor of the initial attack (Michael Anderson Jr.) They will not only face the difficulties of mounting an attack on the Apache and conflict with French battalions, but also the numerous issues between the factions within the group itself.

As one might expect from the discussion of the issues the film faced, Major Dundee is not a perfect film. There are lots of elements that work and the performances in the film are all great ones. In my opinion, the best performance in the film is by Charlton Heston. He makes the character of Dundee a commanding presence and grits his teeth with anger for anyone who would question his authority or direction. Heston makes Amos come alive with a ferocity that conjures up Ahab from Moby Dick. Heston believed in the role enough to give up his salary and it comes across in his performance. He is reason enough to watch the film. The second best performance in the film is from Richard Harris. Harris is a great counterpart to Heston and brings an elegance to the role. I particularly enjoyed Harris during a scene where he deals with a deserter from his camp. Other performers of note include James Coburn as Mr. Potts and a great small role for Warren Oates. 

The cinematography for the film was performed by Sam Leavitt. This film is slightly different from many of Peckinpah’s films in that it utilizes wide angle lenses frequently. The wide angle shots lend themselves well to Blu-ray. During certain battle sequences I found the action harder to follow than in other Peckinpah films. On The Wild Bunch, Peckinpah had mastered the editing techniques that made his action sequences flowed perfectly. On Major Dundee, he doesn’t quite have that level of control and confidence. There are some big scale sequences for certain, but the control over them does not match what he would do just a few years later.

Overall – Major Dundee is a flawed film, but still a very important one in Peckinpah’s career. The result of this film and the backlash from the studio against Sam was that Sam Peckinpah was out of work for a couple years. After his triumph on television with his adaptation of Katherine Anne Porter’s Noon Wine he came back with The Wild Bunch – arguably his greatest film. Without Major Dundee and its numerous issues, it is not guaranteed that Peckinpah would have had the drive to make his masterpiece.

Video

Major Dundee is presented on Blu-ray with an MPEG-4 AVC encoded 1080p transfer in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1. The transfer is healthy looking with a fine level of grain. There are a few moments that looked a little soft or a little bit heavy on grain, but overall I really thought this presentation looked very good. The cinematography by Sam Leavitt utilized more wide angles than most Peckinpah productions and wide lenses translate beautifully to Blu-ray filling the screen with details. I can’t imagine that fans will be anything less than pleased with this transfer.

Audio

The audio treatment of Major Dundee sounds pretty good with a DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround track created for the 2005 release. As one might expect, the track is not as complicated and immersive as modern surround tracks, but it does give the compositions wider range and allow for the back channels to be used for some effects. The sound design of the film’s effects does include some tinny sounding gunshots, so adjust your expectations accordingly.

Supplements:

Disc One:

• Extended Version (1080p; 2:15:47)
• Audio Commentary with Nick Redman, Paul Seydor, Garner Simmons and David Weddle – this is one of my favorite commentary tracks from the great quartet of Peckinpah scholars. The discussion had encompasses every aspect of the troubled production of the film and how it came to be released in 2005 in a new version. I highly recommend this track. The introduction to this review was written by one of the scholars featured on this track!
• Isolated Score by Christopher Caliendo 
• 2005 Re-Release Trailer

Disc Two:

• Original Theatrical Cut (1080p; 2:02:16)
• Isolated Score by Daniele Amfitheatrof
• Silent Extended Outtakes 
• Trailer Artwork Outtakes 
• Exhibitor Promo Reel Excerpt 
• Extended Scene: “Major Dundee and Teresa”
• Incomplete Deleted Scene: “Knife Fight” 
• Original Theatrical Trailer  

Overall Scores:

Video – 4/5 

Audio – 4/5

Supplements – 4.5/5

Overall – 4/5

Major Dundee is an important piece of filmmaking in the career of the great Sam Peckinpah. The film is certainly flawed, but it has many of the trademarks of what inform Peckinpah’s style. It’s a brutally realistic depiction of cavalry life in the Civil War era while also a strongly acted piece of fiction. The film’s failings lie in the convoluted nature of the script. I also felt some of the action scenes were a bit hard to follow. It’s amazing that the Bresler cut of the film has been restored and made available in this release. Twilight Time have provided two cuts of the film along with an absolutely fantastic commentary track. Fans of Peckinpah will surely want to add Major Dundee to their collection, warts and all.