Sam Peckinpah
Encyclopedia
David Samuel "Sam" Peckinpah (February 21, 1925 – December 28, 1984) was an American
filmmaker and screenwriter
who achieved prominence following the release of the Western
epic The Wild Bunch
(1969). He was known for the innovative and explicit depiction of action and violence, as well as his revisionist
approach to the Western genre.
Peckinpah's films generally deal with the conflict between values and ideals, and the corruption of violence in human society. He was given the nickname "Bloody Sam" owing to the violence in his films. His characters are often loners or losers who desire to be honorable, but are forced to compromise in order to survive in a world of nihilism
and brutality.
Peckinpah's combative personality, marked by years of alcohol
and drug abuse
, has often overshadowed his professional legacy. Many of his films were noted for behind-the-scenes battles with producers and crew members, damaging his reputation and career during his lifetime. Many of his films, such as Straw Dogs (1971), Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973) and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
(1974), remain controversial.
California in the 1850s working in the logging
business, and changed the spelling of the family name to "Peckinpah". Peckinpah Meadow and Peckinpah Creek, where the family ran a lumber mill on a mountain in the High Sierra north of Coarsegold, California
, have been officially named on U.S. geographical maps. Peckinpah's maternal grandfather was Denver Church, a cattle rancher, Superior Court judge and United States Congressman of a California district including Fresno County. Peckinpah and several relatives often claimed Native American
ancestry, but this has been denied by surviving family members. Sam Peckinpah's nephew is David Peckinpah
, who was a television producer and director, as well as a screenplay writer. Peckinpah's parents were David Edward Peckinpah and Fern Louise Church, and he is a cousin of former New York Yankees
shortstop Roger Peckinpaugh
.
, where he attended both grammar school and high school. He spent much time skipping classes with his brother to engage in cowboy
activities on their grandfather Denver Church
's ranch, including trapping, branding, and shooting. During the 1930s and 1940s, Coarsegold and Bass Lake
were still populated with descendants of the miners and ranchers of the 19th century. Many of these descendants worked on Church's ranch. At that time, it was a rural area undergoing extreme change, and this exposure is believed to have affected Peckinpah's Western
films later in life.
He played on the junior varsity football team while at Fresno High School, but frequent fighting and discipline problems caused his parents to enroll him in the San Rafael Military Academy for his senior year. In 1943, he joined the United States Marine Corps
. Within two years, his battalion was sent to China
with the task of disarming Japanese soldiers and repatriating
them following World War II
. While his duty did not include combat
, he claims to have witnessed acts of war between Chinese and Japanese soldiers. According to friends, these included several acts of torture and the murder of a laborer by sniper
fire. The American Marines were not permitted to intervene. Peckinpah also claimed he was shot during an attack by Communist forces. Also during his final weeks as a Marine, he applied for discharge in Peking, so he could marry a local woman, but was refused. This reportedly deeply affected Peckinpah, and may have influenced his depictions of violence in his films.
After being discharged in Los Angeles, he attended Fresno State College, where he studied history. While a student, he met and married his first wife, Marie Selland, in 1947. A drama
major, Selland introduced Peckinpah to the theatre
department and he became interested in directing for the first time. During his senior year, he adapted and directed a one-hour version of Tennessee Williams
' The Glass Menagerie
. After graduation in 1948, Peckinpah enrolled in graduate studies in drama at University of Southern California
. He spent two seasons as the director in residence at Huntington Park Civic Theatre near Los Angeles before obtaining his master's degree. He was asked to stay on another year, but Peckinpah began working as a stagehand
at KLAC-TV in the belief that television
experience would eventually lead to work in films. Even during this early stage of his career, Peckinpah was developing a combative streak. Reportedly, he was kicked off the set of The Liberace Show
for not wearing a tie, and he refused to cue a car salesman during a live feed because of his attitude towards stagehands.
In 1954, Peckinpah was hired as "dialogue director" for the film Riot in Cell Block 11
. His job entailed acting as a gopher for the movie's director, Don Siegel
. The film was shot on location at Folsom Prison. Reportedly, the warden was reluctant to allow the filmmakers to work at the prison until he was introduced to Peckinpah. The warden knew his family from Fresno and was immediately cooperative. Siegel's location work and his use of actual prisoners as extras in the film made a lasting impression on Peckinpah. He worked as an assistant to the director on four additional films including Private Hell 36
(1954), An Annapolis Story, (1955, and co-starring L. Q. Jones
), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and Crime in the Streets (1956). Invasion of the Body Snatchers, in which Peckinpah appeared in a cameo as Charlie the meter reader, starred Kevin McCarthy
and Dana Wynter
. It became one of the most critically praised science fiction
films of the 1950s. Peckinpah claimed to have done an extensive rewrite on the film's screenplay
, a statement which remains controversial. Nevertheless, Peckinpah's association with Siegel established him as an emerging screenwriter and potential director.
Throughout much of his adult life, Peckinpah was affected by alcoholism
, and, later, drug addiction. According to some accounts, he also suffered from mental illness
, possibly manic depression or paranoia
. It is believed his drinking problems began during his service in the military while stationed in China, when he would frequent the saloons of Tientsin and Peking. After divorcing Selland, the mother of his first four children, in 1960, he married the Mexican actress Begoña Palacios in 1965. A stormy relationship developed, and over the years they married on three separate occasions. They had one daughter together. His personality reportedly often swung between a sweet, soft-spoken, artistic disposition, and bouts of rage and violence during which he verbally and physically abused himself and others. An experienced hunter, Peckinpah was fascinated with firearms and was known to shoot the mirrors in his house while abusing alcohol, an image which occurs several times in his films. Peckinpah's reputation as a hard-living brute with a taste for violence, inspired by the content in his most popular films and in many ways perpetuated by himself, has overshadowed his artistic legacy. His friends and family have claimed this does a disservice to a man who was actually more complex than generally credited. Throughout his career, Peckinpah seems to have inspired extraordinary loyalty in certain friends and employees. He used the same actors (Warren Oates
, L. Q. Jones
, R. G. Armstrong
, James Coburn
, Ben Johnson
, and Kris Kristofferson
), and collaborators (Jerry Fielding
, Lucien Ballard
, Gordon Dawson, and Martin Baum) in many of his films, and several of his friends and assistants stuck by him to the end of his life.
Peckinpah spent a great deal of his life in Mexico
after his marriage to Palacios, eventually buying property in the country. He was reportedly fascinated by the Mexican lifestyle and culture, and he often portrayed it with an unusual sentimentality and romanticism in his films. Four of his films, Major Dundee
(1965), The Wild Bunch
(1969), Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973) and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
(1974), were filmed entirely on location within Mexico, while The Getaway
(1972) concludes with a couple escaping to freedom there.
Peckinpah was seriously ill during his final years, as a lifetime of hard living caught up with him. Regardless, he continued to work until his last months. He died of heart failure on December 28, 1984. At the time, he was in preparation for shooting an original script by Stephen King
entitled The Shotgunners, which later became a book called The Regulators
. He lived at The Murray Hotel
in Livingston, Montana
from 1979 until his death in 1984.
, Peckinpah established himself during the late 1950s as a scriptwriter of Western
series of the era, selling scripts to Gunsmoke
, Have Gun – Will Travel, The Rifleman
, Broken Arrow
, Klondike, and Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater
. He also wrote a screenplay from the novel The Authentic Death of Hendry Jones, a draft that evolved into the 1961 Marlon Brando
film One-Eyed Jacks
. His writing led to directing, and he directed a 1958 episode of Broken Arrow (generally credited as his first official directing job) and several 1960 episodes of Klondike
, (co-starring James Coburn
, L. Q. Jones
, Ralph Taeger
, Joi Lansing
, and Mari Blanchard
). He also directed the CBS sitcom Mr. Adams and Eve
, starring Howard Duff
and Ida Lupino
.
In 1958, Peckinpah wrote a script for Gunsmoke that was rejected due to content. He reworked the screenplay, titled The Sharpshooter, and sold it to Zane Grey Theater. The episode received popular response and became the television series The Rifleman
, starring Chuck Connors
. Peckinpah directed four episodes of the series (with guest stars R. G. Armstrong
and Warren Oates
), but left after the first year. The Rifleman ran for five seasons and achieved enduring popularity in syndication.
During this time, he also created the television series The Westerner
, starring Brian Keith
and John Dehner
. From 1959 to 1960, Peckinpah acted as producer of the series, having a hand in the writing of each episode and directing five of them. Critically praised, the show ran for only 13 episodes before cancellation mainly due to its gritty content detailing the drifting, laconic cowboy Dave Blassingame (Brian Keith). Despite its short run, The Westerner and Peckinpah were nominated by the Producers Guild of America
for Best Filmed Series. An episode of the series eventually served as the basis for Tom Gries' 1968 film Will Penny
. The Westerner, which has since achieved cult status, further established Peckinpah as a talent to be reckoned with.
was cast as the male lead in the 1961 Western film The Deadly Companions
. He suggested Peckinpah as the director and producer Charles B. Fitzsimons
accepted the idea. By most accounts, the low-budget film shot on location in Arizona
was a learning process for Peckinpah, who feuded with Fitzsimons (brother of the film's star Maureen O'Hara
) over the screenplay and staging of the scenes. Reportedly, Fitzsimons refused to allow Peckinpah to give direction to O'Hara. Unable to rewrite the screenplay or edit the picture, Peckinpah vowed to never again direct a film unless he had script control. The Deadly Companions passed largely without notice and is the least known of Peckinpah's films.
(1962), was based on the screenplay Guns in the Afternoon written by N.B. Stone, Jr. Producer Richard Lyons admired Peckinpah's work on The Westerner and offered him the directing job. Peckinpah did an extensive rewrite of the screenplay, including personal references from his own childhood growing up on Denver Church's ranch, and even naming one of the mining towns "Coarsegold." He based the character of Steve Judd, a once-famous lawman fallen on hard times, on his own father David Peckinpah. In the screenplay, Judd and old friend Gil Westrum are hired to transport gold from a mining community through dangerous territory. Westrum hopes to talk Judd into taking the gold for themselves. Along the way, following the example of Judd, Westrum slowly realizes his own self respect is far more important than profit. During the final shootout, when Judd and Westrum stand up to a trio of men, Judd is fatally wounded and his death serves as Westrum's salvation - a Catholic
tragedy weaved from the Western genre. It became a major theme in many Peckinpah films to come. Starring aging Western stars Joel McCrea
and Randolph Scott
in their final major screen roles, the film initially went unnoticed in the United States but was an enormous success in Europe. Beating Federico Fellini
's 8½
for first prize at the Belgium Film Festival, the film was hailed by foreign critics as a brilliant reworking of the Western genre. New York critics also discovered Peckinpah's unusual Western, with Newsweek
naming Ride the High Country the best film of the year and Time
placing it on its best-ten list. By some critics, the film is admired as one of Peckinpah's greatest works.
(1965), was the first of Peckinpah's many unfortunate experiences with the major studios that financed his productions. Based on a screenplay by Harry Julian Fink
, the film was to star Charlton Heston
. Peckinpah was hired as director after Heston viewed producer Jerry Bresler
's private screening of Ride the High Country. Heston liked the film and called Peckinpah, saying, "I'd like to work with you." The sprawling screenplay told the story of Union cavalry officer Major Dundee who commands a New Mexico
outpost of Confederate
prisoners. When an Apache
war chief wipes out a company and kidnaps several children, Dundee throws together a makeshift army, including unwilling Confederate veterans, black Federal soldiers, and traditional Western types, and takes off after the Indians. Dundee becomes obsessed with his quest and heads deep into the wilderness of Mexico with his exhausted men in tow. Peckinpah's first big-budget film had a large cast, including Heston, Richard Harris
, James Coburn
, Senta Berger
, Jim Hutton
, Ben Johnson
, Warren Oates
, R. G. Armstrong
and L. Q. Jones
. Filming began without a completed screenplay, and Peckinpah chose several remote locations in Mexico
, causing the film to go heavily over budget
. Intimidated by the size and scope of the project, Peckinpah reportedly drank heavily each night after shooting. He also fired at least 15 crew members
. At one point, Peckinpah's mean streak and abusiveness towards the actors so enraged Heston that the normally even-tempered star threatened to run the director through with his cavalry saber if he did not show more courtesy to the cast. Shooting ended 15 days over schedule and $1.5 million more than budgeted with Peckinpah and producer Bresler no longer on speaking terms. The movie, detailing themes and sequences Peckinpah mastered later in his career, was taken away from him and substantially reedited. An incomplete mess which today exists in a variety of versions, Major Dundee performed poorly at the box office and was thrashed by critics (though its standing has improved over the years). Peckinpah held for the rest of his life that his original version of Major Dundee was among his best films, but his reputation was severely damaged.
Peckinpah was next signed to direct The Cincinnati Kid
, a gambling drama about a young prodigy who takes on an old master during a big New Orleans poker
match. Before filming started, producer Martin Ransohoff
began to receive phone calls about the Major Dundee ordeal and was told Peckinpah was impossible to work with. In addition, Peckinpah decided to shoot in black and white and was hoping to transform the screenplay into a social realist saga about a kid surviving the tough streets of the Great Depression
. After four days of filming, which reportedly included some nude scenes, Ransohoff disliked the rushes and immediately fired him. Eventually directed by Norman Jewison
and starring Steve McQueen, the film went on to become a 1965 hit. Peckinpah found himself banished from the film industry for several years.
needed a writer and director to adapt Katherine Anne Porter
's short novel Noon Wine
for television. Melnick was a big fan of The Westerner and Ride the High Country, and had heard Peckinpah had been unfairly fired from The Cincinnati Kid. Against the objections of many within the industry, Melnick hired Peckinpah and gave him free rein. Peckinpah completed the script, which Miss Porter enthusiastically endorsed, and the project became an hour-long presentation for ABC Stage 67
. Taking place in turn of the century West Texas, Noon Wine was a dark tragedy about a farmer's act of futile murder which leads to suicide. Starring Jason Robards
and Olivia de Havilland
, the film was a critical hit, with Peckinpah nominated by the Writers Guild
for Best Television Adaptation and the Directors Guild of America
for Best Television Direction. Robards kept a personal copy of the film in his private collection for years as he considered the project to be one of his most satisfying professional experiences. A rare film which can only be viewed at the Library of Congress
and the Museum of Broadcasting, Noon Wine is today considered one of Peckinpah's most intimate works, revealing his dramatic potential and artistic depth.
producers Kenneth Hyman and Phil Feldman were interested in having Peckinpah rewrite and direct an adventure film, The Diamond Story. An alternative screenplay
written by Roy Sickner and Walon Green
was the western The Wild Bunch. At the time, William Goldman
's screenplay Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
had recently been purchased by 20th Century Fox
.
It was quickly decided that The Wild Bunch, which had several similarities to Goldman's work, would be produced in order to beat Butch Cassidy to the theaters. By the fall of 1967, Peckinpah was rewriting the screenplay into what became The Wild Bunch
. Filmed on location in Mexico, Peckinpah's epic work was inspired by his hunger to return to films, the violence seen in Arthur Penn
's Bonnie and Clyde
, America's growing frustration with the Vietnam War
, and what he perceived to be the utter lack of reality seen in Westerns up to that time. He set out to make a film which portrayed not only the vicious violence of the period, but the crude men attempting to survive the era. Starring William Holden
, Ernest Borgnine
, Robert Ryan
, Ben Johnson
, Warren Oates
, Jaime Sánchez
and Edmond O'Brien
, the film detailed a gang of veteran outlaws on the Texas/Mexico border in 1913 trying to exist within a rapidly approaching modern world. The Wild Bunch is framed by two ferocious and infamous gunfights, beginning with a failed robbery of the railway company office and concluding with the outlaws battling the Mexican army in suicidal vengeance due to the death of one of their members. Irreverent and unprecedented in its explicit detail, the 1969 film was an instant success. Multiple scenes attempted in Major Dundee, including slow motion
action sequences, characters leaving a village as if in a funeral procession and the use of inexperienced locals as extras, were perfected in The Wild Bunch. Many critics denounced its violence
as sadistic and exploitative. Other critics and filmmakers hailed the originality of its unique rapid editing
style, created for the first time in this film and ultimately becoming a Peckinpah trademark, and praised the reworking of traditional Western themes. It was the beginning of Peckinpah's international fame, and he and his work remained controversial for the rest of his life. The film was ranked No. 80
on the American Film Institute's
top 100 list of the greatest American films ever made and No. 69
as the most thrilling, but the controversy has not diminished. When The Wild Bunch was re-released for its 25th anniversary, it received an NC-17
rating from the MPAA, proving the film's continued impact after so many years. Peckinpah received his only Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay for this film.
. Utilizing many of the same cast (L. Q. Jones, Strother Martin
) and crew members of The Wild Bunch, the film covered three years in the life of small-time entrepreneur Cable Hogue (Jason Robards
) who decides to make a fortune after discovering water in the desert. He opens his business along a stagecoach
line, only to see his dreams end with the appearance of the first automobile
on the horizon. Shot on location in the desert
of Nevada
, the film was plagued by poor weather, Peckinpah's renewed drinking and his brusque firing of 36 crew members. The chaotic filming wrapped 19 days over schedule and $3 million over budget, effectively terminating his tenure with Warner Bros.-Seven Arts
. In retrospect, it was a damaging career move as Deliverance and Jeremiah Johnson, critical and enduring box office hits, were in development at the time and Peckinpah was considered the first choice to direct both films. Largely ignored upon its initial release, The Ballad of Cable Hogue has been rediscovered in recent years and is often held up by critics as exemplary of the breadth of Peckinpah's talents. They claim that the film proves Peckinpah's ability to make unconventional and original work without resorting to explicit violence. Over the years, Peckinpah cited the film as one of his favorites.
. It starred Dustin Hoffman
as David Sumner, a timid American mathematician
(his wife at one point attempts to erase Einstein's field equations from his blackboard) who leaves the chaos of college anti-war protests
to live with his young wife Amy (Susan George
) in her native village in Cornwall, England. Resentment of David's presence by the locals slowly builds to a shocking climax when the mild-mannered academic is forced to defend his home. Peckinpah entirely rewrote the existing screenplay, inspired by the books African Genesis and The Territorial Imperative by Robert Ardrey
, which argued that man was essentially a carnivore
who instinctively battled over control of territory. The character of David Sumner, taunted and humiliated by the town locals, is eventually cornered within his home where he loses control and kills several of the men during the violent conclusion. Straw Dogs deeply divided critics, some of whom praised its artistry and its confrontation of human savagery, while others attacked it as a misogynistic and fascistic celebration of violence. Much of the criticism centered around Amy's complicated and lengthy rape
scene, which Peckinpah reportedly attempted to base on his own personal fears rooted in past failed marriages. To this day, the scene is attacked by critics as an ugly male-chauvinist
fantasy, claiming it serves as an example of Peckinpah's (and Hollywood's) debasing of women. The film was for many years banned on video in the UK, although some critics have come to hail it as one of Peckinpah's greatest films.
. The lyrical screenplay by Jeb Rosenbrook, depicting the changing times of society and binding family ties, appealed to Peckinpah's tastes. He accepted the project, at the time concerned with being typed as a director of violent action. The film was his final attempt to make a low-key, dramatic work in the vein of Noon Wine and The Ballad of Cable Hogue. Filmed on location in Prescott, Arizona
, the story covered a week in the life of aging rodeo
rider Junior "JR" Bonner (Steve McQueen) who returns to his hometown to compete in an annual rodeo competition. In addition to McQueen, the cast included Robert Preston
, Ida Lupino
, Joe Don Baker
and Ben Johnson
. Junior Bonner was marked by sharp character development, colorful location detail and unusually tender scenes between Preston and Lupino as Bonner's estranged parents. Promoted as a Steve McQueen action vehicle, reviews were mixed and the film performed poorly at the box office. Peckinpah remarked, "I made a film where nobody got shot and nobody went to see it." The film's reputation has grown over the years as many critics consider Junior Bonner to be one of Peckinpah's most sympathetic works, while also noting McQueen's earnest performance.
. Based on the Jim Thompson
novel, the gritty crime thriller detailed lovers on the run following a dangerous robbery. Both Peckinpah and McQueen needed a hit, and they immediately began working on the film in February 1972. Peckinpah had no pretensions about making The Getaway, as his only goal was to create a highly-polished thriller to boost his market value. McQueen played Doc McCoy, an imprisoned mastermind robber whose wife Carol (Ali MacGraw
) conspires for his release on the condition they rob a bank in Texas. A doublecross follows the crime, and the McCoys are forced to flee for Mexico
with both the police and criminals in hot pursuit. Replete with explosions, car chases and intense shootouts, the film became Peckinpah's biggest financial success to date earning more than $25 million at the box office. Though strictly a commercial product, Peckinpah's creative touches abound throughout, most notably during the intricately-edited opening sequence when McQueen's character is suffering from the pressures of prison life. The film remains popular and was remade in 1994 (The Getaway
).
, Peckinpah sneaked across the border into Juarez
in April 1972 and married Joie Gould. He had met Gould in England
while filming Straw Dogs, and she had since been his companion and a part-time crew member. Peckinpah's intake of alcohol had increased dramatically while making The Getaway, and he became fond of saying, "I can't direct when I'm sober." He began to have violent mood swings
and explosions of rage, at one point assaulting Gould. After four months, she returned to England and filed for divorce. Devastated by the breakup, Peckinpah fell into a self destructive pattern of almost continuous alcohol consumption, and his health was unstable for the remainder of his life.
(1973) for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
. Based on the screenplay by Rudolph Wurlitzer (who had previously penned Two-Lane Blacktop
, a film admired by Peckinpah), the director was convinced that he was about to make his definitive statement on the Western genre. The script offered Peckinpah the opportunity to explore themes that appealed to him: two former partners forced by changing times onto opposite sides of the law, manipulated by corrupt economic interests. Peckinpah rewrote the screenplay, establishing Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid as friends, and attempted to weave an epic tragedy from the historical legend. Filmed on location in the Mexican state of Durango
, the film starred James Coburn
and Kris Kristofferson
in the title roles, with a huge supporting cast including Bob Dylan
(who composed the film's music), Jason Robards
, R. G. Armstrong
, Richard Jaeckel
, Jack Elam
, Chill Wills
, Katy Jurado
, L. Q. Jones
, Slim Pickens
and Harry Dean Stanton
. From the beginning, Peckinpah began to have clashes with MGM and its president James Aubrey, known for his stifling of creative interests and eventual dismantling of the historic movie company. Numerous production difficulties, including an outbreak of influenza
and malfunctioning cameras, combined with Peckinpah's growing problems with alcohol, resulted in one of the most troubled productions of his career. The film finished 21 days behind schedule and $1.6 million over budget. Enraged, Aubrey severely cut Peckinpah's film from 124 to 106 minutes, resulting in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid being released in a truncated version largely disowned by cast and crew members. Critics complained that the film was incoherent, and the experience soured Peckinpah forever on Hollywood. In 1988, however, Peckinpah's director's cut was released on video and led to a reevaluation, with many critics hailing it as a mistreated classic and one of the era's best films. Filmmakers, including Martin Scorsese
, have praised the film as one of the greatest modern Westerns.
(1974) was the last true "Peckinpah film." The director himself claimed that it was the only one of his films to be released exactly as he intended it. A project in development for many years and based on an idea by Frank Kowalski
, Peckinpah wrote the screenplay with the assistance of Kowalski, Walter Kelley and Gordon Dawson. An alcohol-soaked fever dream involving revenge, greed and murder in the Mexican countryside, the film featured Warren Oates
as a thinly disguised self-portrait of Peckinpah, and co-starred a leather bag containing the severed head of a gigolo being sought by a Mexican patrone for one million dollars. The macabre
drama was part black comedy
, action film
and tragedy
, with a warped edge rarely seen in Peckinpah's works. Most critics were repulsed, and it was listed in the book The 50 Worst Films of All Time
by Harry Medved and Randy Dreyfuss. One of the few critics to praise the film was Roger Ebert
, and in fact, the film's reputation has grown in recent years, with many noting its uncompromising vision as well as its anticipation of the violent black comedy which became famous in the works of such directors as David Lynch
and Quentin Tarantino
. While a failure at the box office, the film today has a devoted cult following
. In 1991, UCLA's film school organized a festival of great but forgotten American films, and included Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia in the program. It is reportedly Takeshi Kitano
's favorite film. It also led a film critic to paraphrase the film's title in an attack on the director, saying, "Bring me the head of Sam Peckinpah".
(1975), an action-filled espionage thriller starring James Caan and Robert Duvall
as rival American agents. Filmed on location in San Francisco, Peckinpah allegedly discovered cocaine
for the first time thanks to Caan and his entourage. This led to increased paranoia
and his once legendary dedication to detail deteriorated. Producers also refused to allow Peckinpah to rewrite the screenplay (for the first time since his debut film The Deadly Companions
). Frustrated, the director spent large amounts of time in his on-location trailer, allowing assistants to direct many scenes. At one point he overdosed
on cocaine, landing himself in a hospital and receiving a second pacemaker
. Through it all, the film was completed and did decent box office business, though critics panned it. Today, the film is considered one of Peckinpah's weakest films, and an example of his decline as a major director.
(1976) and Superman (1978). Interestingly, he turned down both offers and chose instead the bleak and vivid World War II
drama Cross of Iron
(1977). The screenplay was based on a novel about a platoon of German soldiers
in 1943 on the verge of utter collapse on the Crimean Peninsula
. The German production was filmed on location in Yugoslavia
. Working with James Hamilton and Walter Kelley, Peckinpah rewrote the screenplay and screened numerous Nazi documentaries
in preparation. Almost immediately, Peckinpah realized he was working on a low-budget production, as he had to sink $90,000 of his own money to hire experienced crew members. While not suffering from the cocaine abuse which marked The Killer Elite, Peckinpah continued to drink heavily causing his direction to become confused and erratic. The production abruptly ran out of funds, and Peckinpah was forced to completely improvise the concluding sequence, filming the scene in one day. Despite these obstacles, the film's war footage was stunning and James Coburn
, in the lead role of Rolf Steiner, gave one of the finest performances of his career. Co-starring James Mason
, Maximilian Schell
, David Warner
and Senta Berger
, Cross of Iron was noted for its opening montage utilizing documentary
footage as well as the visceral impact of the unusually intense battle sequences. The film was a huge box office success in Europe
, inspiring the sequel Breakthrough
starring Richard Burton
. Cross of Iron was reportedly a favorite of Orson Welles
who said that after All Quiet on the Western Front
it was the finest anti-war film he had ever seen. The film performed poorly in the U.S., eclipsed ultimately by the space adventure Star Wars
, though today it is highly regarded and considered the last gasp of Peckinpah's once-great talent.
by C. W. McCall
, the film was an attempt to capitalize on the huge success of Smokey and the Bandit
(1977). Addictions or not, Peckinpah still felt compelled to turn the genre exercise into something more significant. Unhappy with the screenplay written by B.W.L. Norton, Peckinpah tried to encourage the actors to re-write, improvise and ad-lib their dialogue. In another departure from the script, Peckinpah attempted to add a new dimension by casting a pair of black actors as members of the convoy including Madge Sinclair
as Widow Woman and Franklyn Ajaye
as Spider Mike. Filmed on location in New Mexico
and starring Kris Kristofferson
, Ali MacGraw
and Ernest Borgnine
, Convoy turned out to be yet another troubled Peckinpah production. The director's health became a continuing problem, so James Coburn was brought in to serve as second unit director, and he filmed many of the scenes while Peckinpah remained in his on-location trailer. The film wrapped in September 1977, 11 days behind schedule and $5 million over budget. Surprisingly, Convoy was the highest-grossing picture of Peckinpah's career, notching $46.5 million at the box office. But his reputation was seriously damaged. For the first time in almost a decade, Peckinpah finished a picture and found himself unemployed.
For the next three years, Peckinpah remained a professional outcast. But during the summer of 1981, his original mentor Don Siegel
gave him a chance to return to filmmaking. While shooting Jinxed!
, a comedy drama starring Bette Midler
and Rip Torn
, Siegel asked Peckinpah if he would be interested in directing 12 days of second unit work. Peckinpah immediately accepted, and his earnest collaboration was noted within the industry. For the final time, Peckinpah found himself back in the directing business.
were undaunted, as they felt that having Peckinpah's name attached to The Osterman Weekend
(1983) would lend the suspense thriller an air of respectability. Peckinpah accepted the job but reportedly hated the convoluted screenplay based upon Robert Ludlum
's novel (which he also disliked). Multiple actors in Hollywood auditioned for the film, intrigued by the opportunity. Many of those who signed on, including John Hurt
, Burt Lancaster
and Dennis Hopper
, did so for less than their usual salaries for a chance to work with the legendary director. By the time shooting wrapped in January 1983 in Los Angeles, Peckinpah and the producers were hardly speaking. Nevertheless, Peckinpah brought in the film on time and on budget, delivering his director's cut
to the producers. Davis and Panzer were unhappy with Peckinpah's version, which included a grossly distorted opening sequence of two characters making love. The producers changed the opening and also deleted other scenes they deemed unnecessary. The Osterman Weekend had some effective action sequences and some strong supporting performances, but Peckinpah's final film was critically panned. It grossed $6 million domestically and did extremely well in Europe and on the new home-video market.
Peckinpah's last work as a filmmaker was undertaken just two months before his death. He was hired by producer Martin Lewis to shoot two music videos featuring Julian Lennon
- "Valotte
" and "Too Late For Goodbyes
". The critically acclaimed videos led to Lennon's nomination for Best New Video Artist at the 1985 MTV Video Music Awards
.
The conflicts of masculinity are also a major theme of his work, leading some critics to compare him to Ernest Hemingway
. Peckinpah's world is a man's world, and feminists have castigated his films as misogynistic and sexist, especially concerning the shooting of a woman during the final moments of The Wild Bunch
, the rape sequence in Straw Dogs and Doc McCoy's physical assault of his wife in The Getaway
.
Many critics see his worldview as a misanthropic, Hobbesian view of nature as essentially evil and savage. Peckinpah himself stated the opposite. He saw violence as the product of human society, and not of nature. It is the result of men's competition with each other over power and domination, and their inability to negotiate this competition without resorting to brutality. Peckinpah also used violence as a means to achieve catharsis
, believing his audience would be purged of violence by witnessing it explicitly on screen (one of the major inspirations for his violent sequences in The Wild Bunch). Peckinpah later admitted that this idea was mistaken, and that audiences had come to enjoy the violence in his films rather than be horrified by it, something that deeply troubled him later in his career.
Peckinpah, who was born to a ranching family that included judges and lawyers, was also deeply concerned by the conflict between "old-fashioned" values and the corruption and materialism of the modern world. Many of his characters are attempting to live up to their expectations of themselves even as the world they live in demands that they compromise their values.
This theme is most evident in Peckinpah's Westerns. Unlike most Western directors, Peckinpah tended to concentrate on the early 20th century rather than the 19th, and his films portray characters who still believe in the values of the Old West being swept away by the new, industrial America.
This persistent theme has led many critics to view Peckinpah's films as essentially tragic. That is, his characters are portrayed as being prisoners of their fates and their own failings who nonetheless seek redemption and meaning in an absurd and violent world. The theme of longing for redemption, justification, and honor in a dishonorable existence permeates almost all of Peckinpah's work.
Peckinpah's greatest influence is upon the modern action film and the modern approach to action sequences. His signature combination of slow-motion, fast editing, and the deliberate distension of time has become the standard depiction of violence and action in post-Peckinpavian cinema. The approach to action in movies can be divided between before Peckinpah and after Peckinpah. While films before The Wild Bunch had used similar techniques, especially Bonnie and Clyde
and Seven Samurai, Peckinpah was the first to use them as a distinct style rather than as specific set pieces. Directors such as Martin Scorsese
have acknowledged Peckinpah's direct influence on their approach to film violence. John Woo
derived his techniques extensively from Peckinpah, adding his own touch of choreography and action concepts. Additional filmmakers who have noted Peckinpah's influence have included Paul Schrader
, Walter Hill, John Milius
, Quentin Tarantino
, Kathryn Bigelow
, Michael Mann, Takeshi Kitano
and Park Chan-wook
.
Peckinpah's themes have also been influential on other filmmakers and other Western films. Clint Eastwood
's High Plains Drifter
, The Outlaw Josey Wales
and Unforgiven
also take up Peckinpah's themes of the dangers of revenge, the nature of human violence, and men seeking to be honorable in dishonorable surroundings. The theme of the passing of the West into history and the destruction of the Western way of life by modern industrialism has also been explored by many post-Peckinpah Westerns.
In many ways, Peckinpah's greatest legacy lies in his aggressive breaking of taboos. He allowed a new freedom to emerge in cinema, not only in the depiction of violence, but also in editing styles, narrative choices, and the willingness to portray unsympathetic or tragic characters and stories. His notorious reputation has often overshadowed the depth of his influence on modern film.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
filmmaker and screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
who achieved prominence following the release of the Western
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
epic The Wild Bunch
The Wild Bunch
The Wild Bunch is a 1969 American Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah about an aging outlaw gang on the Texas-Mexico border, trying to exist in the changing "modern" world of 1913...
(1969). He was known for the innovative and explicit depiction of action and violence, as well as his revisionist
Revisionist Western
The Revisionist Western, Modern Western or Anti-Western traces to the mid 1960s and early 1970s as a sub-genre of the Western movie....
approach to the Western genre.
Peckinpah's films generally deal with the conflict between values and ideals, and the corruption of violence in human society. He was given the nickname "Bloody Sam" owing to the violence in his films. His characters are often loners or losers who desire to be honorable, but are forced to compromise in order to survive in a world of nihilism
Nihilism
Nihilism is the philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more putatively meaningful aspects of life. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value...
and brutality.
Peckinpah's combative personality, marked by years of alcohol
Alcohol abuse
Alcohol abuse, as described in the DSM-IV, is a psychiatric diagnosis describing the recurring use of alcoholic beverages despite negative consequences. Alcohol abuse eventually progresses to alcoholism, a condition in which an individual becomes dependent on alcoholic beverages in order to avoid...
and drug abuse
Drug abuse
Substance abuse, also known as drug abuse, refers to a maladaptive pattern of use of a substance that is not considered dependent. The term "drug abuse" does not exclude dependency, but is otherwise used in a similar manner in nonmedical contexts...
, has often overshadowed his professional legacy. Many of his films were noted for behind-the-scenes battles with producers and crew members, damaging his reputation and career during his lifetime. Many of his films, such as Straw Dogs (1971), Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973) and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is a 1974 American action film directed by Sam Peckinpah and featuring Warren Oates....
(1974), remain controversial.
Family origins
Peckinpah's great-grandfather, Rice Peckinpaugh, a merchant and farmer in Indiana, moved to Humboldt CountyHumboldt County, California
Humboldt County is a county in the U.S. state of California, located on the far North Coast 200 miles north of San Francisco. According to 2010 Census Data, the county’s population was 134,623...
California in the 1850s working in the logging
Logging
Logging is the cutting, skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks.In forestry, the term logging is sometimes used in a narrow sense concerning the logistics of moving wood from the stump to somewhere outside the forest, usually a sawmill or a lumber yard...
business, and changed the spelling of the family name to "Peckinpah". Peckinpah Meadow and Peckinpah Creek, where the family ran a lumber mill on a mountain in the High Sierra north of Coarsegold, California
Coarsegold, California
Coarsegold is a census-designated place in Madera County, California. It is located south-southwest of Yosemite Forks, at an elevation of 2218 feet...
, have been officially named on U.S. geographical maps. Peckinpah's maternal grandfather was Denver Church, a cattle rancher, Superior Court judge and United States Congressman of a California district including Fresno County. Peckinpah and several relatives often claimed Native American
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
ancestry, but this has been denied by surviving family members. Sam Peckinpah's nephew is David Peckinpah
David Peckinpah
David Ernest Peckinpah was a television writer, producer and director. David Peckinpah was the nephew of film director Sam Peckinpah...
, who was a television producer and director, as well as a screenplay writer. Peckinpah's parents were David Edward Peckinpah and Fern Louise Church, and he is a cousin of former New York Yankees
New York Yankees
The New York Yankees are a professional baseball team based in the The Bronx, New York. They compete in Major League Baseball in the American League's East Division...
shortstop Roger Peckinpaugh
Roger Peckinpaugh
Roger Thorpe Peckinpaugh was an American shortstop in Major League Baseball for the Cleveland Indians , New York Yankees , Washington Senators and Chicago White Sox...
.
Life
David Samuel "Sam" Peckinpah was born February 21, 1925, in Fresno, CaliforniaFresno, California
Fresno is a city in central California, United States, the county seat of Fresno County. As of the 2010 census, the city's population was 510,365, making it the fifth largest city in California, the largest inland city in California, and the 34th largest in the nation...
, where he attended both grammar school and high school. He spent much time skipping classes with his brother to engage in cowboy
Cowboy
A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the vaquero traditions of northern Mexico and became a figure of...
activities on their grandfather Denver Church
Denver S. Church
Denver Samuel Church was a U.S. Representative from California.Born in Folsom City, California, Church attended the common schools.He was graduated from Healdsburg College in 1885.He studied law....
's ranch, including trapping, branding, and shooting. During the 1930s and 1940s, Coarsegold and Bass Lake
Bass Lake, California
Bass Lake is a freshwater artificial lake in the Sierra National Forest, of Madera County, California, approximately south of the entrance to Yosemite National Park. The lake is formed by the construction of the Crane Valley Dam across Willow Creek, a tributary to the San Joaquin River, and is...
were still populated with descendants of the miners and ranchers of the 19th century. Many of these descendants worked on Church's ranch. At that time, it was a rural area undergoing extreme change, and this exposure is believed to have affected Peckinpah's Western
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
films later in life.
He played on the junior varsity football team while at Fresno High School, but frequent fighting and discipline problems caused his parents to enroll him in the San Rafael Military Academy for his senior year. In 1943, he joined the United States Marine Corps
United States Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for providing power projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to deliver combined-arms task forces rapidly. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...
. Within two years, his battalion was sent to China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
with the task of disarming Japanese soldiers and repatriating
Repatriation
Repatriation is the process of returning a person back to one's place of origin or citizenship. This includes the process of returning refugees or soldiers to their place of origin following a war...
them following World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. While his duty did not include combat
Combat
Combat, or fighting, is a purposeful violent conflict meant to establish dominance over the opposition, or to terminate the opposition forever, or drive the opposition away from a location where it is not wanted or needed....
, he claims to have witnessed acts of war between Chinese and Japanese soldiers. According to friends, these included several acts of torture and the murder of a laborer by sniper
Sniper
A sniper is a marksman who shoots targets from concealed positions or distances exceeding the capabilities of regular personnel. Snipers typically have specialized training and distinct high-precision rifles....
fire. The American Marines were not permitted to intervene. Peckinpah also claimed he was shot during an attack by Communist forces. Also during his final weeks as a Marine, he applied for discharge in Peking, so he could marry a local woman, but was refused. This reportedly deeply affected Peckinpah, and may have influenced his depictions of violence in his films.
After being discharged in Los Angeles, he attended Fresno State College, where he studied history. While a student, he met and married his first wife, Marie Selland, in 1947. A drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
major, Selland introduced Peckinpah to the theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
department and he became interested in directing for the first time. During his senior year, he adapted and directed a one-hour version of Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
' The Glass Menagerie
The Glass Menagerie
The Glass Menagerie is a four-character memory play by Tennessee Williams. Williams worked on various drafts of the play prior to writing a version of it as a screenplay for MGM, to whom Williams was contracted...
. After graduation in 1948, Peckinpah enrolled in graduate studies in drama at University of Southern California
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
. He spent two seasons as the director in residence at Huntington Park Civic Theatre near Los Angeles before obtaining his master's degree. He was asked to stay on another year, but Peckinpah began working as a stagehand
Stagehand
A stagehand is a person who works backstage or behind the scenes in theatres, film, television, or location performance. Their duties include setting up the scenery, lights, sound, props, rigging, and special effects for a production.-Types of stagehand:...
at KLAC-TV in the belief that television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
experience would eventually lead to work in films. Even during this early stage of his career, Peckinpah was developing a combative streak. Reportedly, he was kicked off the set of The Liberace Show
Liberace
Wladziu Valentino Liberace , best known simply as Liberace, was a famous American pianist and vocalist.In a career that spanned four decades of concerts, recordings, motion pictures, television and endorsements, Liberace became world-renowned...
for not wearing a tie, and he refused to cue a car salesman during a live feed because of his attitude towards stagehands.
In 1954, Peckinpah was hired as "dialogue director" for the film Riot in Cell Block 11
Riot in Cell Block 11
Riot in Cell Block 11 is a 1954 drama film starring Neville Brand and Leo Gordon. It was directed by Don Siegel, based on the screenplay by Richard Collins.-Plot:...
. His job entailed acting as a gopher for the movie's director, Don Siegel
Don Siegel
Donald Siegel was an influential American film director and producer. His name variously appeared in the credits of his films as both Don Siegel and Donald Siegel.-Early life:...
. The film was shot on location at Folsom Prison. Reportedly, the warden was reluctant to allow the filmmakers to work at the prison until he was introduced to Peckinpah. The warden knew his family from Fresno and was immediately cooperative. Siegel's location work and his use of actual prisoners as extras in the film made a lasting impression on Peckinpah. He worked as an assistant to the director on four additional films including Private Hell 36
Private Hell 36
Private Hell 36 is a black-and-white film noir, directed by Don Siegel. It features Ida Lupino, Steve Cochran, Howard Duff, among others....
(1954), An Annapolis Story, (1955, and co-starring L. Q. Jones
L. Q. Jones
L.Q. Jones is an American character actor and film director, known for his work in the films of Sam Peckinpah.-Life and career:...
), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and Crime in the Streets (1956). Invasion of the Body Snatchers, in which Peckinpah appeared in a cameo as Charlie the meter reader, starred Kevin McCarthy
Kevin McCarthy (actor)
Kevin McCarthy was an American stage, film, and television actor, who appeared in over two hundred television and film roles. For his role in the 1951 film version of Death of a Salesman, he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and won a Golden Globe Award for New Star of...
and Dana Wynter
Dana Wynter
Dana Wynter was a German-born British actress, who was brought up in England and Southern Africa. She appeared in film and television for more than forty years beginning in the 1950s, most notably in the original version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.-Early life:Wynter was born as Dagmar...
. It became one of the most critically praised science fiction
History of science fiction films
The history of science fiction films parallels that of the motion picture industry as a whole, although it took several decades before the genre was taken seriously. Since the 1960s, major science fiction films have succeeded in pulling in large audience shares, and films of this genre have become...
films of the 1950s. Peckinpah claimed to have done an extensive rewrite on the film's screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
, a statement which remains controversial. Nevertheless, Peckinpah's association with Siegel established him as an emerging screenwriter and potential director.
Throughout much of his adult life, Peckinpah was affected by alcoholism
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
, and, later, drug addiction. According to some accounts, he also suffered from mental illness
Mental illness
A mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological or behavioral pattern generally associated with subjective distress or disability that occurs in an individual, and which is not a part of normal development or culture. Such a disorder may consist of a combination of affective, behavioural,...
, possibly manic depression or paranoia
Paranoia
Paranoia [] is a thought process believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a perceived threat towards oneself...
. It is believed his drinking problems began during his service in the military while stationed in China, when he would frequent the saloons of Tientsin and Peking. After divorcing Selland, the mother of his first four children, in 1960, he married the Mexican actress Begoña Palacios in 1965. A stormy relationship developed, and over the years they married on three separate occasions. They had one daughter together. His personality reportedly often swung between a sweet, soft-spoken, artistic disposition, and bouts of rage and violence during which he verbally and physically abused himself and others. An experienced hunter, Peckinpah was fascinated with firearms and was known to shoot the mirrors in his house while abusing alcohol, an image which occurs several times in his films. Peckinpah's reputation as a hard-living brute with a taste for violence, inspired by the content in his most popular films and in many ways perpetuated by himself, has overshadowed his artistic legacy. His friends and family have claimed this does a disservice to a man who was actually more complex than generally credited. Throughout his career, Peckinpah seems to have inspired extraordinary loyalty in certain friends and employees. He used the same actors (Warren Oates
Warren Oates
Warren Mercer Oates was an American actor best known for his performances in several films directed by Sam Peckinpah including The Wild Bunch and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia...
, L. Q. Jones
L. Q. Jones
L.Q. Jones is an American character actor and film director, known for his work in the films of Sam Peckinpah.-Life and career:...
, R. G. Armstrong
R. G. Armstrong
Robert Golden "R.G." Armstrong is an American actor and playwright. A veteran character actor who appeared in dozens of Westerns over the course of his 40-year career, he may be best remembered for his work with director Sam Peckinpah....
, James Coburn
James Coburn
James Harrison Coburn III was an American film and television actor. Coburn appeared in nearly 70 films and made over 100 television appearances during his 45-year career, and played a wide range of roles and won an Academy Award for his supporting role as Glen Whitehouse in Affliction.A capable,...
, Ben Johnson
Ben Johnson (actor)
Ben "Son" Johnson, Jr. was an American motion picture actor who was mainly cast in Westerns. He was also a rodeo cowboy, stuntman, and rancher.-Personal life:...
, and Kris Kristofferson
Kris Kristofferson
Kristoffer "Kris" Kristofferson is an American musician, actor, and writer. He is known for hits such as "Me and Bobby McGee", "For the Good Times", "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down", and "Help Me Make It Through the Night"...
), and collaborators (Jerry Fielding
Jerry Fielding
Jerry Fielding was an American radio, record, film and television composer, conductor, and musical director.-Childhood and education:...
, Lucien Ballard
Lucien Ballard
Lucien Ballard, A.S.C. was an American cinematographer and director of photography.Born in Miami, Oklahoma, Ballard began working on films at Paramount Studios in 1929. He later joked in an interview that it was a three day party at the home of actress Clara Bow that convinced him "this is the...
, Gordon Dawson, and Martin Baum) in many of his films, and several of his friends and assistants stuck by him to the end of his life.
Peckinpah spent a great deal of his life in Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
after his marriage to Palacios, eventually buying property in the country. He was reportedly fascinated by the Mexican lifestyle and culture, and he often portrayed it with an unusual sentimentality and romanticism in his films. Four of his films, Major Dundee
Major Dundee
Major Dundee is a 1965 Western film written by Harry Julian Fink and directed by Sam Peckinpah. It starred Charlton Heston and Richard Harris as officers from opposing sides in the American Civil War who band together to hunt down a band of Apaches....
(1965), The Wild Bunch
The Wild Bunch
The Wild Bunch is a 1969 American Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah about an aging outlaw gang on the Texas-Mexico border, trying to exist in the changing "modern" world of 1913...
(1969), Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973) and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is a 1974 American action film directed by Sam Peckinpah and featuring Warren Oates....
(1974), were filmed entirely on location within Mexico, while The Getaway
The Getaway (1972 film)
The Getaway is a 1972 American action-crime film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw.The film is based on a novel by Jim Thompson, with the screenplay written by Walter Hill...
(1972) concludes with a couple escaping to freedom there.
Peckinpah was seriously ill during his final years, as a lifetime of hard living caught up with him. Regardless, he continued to work until his last months. He died of heart failure on December 28, 1984. At the time, he was in preparation for shooting an original script by Stephen King
Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...
entitled The Shotgunners, which later became a book called The Regulators
The Regulators
The Regulators is a novel by Stephen King under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. It was published in 1996 at the same time as its "mirror" novel, Desperation. The two novels represent parallel universes relative to one another, and most of the characters present in one novel's world also exist in the...
. He lived at The Murray Hotel
The Murray Hotel
The Murray Hotel, originally named the Elite Hotel, is an historic hotel in Livingston, Montana, United States. The original two story hotel was built at the corner of Park and Second St. in 1904 by Josephine Kline to accommodate passengers from the Northern Pacific Railway...
in Livingston, Montana
Livingston, Montana
-Geography:Livingston is located at , at an altitude of 4.501 feet .According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which, of it is land and 0.38% is waters.-Climate:-Demographics:...
from 1979 until his death in 1984.
Television career
On the recommendation of Don SiegelDon Siegel
Donald Siegel was an influential American film director and producer. His name variously appeared in the credits of his films as both Don Siegel and Donald Siegel.-Early life:...
, Peckinpah established himself during the late 1950s as a scriptwriter of Western
Television Westerns
Television Westerns are a sub-genre of the Western, a genre of film, fiction, drama, television programming, etc., in which stories are set primarily in the later half of the 19th century in the American Old West, Western Canada and Mexico during the period from about 1860 to the end of the...
series of the era, selling scripts to Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West....
, Have Gun – Will Travel, The Rifleman
The Rifleman
The Rifleman is an American Western television program that starred Chuck Connors as homesteader Lucas McCain and Johnny Crawford as his son, Mark McCain. It was set in the 1880s in the town of North Fork, New Mexico Territory. The show, filmed in black-and-white with a half hour running time, ran...
, Broken Arrow
Broken Arrow (TV series)
Broken Arrow is a Western series which ran on ABC-TV in prime time from 1956 through 1958 on Tuesdays at 9 p.m. Eastern time. Repeat episodes were shown by ABC on Sunday afternoons during the 1959–60 season...
, Klondike, and Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater
Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater
Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre, sometimes simply called Zane Grey Theatre, is an American Western anthology series which ran on CBS from 1956 to 1961.-Overview:Zane Grey Theatre was created by Luke Short and Charles A. Wallace...
. He also wrote a screenplay from the novel The Authentic Death of Hendry Jones, a draft that evolved into the 1961 Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando, Jr. was an American movie star and political activist. "Unchallenged as the most important actor in modern American Cinema" according to the St...
film One-Eyed Jacks
One-Eyed Jacks
One-Eyed Jacks, a 1961 Western, is the only film directed by actor Marlon Brando, who also played its lead character, Rio.The film was originally to be directed by Stanley Kubrick and Sam Peckinpah...
. His writing led to directing, and he directed a 1958 episode of Broken Arrow (generally credited as his first official directing job) and several 1960 episodes of Klondike
Klondike (TV series)
Klondike is a 17-episode half-hour Western television series that aired on NBC. The series premiered on October 10, 1960 and ran until February 13, 1961. It faced stiff competition from The Danny Thomas Show on CBS and the second half of the first-season detective series Surfside 6 starring Troy...
, (co-starring James Coburn
James Coburn
James Harrison Coburn III was an American film and television actor. Coburn appeared in nearly 70 films and made over 100 television appearances during his 45-year career, and played a wide range of roles and won an Academy Award for his supporting role as Glen Whitehouse in Affliction.A capable,...
, L. Q. Jones
L. Q. Jones
L.Q. Jones is an American character actor and film director, known for his work in the films of Sam Peckinpah.-Life and career:...
, Ralph Taeger
Ralph Taeger
Ralph Taeger is an American actor who starred in three television series during the 1960s.-Biography:Born in Queens, New York, USA,from German speaking parents Fredrich and Olga Siefert. Taeger's first career choice was professional baseball, and he did play briefly on a farm team for the Los...
, Joi Lansing
Joi Lansing
Joi Lansing was an American model, film and television actress, as well as a nightclub singer. She was most noted for her pin-up photos, and for her minor roles in B-movies...
, and Mari Blanchard
Mari Blanchard
Mari Blanchard was an American actress, known for her roles as a B movie femme fatale in American films of the 1950s and early 1960s.-Career:In the late 1940s, Blanchard was a successful print model and film extra...
). He also directed the CBS sitcom Mr. Adams and Eve
Mr. Adams and Eve
Mr. Adams and Eve is a CBS sitcom starring Howard Duff and his then wife, Ida Lupino, as a fictitious acting couple, Howard and Eve Adams, residing in Beverly Hills, California. In the television series, Lupino is known professionally as Eve Drake. The program aired sixty-six episodes from January...
, starring Howard Duff
Howard Duff
Howard Green Duff was an American actor of film, television, stage, and radio.Duff was born in Charleston, Washington, now a part of Bremerton. He graduated from Roosevelt High School in Seattle in 1932 where he began acting in school plays only after he was cut from the basketball team...
and Ida Lupino
Ida Lupino
Ida Lupino was an English-born film actress and director, and a pioneer among women filmmakers. In her 48-year career, she appeared in 59 films and directed seven others, mostly in the United States. She appeared in serial television programmes 58 times and directed 50 other episodes...
.
In 1958, Peckinpah wrote a script for Gunsmoke that was rejected due to content. He reworked the screenplay, titled The Sharpshooter, and sold it to Zane Grey Theater. The episode received popular response and became the television series The Rifleman
The Rifleman
The Rifleman is an American Western television program that starred Chuck Connors as homesteader Lucas McCain and Johnny Crawford as his son, Mark McCain. It was set in the 1880s in the town of North Fork, New Mexico Territory. The show, filmed in black-and-white with a half hour running time, ran...
, starring Chuck Connors
Chuck Connors
Chuck Connors was an American actor, writer, and professional basketball and baseball player. His best known role from his forty-year film career was Lucas McCain in the 1960s ABC hit Western series The Rifleman....
. Peckinpah directed four episodes of the series (with guest stars R. G. Armstrong
R. G. Armstrong
Robert Golden "R.G." Armstrong is an American actor and playwright. A veteran character actor who appeared in dozens of Westerns over the course of his 40-year career, he may be best remembered for his work with director Sam Peckinpah....
and Warren Oates
Warren Oates
Warren Mercer Oates was an American actor best known for his performances in several films directed by Sam Peckinpah including The Wild Bunch and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia...
), but left after the first year. The Rifleman ran for five seasons and achieved enduring popularity in syndication.
During this time, he also created the television series The Westerner
The Westerner (TV series)
The Westerner is a 1960 Four Star Television Western series on NBC created by Sam Peckinpah. The series stars Brian Keith as Dave Blassingame and features John Dehner as semi-regular Burgundy Smith...
, starring Brian Keith
Brian Keith
Brian Keith was an American film, television, and stage actor who in his four decade-long career gained recognition for his work in movies such as the 1961 Disney family film The Parent Trap, the 1966 comedy The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, and the 1975 adventure saga The Wind and...
and John Dehner
John Dehner
John Dehner was an American actor in radio, television, and films, playing countless roles, often as a droll villain. Between 1941 and 1988, he appeared in over 260 films and television programs. Prior to acting, Dehner had worked as an animator at Walt Disney Studios, and later became a radio...
. From 1959 to 1960, Peckinpah acted as producer of the series, having a hand in the writing of each episode and directing five of them. Critically praised, the show ran for only 13 episodes before cancellation mainly due to its gritty content detailing the drifting, laconic cowboy Dave Blassingame (Brian Keith). Despite its short run, The Westerner and Peckinpah were nominated by the Producers Guild of America
Producers Guild of America
Producers Guild of America is a trade organization representing television producers, film producers and New Media producers in the United States. The PGA's membership includes over 4,700 members of the producing establishment worldwide...
for Best Filmed Series. An episode of the series eventually served as the basis for Tom Gries' 1968 film Will Penny
Will Penny
Will Penny is a 1968 western film directed by Tom Gries starring Charlton Heston and Donald Pleasence. It was based upon an episode of the 1960 Sam Peckinpah television series The Westerner called "Line Camp," which was also written and directed by Tom Gries...
. The Westerner, which has since achieved cult status, further established Peckinpah as a talent to be reckoned with.
The Deadly Companions
After cancellation of The Westerner, Brian KeithBrian Keith
Brian Keith was an American film, television, and stage actor who in his four decade-long career gained recognition for his work in movies such as the 1961 Disney family film The Parent Trap, the 1966 comedy The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, and the 1975 adventure saga The Wind and...
was cast as the male lead in the 1961 Western film The Deadly Companions
The Deadly Companions
The Deadly Companions is a 1961 Western. It was directed by Sam Peckinpah and starred Maureen O'Hara, Brian Keith, Steve Cochran and Chill Wills. The film is based on A.S. Fleischman's novel of the same name. The film was Peckinpah's motion picture directorial debut...
. He suggested Peckinpah as the director and producer Charles B. Fitzsimons
Charles B. Fitzsimons
Charles B. Fitzsimons was an Irish actor who emigrated to the United States, where he became a film producer after ending his acting career. Fitzsimons was the younger brother of famed actress Maureen O'Hara...
accepted the idea. By most accounts, the low-budget film shot on location in Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
was a learning process for Peckinpah, who feuded with Fitzsimons (brother of the film's star Maureen O'Hara
Maureen O'Hara
Maureen O'Hara is an Irish film actress and singer. The famously red-headed O'Hara has been noted for playing fiercely passionate heroines with a highly sensible attitude. She often worked with director John Ford and longtime friend John Wayne...
) over the screenplay and staging of the scenes. Reportedly, Fitzsimons refused to allow Peckinpah to give direction to O'Hara. Unable to rewrite the screenplay or edit the picture, Peckinpah vowed to never again direct a film unless he had script control. The Deadly Companions passed largely without notice and is the least known of Peckinpah's films.
Ride the High Country
His second film, Ride the High CountryRide the High Country
Ride the High Country is a noted 1962 American Western film. It stars Joel McCrea, Randolph Scott, Ron Starr, Edgar Buchanan and Mariette Hartley. It was written by N.B...
(1962), was based on the screenplay Guns in the Afternoon written by N.B. Stone, Jr. Producer Richard Lyons admired Peckinpah's work on The Westerner and offered him the directing job. Peckinpah did an extensive rewrite of the screenplay, including personal references from his own childhood growing up on Denver Church's ranch, and even naming one of the mining towns "Coarsegold." He based the character of Steve Judd, a once-famous lawman fallen on hard times, on his own father David Peckinpah. In the screenplay, Judd and old friend Gil Westrum are hired to transport gold from a mining community through dangerous territory. Westrum hopes to talk Judd into taking the gold for themselves. Along the way, following the example of Judd, Westrum slowly realizes his own self respect is far more important than profit. During the final shootout, when Judd and Westrum stand up to a trio of men, Judd is fatally wounded and his death serves as Westrum's salvation - a Catholic
Divine grace
In Christian theology, grace is God’s gift of God’s self to humankind. It is understood by Christians to be a spontaneous gift from God to man - "generous, free and totally unexpected and undeserved" - that takes the form of divine favour, love and clemency. It is an attribute of God that is most...
tragedy weaved from the Western genre. It became a major theme in many Peckinpah films to come. Starring aging Western stars Joel McCrea
Joel McCrea
Joel Albert McCrea was an American actor whose career spanned 50 years and appearances in over 90 films.-Early life:...
and Randolph Scott
Randolph Scott
Randolph Scott was an American film actor whose career spanned from 1928 to 1962. As a leading man for all but the first three years of his cinematic career, Scott appeared in a variety of genres, including social dramas, crime dramas, comedies, musicals , adventure tales, war films, and even a few...
in their final major screen roles, the film initially went unnoticed in the United States but was an enormous success in Europe. Beating Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI , was an Italian film director and scriptwriter. Known for a distinct style that blends fantasy and baroque images, he is considered one of the most influential and widely revered filmmakers of the 20th century...
's 8½
8½
8½ is a 1963 Italian fantasy film directed by Federico Fellini. Co-scripted by Fellini, Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano, and Brunello Rondi, it stars Marcello Mastroianni as Guido Anselmi, a famous Italian film director...
for first prize at the Belgium Film Festival, the film was hailed by foreign critics as a brilliant reworking of the Western genre. New York critics also discovered Peckinpah's unusual Western, with Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
naming Ride the High Country the best film of the year and Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
placing it on its best-ten list. By some critics, the film is admired as one of Peckinpah's greatest works.
Major Dundee
Peckinpah's next film, Major DundeeMajor Dundee
Major Dundee is a 1965 Western film written by Harry Julian Fink and directed by Sam Peckinpah. It starred Charlton Heston and Richard Harris as officers from opposing sides in the American Civil War who band together to hunt down a band of Apaches....
(1965), was the first of Peckinpah's many unfortunate experiences with the major studios that financed his productions. Based on a screenplay by Harry Julian Fink
Harry Julian Fink
Harry Julian Fink, television and film writer, wrote for Have Gun – Will Travel and was one of the writers who created Dirty Harry.He wrote for various TV shows in the 1950s and 1960s, and also created several, including NBC's T.H.E. Cat, starring Robert Loggia, and Tate starring David McLean.His...
, the film was to star Charlton Heston
Charlton Heston
Charlton Heston was an American actor of film, theatre and television. Heston is known for heroic roles in films such as The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, El Cid, and Planet of the Apes...
. Peckinpah was hired as director after Heston viewed producer Jerry Bresler
Jerry Bresler
Jerry Bresler was a songwriter, with one of his most famous compositions being "Five Guys Named Moe". He won an Oscar and subsequently had two other nominations for his two-reel short films....
's private screening of Ride the High Country. Heston liked the film and called Peckinpah, saying, "I'd like to work with you." The sprawling screenplay told the story of Union cavalry officer Major Dundee who commands a New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
outpost of Confederate
Confederate States Army
The Confederate States Army was the army of the Confederate States of America while the Confederacy existed during the American Civil War. On February 8, 1861, delegates from the seven Deep South states which had already declared their secession from the United States of America adopted the...
prisoners. When an Apache
Apache
Apache is the collective term for several culturally related groups of Native Americans in the United States originally from the Southwest United States. These indigenous peoples of North America speak a Southern Athabaskan language, which is related linguistically to the languages of Athabaskan...
war chief wipes out a company and kidnaps several children, Dundee throws together a makeshift army, including unwilling Confederate veterans, black Federal soldiers, and traditional Western types, and takes off after the Indians. Dundee becomes obsessed with his quest and heads deep into the wilderness of Mexico with his exhausted men in tow. Peckinpah's first big-budget film had a large cast, including Heston, Richard Harris
Richard Harris
Richard St John Harris was an Irish actor, singer-songwriter, theatrical producer, film director and writer....
, James Coburn
James Coburn
James Harrison Coburn III was an American film and television actor. Coburn appeared in nearly 70 films and made over 100 television appearances during his 45-year career, and played a wide range of roles and won an Academy Award for his supporting role as Glen Whitehouse in Affliction.A capable,...
, Senta Berger
Senta Berger
Senta Berger is an Austrian film, stage and television actress, producer and author.Regarded by critics as one of the greatest actresses of the post-war period, and frequently named as one of the leading German-speaking actresses in polls, Berger has received many award nominations for her acting...
, Jim Hutton
Jim Hutton
Dana James Hutton , usually credited as Jim Hutton, was an American actor in film and television probably best remembered for his role as Ellery Queen in the 1970s TV series of the same name.-Early life and career:...
, Ben Johnson
Ben Johnson (actor)
Ben "Son" Johnson, Jr. was an American motion picture actor who was mainly cast in Westerns. He was also a rodeo cowboy, stuntman, and rancher.-Personal life:...
, Warren Oates
Warren Oates
Warren Mercer Oates was an American actor best known for his performances in several films directed by Sam Peckinpah including The Wild Bunch and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia...
, R. G. Armstrong
R. G. Armstrong
Robert Golden "R.G." Armstrong is an American actor and playwright. A veteran character actor who appeared in dozens of Westerns over the course of his 40-year career, he may be best remembered for his work with director Sam Peckinpah....
and L. Q. Jones
L. Q. Jones
L.Q. Jones is an American character actor and film director, known for his work in the films of Sam Peckinpah.-Life and career:...
. Filming began without a completed screenplay, and Peckinpah chose several remote locations in Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, causing the film to go heavily over budget
Film budgeting
Film budgeting refers to the process by which a line producer, unit production manager or filmmaker prepares a budget for a film production. This document, which could be over 150 pages long, is used to secure financing for the film and lead to pre-production and production of the film. Multiple...
. Intimidated by the size and scope of the project, Peckinpah reportedly drank heavily each night after shooting. He also fired at least 15 crew members
Film crew
Television crew positions are derived from those of film crew positions.A film crew is a group of people hired by a production company for the purpose of producing a film or motion picture. Crew are distinguished from cast, the Actors who appear in front of the camera or provide voices for...
. At one point, Peckinpah's mean streak and abusiveness towards the actors so enraged Heston that the normally even-tempered star threatened to run the director through with his cavalry saber if he did not show more courtesy to the cast. Shooting ended 15 days over schedule and $1.5 million more than budgeted with Peckinpah and producer Bresler no longer on speaking terms. The movie, detailing themes and sequences Peckinpah mastered later in his career, was taken away from him and substantially reedited. An incomplete mess which today exists in a variety of versions, Major Dundee performed poorly at the box office and was thrashed by critics (though its standing has improved over the years). Peckinpah held for the rest of his life that his original version of Major Dundee was among his best films, but his reputation was severely damaged.
Peckinpah was next signed to direct The Cincinnati Kid
The Cincinnati Kid
The Cincinnati Kid is a 1965 American drama film. It tells the story of Eric "The Kid" Stoner, a young Depression-era poker player, as he seeks to establish his reputation as the best...
, a gambling drama about a young prodigy who takes on an old master during a big New Orleans poker
Poker
Poker is a family of card games that share betting rules and usually hand rankings. Poker games differ in how the cards are dealt, how hands may be formed, whether the high or low hand wins the pot in a showdown , limits on bet sizes, and how many rounds of betting are allowed.In most modern poker...
match. Before filming started, producer Martin Ransohoff
Martin Ransohoff
Martin Ransohoff is a cinema and television producer, and member of the Ransohoff family.Ransohoff was born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1927. He founded the film production company Filmways, Inc. in 1960 and remained with the company until 1972...
began to receive phone calls about the Major Dundee ordeal and was told Peckinpah was impossible to work with. In addition, Peckinpah decided to shoot in black and white and was hoping to transform the screenplay into a social realist saga about a kid surviving the tough streets of the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
. After four days of filming, which reportedly included some nude scenes, Ransohoff disliked the rushes and immediately fired him. Eventually directed by Norman Jewison
Norman Jewison
Norman Frederick Jewison, CC, O.Ont is a Canadian film director, producer, actor and founder of the Canadian Film Centre. Highlights of his directing career include In the Heat of the Night , The Thomas Crown Affair , Fiddler on the Roof , Jesus Christ Superstar , Moonstruck , The Hurricane and The...
and starring Steve McQueen, the film went on to become a 1965 hit. Peckinpah found himself banished from the film industry for several years.
Noon Wine
He caught a lucky break in 1966 when producer Daniel MelnickDaniel Melnick
Daniel Melnick was an American film producer and movie studio executive who started working in Hollywood as a teenager in television and then became the producer of such films as All That Jazz, Altered States and Straw Dogs...
needed a writer and director to adapt Katherine Anne Porter
Katherine Anne Porter
Katherine Anne Porter was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist, essayist, short story writer, novelist, and political activist. Her 1962 novel Ship of Fools was the best-selling novel in America that year, but her short stories received much more critical acclaim...
's short novel Noon Wine
Noon Wine
Noon Wine is a 1937 short novel written by American author Katherine Anne Porter. It was published in 1939 as part of Pale Horse, Pale Rider , a collection of three short novels by the author, including the title story and "Old Mortality." A dark tragedy about a farmer's futile act of homicide that...
for television. Melnick was a big fan of The Westerner and Ride the High Country, and had heard Peckinpah had been unfairly fired from The Cincinnati Kid. Against the objections of many within the industry, Melnick hired Peckinpah and gave him free rein. Peckinpah completed the script, which Miss Porter enthusiastically endorsed, and the project became an hour-long presentation for ABC Stage 67
ABC Stage 67
ABC Stage 67 was the umbrella title for a series of 26 weekly shows that included dramas, variety shows, documentaries, and original musicals....
. Taking place in turn of the century West Texas, Noon Wine was a dark tragedy about a farmer's act of futile murder which leads to suicide. Starring Jason Robards
Jason Robards
Jason Nelson Robards, Jr. was an American actor on stage, and in film and television, and a winner of the Tony Award , two Academy Awards and the Emmy Award...
and Olivia de Havilland
Olivia de Havilland
Olivia Mary de Havilland is a British American film and stage actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1946 and 1949. She is the elder sister of actress Joan Fontaine. The sisters are among the last surviving leading ladies from Hollywood of the 1930s.-Early life:Olivia de Havilland...
, the film was a critical hit, with Peckinpah nominated by the Writers Guild
Writers Guild of America
The Writers Guild of America is a generic term referring to the joint efforts of two different US labor unions:* The Writers Guild of America, East , representing TV and film writers East of the Mississippi....
for Best Television Adaptation and the Directors Guild of America
Directors Guild of America
Directors Guild of America is an entertainment labor union which represents the interests of film and television directors in the United States motion picture industry...
for Best Television Direction. Robards kept a personal copy of the film in his private collection for years as he considered the project to be one of his most satisfying professional experiences. A rare film which can only be viewed at the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
and the Museum of Broadcasting, Noon Wine is today considered one of Peckinpah's most intimate works, revealing his dramatic potential and artistic depth.
The Wild Bunch
The surprising success of Noon Wine laid the groundwork for one of the most explosive comebacks in film history. In 1967, Warner Bros.-Seven ArtsWarner Bros.-Seven Arts
Warner Bros.-Seven Arts was formed in 1967 and became defunct in 1970, when Seven Arts Productions acquired Jack Warner's controlling interest in Warner Bros. for $32 million and merged with it. The deal also included Warner Bros. Records, Reprise Records and the B&W Looney Tunes library...
producers Kenneth Hyman and Phil Feldman were interested in having Peckinpah rewrite and direct an adventure film, The Diamond Story. An alternative screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
written by Roy Sickner and Walon Green
Walon Green
Walon Green is an American documentary film director and screenwriter for both TV and films. He is currently the showrunner/executive producer for the USA Network television series, Law & Order: Criminal Intent.-Career:...
was the western The Wild Bunch. At the time, William Goldman
William Goldman
William Goldman is an American novelist, playwright, and Academy Award-winning screenwriter.-Early life and education:...
's screenplay Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is a 1969 American Western film directed by George Roy Hill and written by William Goldman...
had recently been purchased by 20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
.
It was quickly decided that The Wild Bunch, which had several similarities to Goldman's work, would be produced in order to beat Butch Cassidy to the theaters. By the fall of 1967, Peckinpah was rewriting the screenplay into what became The Wild Bunch
The Wild Bunch
The Wild Bunch is a 1969 American Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah about an aging outlaw gang on the Texas-Mexico border, trying to exist in the changing "modern" world of 1913...
. Filmed on location in Mexico, Peckinpah's epic work was inspired by his hunger to return to films, the violence seen in Arthur Penn
Arthur Penn
Arthur Hiller Penn was an American film director and producer with a career as a theater director as well. Penn amassed a critically acclaimed body of work throughout the 1960s and 1970s.-Early years:...
's Bonnie and Clyde
Bonnie and Clyde (film)
The film was originally offered to François Truffaut, the best-known director of the New Wave movement, who made contributions to the script. He passed on the project to make Fahrenheit 451. The producers approached Jean-Luc Godard next...
, America's growing frustration with the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
, and what he perceived to be the utter lack of reality seen in Westerns up to that time. He set out to make a film which portrayed not only the vicious violence of the period, but the crude men attempting to survive the era. Starring William Holden
William Holden
William Holden was an American actor. Holden won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1954 and the Emmy Award for Best Actor in 1974...
, Ernest Borgnine
Ernest Borgnine
Ernest Borgnine is an American actor of television and film. His career has spanned more than six decades. He was an unconventional lead in many films of the 1950s, including his Academy Award-winning turn in the 1955 film Marty...
, Robert Ryan
Robert Ryan
Robert Bushnell Ryan was an American actor who often played hardened cops and ruthless villains.-Early life and career:...
, Ben Johnson
Ben Johnson (actor)
Ben "Son" Johnson, Jr. was an American motion picture actor who was mainly cast in Westerns. He was also a rodeo cowboy, stuntman, and rancher.-Personal life:...
, Warren Oates
Warren Oates
Warren Mercer Oates was an American actor best known for his performances in several films directed by Sam Peckinpah including The Wild Bunch and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia...
, Jaime Sánchez
Jaime Sánchez (actor)
Jaime Sánchez, born December 19, 1938 in Rincón, Puerto Rico, is an actor in theater, films and TV since the 1950s.His film roles include Sidney Lumet's The Pawnbroker , Cornel Wilde's Beach Red and Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch ; his TV appearances include The Fugitive, Kojak and The...
and Edmond O'Brien
Edmond O'Brien
Edmond O'Brien was an American actor who is perhaps best remembered for his role in D.O.A. and his Oscar winning role in The Barefoot Contessa...
, the film detailed a gang of veteran outlaws on the Texas/Mexico border in 1913 trying to exist within a rapidly approaching modern world. The Wild Bunch is framed by two ferocious and infamous gunfights, beginning with a failed robbery of the railway company office and concluding with the outlaws battling the Mexican army in suicidal vengeance due to the death of one of their members. Irreverent and unprecedented in its explicit detail, the 1969 film was an instant success. Multiple scenes attempted in Major Dundee, including slow motion
Slow motion
Slow motion is an effect in film-making whereby time appears to be slowed down. It was invented by the Austrian priest August Musger....
action sequences, characters leaving a village as if in a funeral procession and the use of inexperienced locals as extras, were perfected in The Wild Bunch. Many critics denounced its violence
Violence
Violence is the use of physical force to apply a state to others contrary to their wishes. violence, while often a stand-alone issue, is often the culmination of other kinds of conflict, e.g...
as sadistic and exploitative. Other critics and filmmakers hailed the originality of its unique rapid editing
Film editing
Film editing is part of the creative post-production process of filmmaking. It involves the selection and combining of shots into sequences, and ultimately creating a finished motion picture. It is an art of storytelling...
style, created for the first time in this film and ultimately becoming a Peckinpah trademark, and praised the reworking of traditional Western themes. It was the beginning of Peckinpah's international fame, and he and his work remained controversial for the rest of his life. The film was ranked No. 80
AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies
The first of the AFI 100 Years… series of cinematic milestones, AFI's 100 Years…100 Movies is a list of the 100 best American movies, as determined by the American Film Institute from a poll of more than 1,500 artists and leaders in the film industry who chose from a list of 400 nominated movies...
on the American Film Institute's
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
top 100 list of the greatest American films ever made and No. 69
AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills
Part of the AFI 100 Years… series, AFI's 100 Years…100 Thrills is a list of the top 100 heart-pounding movies in American cinema. The list was unveiled by the American Film Institute on June 12, 2001, during a CBS special hosted by Harrison Ford....
as the most thrilling, but the controversy has not diminished. When The Wild Bunch was re-released for its 25th anniversary, it received an NC-17
MPAA film rating system
The Motion Picture Association of America's film-rating system is used in the U.S. and its territories to rate a film's thematic and content suitability for certain audiences. The MPAA system applies only to motion pictures that are submitted for rating. Other media may be rated by other entities...
rating from the MPAA, proving the film's continued impact after so many years. Peckinpah received his only Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay for this film.
The Ballad of Cable Hogue
Defying audience expectations, as he often did, Peckinpah immediately followed The Wild Bunch with the elegiac, funny and mostly non-violent 1970 Western The Ballad of Cable HogueThe Ballad of Cable Hogue
The Ballad of Cable Hogue is a 1970 Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring Jason Robards, Stella Stevens and David Warner.Set in the desert of Arizona during the transitional period when the frontier was closing, the movie follows three years in the life of Cable Hogue, a failed...
. Utilizing many of the same cast (L. Q. Jones, Strother Martin
Strother Martin
Strother Martin was an American actor in numerous films and television programs. Martin is perhaps best known as the prison "captain" in the 1967 film Cool Hand Luke, where he uttered the line, "What we've got here is...failure to communicate."-Early life:Strother Martin Jr. was born in Kokomo,...
) and crew members of The Wild Bunch, the film covered three years in the life of small-time entrepreneur Cable Hogue (Jason Robards
Jason Robards
Jason Nelson Robards, Jr. was an American actor on stage, and in film and television, and a winner of the Tony Award , two Academy Awards and the Emmy Award...
) who decides to make a fortune after discovering water in the desert. He opens his business along a stagecoach
Stagecoach
A stagecoach is a type of covered wagon for passengers and goods, strongly sprung and drawn by four horses, usually four-in-hand. Widely used before the introduction of railway transport, it made regular trips between stages or stations, which were places of rest provided for stagecoach travelers...
line, only to see his dreams end with the appearance of the first automobile
Automobile
An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...
on the horizon. Shot on location in the desert
Desert
A desert is a landscape or region that receives an extremely low amount of precipitation, less than enough to support growth of most plants. Most deserts have an average annual precipitation of less than...
of Nevada
Nevada
Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...
, the film was plagued by poor weather, Peckinpah's renewed drinking and his brusque firing of 36 crew members. The chaotic filming wrapped 19 days over schedule and $3 million over budget, effectively terminating his tenure with Warner Bros.-Seven Arts
Warner Bros.-Seven Arts
Warner Bros.-Seven Arts was formed in 1967 and became defunct in 1970, when Seven Arts Productions acquired Jack Warner's controlling interest in Warner Bros. for $32 million and merged with it. The deal also included Warner Bros. Records, Reprise Records and the B&W Looney Tunes library...
. In retrospect, it was a damaging career move as Deliverance and Jeremiah Johnson, critical and enduring box office hits, were in development at the time and Peckinpah was considered the first choice to direct both films. Largely ignored upon its initial release, The Ballad of Cable Hogue has been rediscovered in recent years and is often held up by critics as exemplary of the breadth of Peckinpah's talents. They claim that the film proves Peckinpah's ability to make unconventional and original work without resorting to explicit violence. Over the years, Peckinpah cited the film as one of his favorites.
Straw Dogs
His alienation of Warner Brothers once again left him with a limited number of directing jobs. Peckinpah was forced to do a 180-degree turn and traveled to England to direct Straw Dogs (1971), one of his darkest and most psychologically disturbing films. Produced by Daniel Melnick, who had previously worked with Peckinpah on Noon Wine, the screenplay was based on the novel The Siege of Trencher's Farm by Gordon WilliamsGordon Williams
Gordon M. Williams is a Scottish author. Born in Paisley, he moved to London to work as a journalist. He has written for television and is the author of over twenty novels including From Scenes Like These, shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1969, Walk Don't Walk, Big Morning Blues and Growing up...
. It starred Dustin Hoffman
Dustin Hoffman
Dustin Lee Hoffman is an American actor with a career in film, television, and theatre since 1960. He has been known for his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and vulnerable characters....
as David Sumner, a timid American mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
(his wife at one point attempts to erase Einstein's field equations from his blackboard) who leaves the chaos of college anti-war protests
Opposition to the Vietnam War
The movement against US involvment in the in Vietnam War began in the United States with demonstrations in 1964 and grew in strength in later years. The US became polarized between those who advocated continued involvement in Vietnam, and those who wanted peace. Peace movements consisted largely of...
to live with his young wife Amy (Susan George
Susan George (actress)
Susan Melody George is an English film and television actress, and film producer.-Career:She trained at the Stage School, Corona Theatre School and has acted since the age of four, appearing on both television and film...
) in her native village in Cornwall, England. Resentment of David's presence by the locals slowly builds to a shocking climax when the mild-mannered academic is forced to defend his home. Peckinpah entirely rewrote the existing screenplay, inspired by the books African Genesis and The Territorial Imperative by Robert Ardrey
Robert Ardrey
Robert Ardrey was an American playwright and screenwriter who returned to his academic training in anthropology and the behavioral sciences in the 1950s....
, which argued that man was essentially a carnivore
Carnivore
A carnivore meaning 'meat eater' is an organism that derives its energy and nutrient requirements from a diet consisting mainly or exclusively of animal tissue, whether through predation or scavenging...
who instinctively battled over control of territory. The character of David Sumner, taunted and humiliated by the town locals, is eventually cornered within his home where he loses control and kills several of the men during the violent conclusion. Straw Dogs deeply divided critics, some of whom praised its artistry and its confrontation of human savagery, while others attacked it as a misogynistic and fascistic celebration of violence. Much of the criticism centered around Amy's complicated and lengthy rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
scene, which Peckinpah reportedly attempted to base on his own personal fears rooted in past failed marriages. To this day, the scene is attacked by critics as an ugly male-chauvinist
Chauvinism
Chauvinism, in its original and primary meaning, is an exaggerated, bellicose patriotism and a belief in national superiority and glory. It is an eponym of a possibly fictional French soldier Nicolas Chauvin who was credited with many superhuman feats in the Napoleonic wars.By extension it has come...
fantasy, claiming it serves as an example of Peckinpah's (and Hollywood's) debasing of women. The film was for many years banned on video in the UK, although some critics have come to hail it as one of Peckinpah's greatest films.
Junior Bonner
Despite his growing alcoholism and controversial reputation, Peckinpah was extremely prolific during this period of his life. In May 1971, weeks after completing Straw Dogs, he returned to the United States to begin work on Junior BonnerJunior Bonner
Junior Bonner is a film released in 1972 directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring Steve McQueen, Joe Don Baker, Robert Preston and Ida Lupino. The film focuses on a veteran rodeo rider as he returns to his hometown of Prescott, Arizona to participate in an annual rodeo competition and reunite with...
. The lyrical screenplay by Jeb Rosenbrook, depicting the changing times of society and binding family ties, appealed to Peckinpah's tastes. He accepted the project, at the time concerned with being typed as a director of violent action. The film was his final attempt to make a low-key, dramatic work in the vein of Noon Wine and The Ballad of Cable Hogue. Filmed on location in Prescott, Arizona
Prescott, Arizona
Prescott is a city in Yavapai County, Arizona, USA. It was designated "Arizona's Christmas City" by Arizona Governor Rose Mofford in the late 1980s....
, the story covered a week in the life of aging rodeo
Rodeo
Rodeo is a competitive sport which arose out of the working practices of cattle herding in Spain, Mexico, and later the United States, Canada, South America and Australia. It was based on the skills required of the working vaqueros and later, cowboys, in what today is the western United States,...
rider Junior "JR" Bonner (Steve McQueen) who returns to his hometown to compete in an annual rodeo competition. In addition to McQueen, the cast included Robert Preston
Robert Preston (actor)
-Early life:Preston was born Robert Preston Meservey in Newton, Massachusetts, the son of Ruth L. and Frank Wesley Meservey, a garment worker and billing clerk for American Express. After attending Abraham Lincoln High School in Los Angeles, California, he studied acting at the Pasadena Community...
, Ida Lupino
Ida Lupino
Ida Lupino was an English-born film actress and director, and a pioneer among women filmmakers. In her 48-year career, she appeared in 59 films and directed seven others, mostly in the United States. She appeared in serial television programmes 58 times and directed 50 other episodes...
, Joe Don Baker
Joe Don Baker
Joe Don Baker is an American film actor, perhaps best known for his roles as a Mafia hitman in Charley Varrick, deputy sheriff Thomas Jefferson Geronimo III in Final Justice, real-life Tennessee Sheriff Buford Pusser in Walking Tall, brute force with a badge detective Mitchell in Mitchell, James...
and Ben Johnson
Ben Johnson (actor)
Ben "Son" Johnson, Jr. was an American motion picture actor who was mainly cast in Westerns. He was also a rodeo cowboy, stuntman, and rancher.-Personal life:...
. Junior Bonner was marked by sharp character development, colorful location detail and unusually tender scenes between Preston and Lupino as Bonner's estranged parents. Promoted as a Steve McQueen action vehicle, reviews were mixed and the film performed poorly at the box office. Peckinpah remarked, "I made a film where nobody got shot and nobody went to see it." The film's reputation has grown over the years as many critics consider Junior Bonner to be one of Peckinpah's most sympathetic works, while also noting McQueen's earnest performance.
The Getaway
Eager to work with Peckinpah again, Steve McQueen presented him Walter Hill's screenplay to The GetawayThe Getaway (1972 film)
The Getaway is a 1972 American action-crime film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw.The film is based on a novel by Jim Thompson, with the screenplay written by Walter Hill...
. Based on the Jim Thompson
Jim Thompson (writer)
James Myers Thompson was an American author and screenwriter, known for his pulp crime fiction....
novel, the gritty crime thriller detailed lovers on the run following a dangerous robbery. Both Peckinpah and McQueen needed a hit, and they immediately began working on the film in February 1972. Peckinpah had no pretensions about making The Getaway, as his only goal was to create a highly-polished thriller to boost his market value. McQueen played Doc McCoy, an imprisoned mastermind robber whose wife Carol (Ali MacGraw
Ali MacGraw
Elizabeth Alice "Ali" MacGraw is an American actress. She is known for her role in Love Story, for which she won a Golden Globe and received an Academy Award nomination.-Early life:...
) conspires for his release on the condition they rob a bank in Texas. A doublecross follows the crime, and the McCoys are forced to flee for Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
with both the police and criminals in hot pursuit. Replete with explosions, car chases and intense shootouts, the film became Peckinpah's biggest financial success to date earning more than $25 million at the box office. Though strictly a commercial product, Peckinpah's creative touches abound throughout, most notably during the intricately-edited opening sequence when McQueen's character is suffering from the pressures of prison life. The film remains popular and was remade in 1994 (The Getaway
The Getaway (1994 film)
The Getaway is a 1994 crime thriller and a remake of the 1972 film of the same name. The film stars Alec Baldwin, Kim Basinger, Michael Madsen, James Woods, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Jennifer Tilly, and was directed by Roger Donaldson.-Plot:...
).
Later career
The year 1973 marked the beginning of the most difficult period of Peckinpah's life and career. While still filming The Getaway in El Paso, TexasEl Paso, Texas
El Paso, is a city in and the county seat of El Paso County, Texas, United States, and lies in far West Texas. In the 2010 census, the city had a population of 649,121. It is the sixth largest city in Texas and the 19th largest city in the United States...
, Peckinpah sneaked across the border into Juarez
Ciudad Juárez
Ciudad Juárez , officially known today as Heroica Ciudad Juárez, but abbreviated Juárez and formerly known as El Paso del Norte, is a city and seat of the municipality of Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Juárez's estimated population is 1.5 million people. The city lies on the Rio Grande...
in April 1972 and married Joie Gould. He had met Gould in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
while filming Straw Dogs, and she had since been his companion and a part-time crew member. Peckinpah's intake of alcohol had increased dramatically while making The Getaway, and he became fond of saying, "I can't direct when I'm sober." He began to have violent mood swings
Mood Swings
Mood Swings is an album by Koby Israelite released in 2005 on Tzadik.- Track listing :# "Dror Ikra" - 3:03# "Return of the Idiots" - 2:19# "It Is Not a War Here" - 7:05# "Ethnometalogy" - 5:08# "Europa?" - 2:49# "Hiriya On My Mind" - 4:53...
and explosions of rage, at one point assaulting Gould. After four months, she returned to England and filed for divorce. Devastated by the breakup, Peckinpah fell into a self destructive pattern of almost continuous alcohol consumption, and his health was unstable for the remainder of his life.
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
It was in this state of mind that Peckinpah agreed to make Pat Garrett and Billy the KidPat Garrett and Billy the Kid
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is a 1973 Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring James Coburn and Kris Kristofferson. Co-star Bob Dylan composed multiple songs for the movie's score and the album Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid was released the same year.The film was noted for...
(1973) for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
. Based on the screenplay by Rudolph Wurlitzer (who had previously penned Two-Lane Blacktop
Two-Lane Blacktop
Two-Lane Blacktop is a 1971 road movie directed by Monte Hellman, starring singer-songwriter James Taylor, Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson, Warren Oates, and Laurie Bird. Esquire magazine declared the film its movie of the year for 1971, and even published the entire screenplay in its April, 1971...
, a film admired by Peckinpah), the director was convinced that he was about to make his definitive statement on the Western genre. The script offered Peckinpah the opportunity to explore themes that appealed to him: two former partners forced by changing times onto opposite sides of the law, manipulated by corrupt economic interests. Peckinpah rewrote the screenplay, establishing Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid as friends, and attempted to weave an epic tragedy from the historical legend. Filmed on location in the Mexican state of Durango
Durango
Durango officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Durango is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is located in Northwest Mexico. With a population of 1,632,934, it has Mexico's second-lowest population density, after Baja...
, the film starred James Coburn
James Coburn
James Harrison Coburn III was an American film and television actor. Coburn appeared in nearly 70 films and made over 100 television appearances during his 45-year career, and played a wide range of roles and won an Academy Award for his supporting role as Glen Whitehouse in Affliction.A capable,...
and Kris Kristofferson
Kris Kristofferson
Kristoffer "Kris" Kristofferson is an American musician, actor, and writer. He is known for hits such as "Me and Bobby McGee", "For the Good Times", "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down", and "Help Me Make It Through the Night"...
in the title roles, with a huge supporting cast including Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
(who composed the film's music), Jason Robards
Jason Robards
Jason Nelson Robards, Jr. was an American actor on stage, and in film and television, and a winner of the Tony Award , two Academy Awards and the Emmy Award...
, R. G. Armstrong
R. G. Armstrong
Robert Golden "R.G." Armstrong is an American actor and playwright. A veteran character actor who appeared in dozens of Westerns over the course of his 40-year career, he may be best remembered for his work with director Sam Peckinpah....
, Richard Jaeckel
Richard Jaeckel
Richard Hanley Jaeckel was an American actor of film and television.-Life and career:Jaeckel was born in Long Beach, New York. A short, but tough guy, he played a variety of characters during his fifty years in movies & television and became one of Hollywood's best known character actors...
, Jack Elam
Jack Elam
William Scott "Jack" Elam was an American film actor best known for his numerous roles as villains in Western films and, later in his career, comedies .-Early life:...
, Chill Wills
Chill Wills
Chill Theodore Wills was an American film actor, and a singer in the Avalon Boys Quartet.-Biography:Wills was born in Seagoville, Texas in 1902. He was a performer from early childhood, forming and leading the Avalon Boys singing group in the 1930s...
, Katy Jurado
Katy Jurado
Katy Jurado , born María Cristina Estela Marcela Jurado García in Mexico, D.F., was a Mexican actress who had a successful film career both in Mexico and in Hollywood....
, L. Q. Jones
L. Q. Jones
L.Q. Jones is an American character actor and film director, known for his work in the films of Sam Peckinpah.-Life and career:...
, Slim Pickens
Slim Pickens
Louis Burton Lindley, Jr. , better known by the stage name Slim Pickens, was an American rodeo performer and film and television actor who epitomized the profane, tough, sardonic cowboy, but who is best remembered for his comic roles, notably in Dr...
and Harry Dean Stanton
Harry Dean Stanton
Harry Dean Stanton is an American actor, musician, and singer. Stanton's career has spanned over fifty years, which has seen him star in such films as Paris, Texas, Kelly's Heroes, Dillinger, Alien, Repo Man, The Last Temptation of Christ, Wild at Heart, The Green Mile and The Pledge...
. From the beginning, Peckinpah began to have clashes with MGM and its president James Aubrey, known for his stifling of creative interests and eventual dismantling of the historic movie company. Numerous production difficulties, including an outbreak of influenza
Influenza
Influenza, commonly referred to as the flu, is an infectious disease caused by RNA viruses of the family Orthomyxoviridae , that affects birds and mammals...
and malfunctioning cameras, combined with Peckinpah's growing problems with alcohol, resulted in one of the most troubled productions of his career. The film finished 21 days behind schedule and $1.6 million over budget. Enraged, Aubrey severely cut Peckinpah's film from 124 to 106 minutes, resulting in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid being released in a truncated version largely disowned by cast and crew members. Critics complained that the film was incoherent, and the experience soured Peckinpah forever on Hollywood. In 1988, however, Peckinpah's director's cut was released on video and led to a reevaluation, with many critics hailing it as a mistreated classic and one of the era's best films. Filmmakers, including Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
, have praised the film as one of the greatest modern Westerns.
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
In the eyes of his admirers, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo GarciaBring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is a 1974 American action film directed by Sam Peckinpah and featuring Warren Oates....
(1974) was the last true "Peckinpah film." The director himself claimed that it was the only one of his films to be released exactly as he intended it. A project in development for many years and based on an idea by Frank Kowalski
Frank Kowalski
Frank Kowalski was a United States Representative from Connecticut. He was born in Meriden, Connecticut, where he attended the grade and high schools. He graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1930, Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1937, and studied international relations at...
, Peckinpah wrote the screenplay with the assistance of Kowalski, Walter Kelley and Gordon Dawson. An alcohol-soaked fever dream involving revenge, greed and murder in the Mexican countryside, the film featured Warren Oates
Warren Oates
Warren Mercer Oates was an American actor best known for his performances in several films directed by Sam Peckinpah including The Wild Bunch and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia...
as a thinly disguised self-portrait of Peckinpah, and co-starred a leather bag containing the severed head of a gigolo being sought by a Mexican patrone for one million dollars. The macabre
Macabre
In works of art, macabre is the quality of having a grim or ghastly atmosphere. Macabre works emphasize the details and symbols of death....
drama was part black comedy
Black comedy
A black comedy, or dark comedy, is a comic work that employs black humor or gallows humor. The definition of black humor is problematic; it has been argued that it corresponds to the earlier concept of gallows humor; and that, as humor has been defined since Freud as a comedic act that anesthetizes...
, action film
Action film
Action film is a film genre where one or more heroes is thrust into a series of challenges that require physical feats, extended fights and frenetic chases...
and tragedy
Tragedy
Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...
, with a warped edge rarely seen in Peckinpah's works. Most critics were repulsed, and it was listed in the book The 50 Worst Films of All Time
The Fifty Worst Films of All Time
The Fifty Worst Films of All Time is a 1978 book by Harry Medved, with Randy Dreyfuss and Michael Medved. This book represents choices for the 50 worst sound films ever made, in alphabetical order...
by Harry Medved and Randy Dreyfuss. One of the few critics to praise the film was Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
, and in fact, the film's reputation has grown in recent years, with many noting its uncompromising vision as well as its anticipation of the violent black comedy which became famous in the works of such directors as David Lynch
David Lynch
David Keith Lynch is an American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style, which has been dubbed "Lynchian", and which is characterized by its dream imagery and meticulous sound...
and Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...
. While a failure at the box office, the film today has a devoted cult following
Cult film
A cult film, also commonly referred to as a cult classic, is a film that has acquired a highly devoted but specific group of fans. Often, cult movies have failed to achieve fame outside the small fanbases; however, there have been exceptions that have managed to gain fame among mainstream audiences...
. In 1991, UCLA's film school organized a festival of great but forgotten American films, and included Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia in the program. It is reportedly Takeshi Kitano
Takeshi Kitano
is a Japanese filmmaker, comedian, singer, actor, film editor, presenter, screenwriter, author, poet, painter, and one-time video game designer who has received critical acclaim, both in his native Japan and abroad, for his highly idiosyncratic cinematic work. The famed Japanese film critic...
's favorite film. It also led a film critic to paraphrase the film's title in an attack on the director, saying, "Bring me the head of Sam Peckinpah".
The Killer Elite
His career now suffering from back-to-back box office failures, Peckinpah once again was in need of a hit on the level of The Getaway. For his next film, he chose The Killer EliteThe Killer Elite
The Killer Elite is a 1975 American action thriller film starring James Caan and Robert Duvall and directed by Sam Peckinpah.The screenplay was written by Marc Norman and Stirling Silliphant adapted from the Robert Syd Hopkins novel, Monkey in the Middle. The novel was written under Hopkins'...
(1975), an action-filled espionage thriller starring James Caan and Robert Duvall
Robert Duvall
Robert Selden Duvall is an American actor and director. He has won an Academy Award, two Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards and a BAFTA over the course of his career....
as rival American agents. Filmed on location in San Francisco, Peckinpah allegedly discovered cocaine
Cocaine
Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...
for the first time thanks to Caan and his entourage. This led to increased paranoia
Paranoia
Paranoia [] is a thought process believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a perceived threat towards oneself...
and his once legendary dedication to detail deteriorated. Producers also refused to allow Peckinpah to rewrite the screenplay (for the first time since his debut film The Deadly Companions
The Deadly Companions
The Deadly Companions is a 1961 Western. It was directed by Sam Peckinpah and starred Maureen O'Hara, Brian Keith, Steve Cochran and Chill Wills. The film is based on A.S. Fleischman's novel of the same name. The film was Peckinpah's motion picture directorial debut...
). Frustrated, the director spent large amounts of time in his on-location trailer, allowing assistants to direct many scenes. At one point he overdosed
Drug overdose
The term drug overdose describes the ingestion or application of a drug or other substance in quantities greater than are recommended or generally practiced...
on cocaine, landing himself in a hospital and receiving a second pacemaker
Artificial pacemaker
A pacemaker is a medical device that uses electrical impulses, delivered by electrodes contacting the heart muscles, to regulate the beating of the heart...
. Through it all, the film was completed and did decent box office business, though critics panned it. Today, the film is considered one of Peckinpah's weakest films, and an example of his decline as a major director.
Cross of Iron
Still renowned in 1975, Peckinpah was offered the opportunity to direct the eventual blockbusters King KongKing Kong (1976 film)
King Kong is a 1976 American monster movie produced by Dino De Laurentiis and directed by John Guillermin. It is a remake of the 1933 classic film of the same name, about a giant ape that is captured and imported to New York City for exhibition....
(1976) and Superman (1978). Interestingly, he turned down both offers and chose instead the bleak and vivid World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
drama Cross of Iron
Cross of Iron
Cross of Iron is a 1977 war film directed by Sam Peckinpah, featuring James Coburn, Maximilian Schell, James Mason and David Warner. The film is set on the Eastern Front in World War II during the Soviet's Caucasus operations that forced the Wehrmacht to retreat from the Taman Peninsula on the...
(1977). The screenplay was based on a novel about a platoon of German soldiers
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
in 1943 on the verge of utter collapse on the Crimean Peninsula
Eastern Front (World War II)
The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945...
. The German production was filmed on location in Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
. Working with James Hamilton and Walter Kelley, Peckinpah rewrote the screenplay and screened numerous Nazi documentaries
Nazi propaganda
Propaganda, the coordinated attempt to influence public opinion through the use of media, was skillfully used by the NSDAP in the years leading up to and during Adolf Hitler's leadership of Germany...
in preparation. Almost immediately, Peckinpah realized he was working on a low-budget production, as he had to sink $90,000 of his own money to hire experienced crew members. While not suffering from the cocaine abuse which marked The Killer Elite, Peckinpah continued to drink heavily causing his direction to become confused and erratic. The production abruptly ran out of funds, and Peckinpah was forced to completely improvise the concluding sequence, filming the scene in one day. Despite these obstacles, the film's war footage was stunning and James Coburn
James Coburn
James Harrison Coburn III was an American film and television actor. Coburn appeared in nearly 70 films and made over 100 television appearances during his 45-year career, and played a wide range of roles and won an Academy Award for his supporting role as Glen Whitehouse in Affliction.A capable,...
, in the lead role of Rolf Steiner, gave one of the finest performances of his career. Co-starring James Mason
James Mason
James Neville Mason was an English actor who attained stardom in both British and American films. Mason remained a powerful figure in the industry throughout his career and was nominated for three Academy Awards as well as three Golden Globes .- Early life :Mason was born in Huddersfield, in the...
, Maximilian Schell
Maximilian Schell
Maximilian Schell is an Austrian-born Swiss actor who won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Judgment at Nuremberg in 1961...
, David Warner
David Warner (actor)
David Warner is an English actor who is known for playing both romantic leads and sinister or villainous characters, both in film and animation...
and Senta Berger
Senta Berger
Senta Berger is an Austrian film, stage and television actress, producer and author.Regarded by critics as one of the greatest actresses of the post-war period, and frequently named as one of the leading German-speaking actresses in polls, Berger has received many award nominations for her acting...
, Cross of Iron was noted for its opening montage utilizing documentary
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
footage as well as the visceral impact of the unusually intense battle sequences. The film was a huge box office success in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, inspiring the sequel Breakthrough
Breakthrough (film)
Breakthrough is a 1979 war film set on the Western Front. It is a sequel to Sam Peckinpah's Cross of Iron, and borrows several characters from that film.The film starred several big names including Richard Burton and Rod Steiger...
starring Richard Burton
Richard Burton
Richard Burton, CBE was a Welsh actor. He was nominated seven times for an Academy Award, six of which were for Best Actor in a Leading Role , and was a recipient of BAFTA, Golden Globe and Tony Awards for Best Actor. Although never trained as an actor, Burton was, at one time, the highest-paid...
. Cross of Iron was reportedly a favorite of Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
who said that after All Quiet on the Western Front
All Quiet on the Western Front
All Quiet on the Western Front is a novel by Erich Maria Remarque, a German veteran of World War I. The book describes the German soldiers' extreme physical and mental stress during the war, and the detachment from civilian life felt by many of these soldiers upon returning home from the front.The...
it was the finest anti-war film he had ever seen. The film performed poorly in the U.S., eclipsed ultimately by the space adventure Star Wars
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, originally released as Star Wars, is a 1977 American epic space opera film, written and directed by George Lucas. It is the first of six films released in the Star Wars saga: two subsequent films complete the original trilogy, while a prequel trilogy completes the...
, though today it is highly regarded and considered the last gasp of Peckinpah's once-great talent.
Convoy
Hoping to create the elusive blockbuster, Peckinpah decided to take on Convoy (1978). His associates were perplexed, as they felt his choice to direct such substandard material was a result of his renewed cocaine use and continued alcoholism. Based on the hit songConvoy (song)
"Convoy" is a 1975 novelty song performed by C. W. McCall that became a number-one song on both the country and pop charts in the US. Written by McCall and Chip Davis, the song spent six weeks at number one on the country charts and one week at number one on the pop charts...
by C. W. McCall
C. W. McCall
C. W. McCall is the pseudonym of William Dale Fries, Jr. , an American singer, activist and politician known for his truck-themed outlaw country songs.-Biography:...
, the film was an attempt to capitalize on the huge success of Smokey and the Bandit
Smokey and the Bandit
Smokey and the Bandit is a 1977 American film starring Burt Reynolds, Sally Field, Jackie Gleason, Jerry Reed, Pat McCormick, Paul Williams, and Mike Henry. It inspired several other trucking films, including two sequels, Smokey and the Bandit II, and Smokey and the Bandit Part 3...
(1977). Addictions or not, Peckinpah still felt compelled to turn the genre exercise into something more significant. Unhappy with the screenplay written by B.W.L. Norton, Peckinpah tried to encourage the actors to re-write, improvise and ad-lib their dialogue. In another departure from the script, Peckinpah attempted to add a new dimension by casting a pair of black actors as members of the convoy including Madge Sinclair
Madge Sinclair
Madge Dorita Sinclair was a Jamaican American character actress.-Early years:Sinclair was born Madge Dorita Walters in Kingston, Jamaica, to Herbert and Jemima Walters. She was a teacher in Jamaica until 1968 when she left for New York to pursue her career in acting.-Career:In 1978, she starred in...
as Widow Woman and Franklyn Ajaye
Franklyn Ajaye
Franklyn Ajaye is an American stand-up comedian. His nickname is "The Jazz Comedian" as he also played jazz for a time earlier in his entertainment career. His name is sometimes alternatively spelled Franklin Ajaye.-Biography:...
as Spider Mike. Filmed on location in New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
and starring Kris Kristofferson
Kris Kristofferson
Kristoffer "Kris" Kristofferson is an American musician, actor, and writer. He is known for hits such as "Me and Bobby McGee", "For the Good Times", "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down", and "Help Me Make It Through the Night"...
, Ali MacGraw
Ali MacGraw
Elizabeth Alice "Ali" MacGraw is an American actress. She is known for her role in Love Story, for which she won a Golden Globe and received an Academy Award nomination.-Early life:...
and Ernest Borgnine
Ernest Borgnine
Ernest Borgnine is an American actor of television and film. His career has spanned more than six decades. He was an unconventional lead in many films of the 1950s, including his Academy Award-winning turn in the 1955 film Marty...
, Convoy turned out to be yet another troubled Peckinpah production. The director's health became a continuing problem, so James Coburn was brought in to serve as second unit director, and he filmed many of the scenes while Peckinpah remained in his on-location trailer. The film wrapped in September 1977, 11 days behind schedule and $5 million over budget. Surprisingly, Convoy was the highest-grossing picture of Peckinpah's career, notching $46.5 million at the box office. But his reputation was seriously damaged. For the first time in almost a decade, Peckinpah finished a picture and found himself unemployed.
For the next three years, Peckinpah remained a professional outcast. But during the summer of 1981, his original mentor Don Siegel
Don Siegel
Donald Siegel was an influential American film director and producer. His name variously appeared in the credits of his films as both Don Siegel and Donald Siegel.-Early life:...
gave him a chance to return to filmmaking. While shooting Jinxed!
Jinxed!
Jinxed! is a 1982 comedy-drama film starring Bette Midler, Rip Torn and Ken Wahl. Directed by Don Siegel, the veteran filmmaker would suffer a heart attack during the troubled production...
, a comedy drama starring Bette Midler
Bette Midler
Bette Midler is an American singer, actress, and comedian, also known by her informal stage name, The Divine Miss M. She became famous as a cabaret and concert headliner, and went on to star in successful and acclaimed films such as The Rose, Ruthless People, Beaches, and For The Boys...
and Rip Torn
Rip Torn
Elmore Rual "Rip" Torn, Jr. , is an American actor of stage, screen and television.Torn received an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his role in the 1983 film Cross Creek. His work includes the role of Artie, the producer, on The Larry Sanders Show, for which he was nominated...
, Siegel asked Peckinpah if he would be interested in directing 12 days of second unit work. Peckinpah immediately accepted, and his earnest collaboration was noted within the industry. For the final time, Peckinpah found himself back in the directing business.
The Osterman Weekend
By 1982, however, Peckinpah's health was in poor shape. Producers Peter S. Davis and William N. PanzerWilliam N. Panzer
William Norton Panzer , also referred to as Bill Panzer, was an American television and film producer best known as one half of Davis-Panzer Inc, the production company behind the Highlander franchise....
were undaunted, as they felt that having Peckinpah's name attached to The Osterman Weekend
The Osterman Weekend (film)
The Osterman Weekend is a 1983 suspense thriller film directed by Sam Peckinpah, based on the novel of the same name by Robert Ludlum. The film stars Rutger Hauer, John Hurt, Burt Lancaster, Dennis Hopper, Meg Foster and Craig T. Nelson...
(1983) would lend the suspense thriller an air of respectability. Peckinpah accepted the job but reportedly hated the convoluted screenplay based upon Robert Ludlum
Robert Ludlum
Robert Ludlum was an American author of 23 thriller novels. The number of his books in print is estimated between 290–500 million copies. They have been published in 33 languages and 40 countries. Ludlum also published books under the pseudonyms Jonathan Ryder and Michael Shepherd.-Life and...
's novel (which he also disliked). Multiple actors in Hollywood auditioned for the film, intrigued by the opportunity. Many of those who signed on, including John Hurt
John Hurt
John Vincent Hurt, CBE is an English actor, known for his leading roles as John Merrick in The Elephant Man, Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four, Mr. Braddock in The Hit, Stephen Ward in Scandal, Quentin Crisp in The Naked Civil Servant and An Englishman in New York...
, Burt Lancaster
Burt Lancaster
Burton Stephen "Burt" Lancaster was an American film actor noted for his athletic physique and distinctive smile...
and Dennis Hopper
Dennis Hopper
Dennis Lee Hopper was an American actor, filmmaker and artist. As a young man, Hopper became interested in acting and eventually became a student of the Actors' Studio. He made his first television appearance in 1954 and appeared in two films featuring James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant...
, did so for less than their usual salaries for a chance to work with the legendary director. By the time shooting wrapped in January 1983 in Los Angeles, Peckinpah and the producers were hardly speaking. Nevertheless, Peckinpah brought in the film on time and on budget, delivering his director's cut
Director's cut
A director's cut is a specially edited version of a film, and less often TV series, music video, commercials, comic book or video games, that is supposed to represent the director's own approved edit...
to the producers. Davis and Panzer were unhappy with Peckinpah's version, which included a grossly distorted opening sequence of two characters making love. The producers changed the opening and also deleted other scenes they deemed unnecessary. The Osterman Weekend had some effective action sequences and some strong supporting performances, but Peckinpah's final film was critically panned. It grossed $6 million domestically and did extremely well in Europe and on the new home-video market.
Peckinpah's last work as a filmmaker was undertaken just two months before his death. He was hired by producer Martin Lewis to shoot two music videos featuring Julian Lennon
Julian Lennon
John Charles Julian Lennon is an English musician, songwriter, actor, and photographer. He is the son of John Lennon and Lennon's first wife, Cynthia Powell. Beatles manager Brian Epstein was his godfather. He has a younger half-brother, Sean Lennon. Lennon was named after his paternal...
- "Valotte
Valotte (song)
"Valotte" is a song by British singer Julian Lennon, the title track and second single from his debut album Valotte. It was a top-ten hit single in January of 1985 on the U.S...
" and "Too Late For Goodbyes
Too Late For Goodbyes
"Too Late for Goodbyes" is the first single from Julian Lennon's 1984 album Valotte. It featured the harmonica of Jean "Toots" Thielemans, and it was a top-ten hit in the UK and the US, reaching number six in the UK Singles Chart in November 1984, and number five on the Billboard Hot 100 singles...
". The critically acclaimed videos led to Lennon's nomination for Best New Video Artist at the 1985 MTV Video Music Awards
MTV Video Music Awards
An MTV Video Music Award , is an award presented by the cable channel MTV to honor the best in music videos...
.
Themes
Peckinpah's films generally deal with the conflict between values and ideals and the corruption and violence of human society. His characters are often loners or losers who harbor the desire to be honorable and idealistic but are forced to compromise themselves in order to survive in a world of nihilism and brutality.The conflicts of masculinity are also a major theme of his work, leading some critics to compare him to Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
. Peckinpah's world is a man's world, and feminists have castigated his films as misogynistic and sexist, especially concerning the shooting of a woman during the final moments of The Wild Bunch
The Wild Bunch
The Wild Bunch is a 1969 American Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah about an aging outlaw gang on the Texas-Mexico border, trying to exist in the changing "modern" world of 1913...
, the rape sequence in Straw Dogs and Doc McCoy's physical assault of his wife in The Getaway
The Getaway (1972 film)
The Getaway is a 1972 American action-crime film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw.The film is based on a novel by Jim Thompson, with the screenplay written by Walter Hill...
.
Many critics see his worldview as a misanthropic, Hobbesian view of nature as essentially evil and savage. Peckinpah himself stated the opposite. He saw violence as the product of human society, and not of nature. It is the result of men's competition with each other over power and domination, and their inability to negotiate this competition without resorting to brutality. Peckinpah also used violence as a means to achieve catharsis
Catharsis
Catharsis or katharsis is a Greek word meaning "cleansing" or "purging". It is derived from the verb καθαίρειν, kathairein, "to purify, purge," and it is related to the adjective καθαρός, katharos, "pure or clean."-Dramatic uses:...
, believing his audience would be purged of violence by witnessing it explicitly on screen (one of the major inspirations for his violent sequences in The Wild Bunch). Peckinpah later admitted that this idea was mistaken, and that audiences had come to enjoy the violence in his films rather than be horrified by it, something that deeply troubled him later in his career.
Peckinpah, who was born to a ranching family that included judges and lawyers, was also deeply concerned by the conflict between "old-fashioned" values and the corruption and materialism of the modern world. Many of his characters are attempting to live up to their expectations of themselves even as the world they live in demands that they compromise their values.
This theme is most evident in Peckinpah's Westerns. Unlike most Western directors, Peckinpah tended to concentrate on the early 20th century rather than the 19th, and his films portray characters who still believe in the values of the Old West being swept away by the new, industrial America.
This persistent theme has led many critics to view Peckinpah's films as essentially tragic. That is, his characters are portrayed as being prisoners of their fates and their own failings who nonetheless seek redemption and meaning in an absurd and violent world. The theme of longing for redemption, justification, and honor in a dishonorable existence permeates almost all of Peckinpah's work.
Influence
Peckinpah's influence on modern cinema is enormous and pervasive, perhaps greater than any of his contemporaries. However, this influence is also often shallow and purely aesthetic in nature, ignoring some of Peckinpah's greatest strengths in favor of pure imitation of his stylish approach to cinematic violence.Peckinpah's greatest influence is upon the modern action film and the modern approach to action sequences. His signature combination of slow-motion, fast editing, and the deliberate distension of time has become the standard depiction of violence and action in post-Peckinpavian cinema. The approach to action in movies can be divided between before Peckinpah and after Peckinpah. While films before The Wild Bunch had used similar techniques, especially Bonnie and Clyde
Bonnie and Clyde (film)
The film was originally offered to François Truffaut, the best-known director of the New Wave movement, who made contributions to the script. He passed on the project to make Fahrenheit 451. The producers approached Jean-Luc Godard next...
and Seven Samurai, Peckinpah was the first to use them as a distinct style rather than as specific set pieces. Directors such as Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
have acknowledged Peckinpah's direct influence on their approach to film violence. John Woo
John Woo
John Woo Yu-Sen SBS is a Hong Kong-based film director and producer. Recognized for his stylised films of highly choreographed action sequences, Mexican standoffs, and use of slow-motion, Woo has directed several notable Hong Kong action films, among them, A Better Tomorrow, The Killer, Hard...
derived his techniques extensively from Peckinpah, adding his own touch of choreography and action concepts. Additional filmmakers who have noted Peckinpah's influence have included Paul Schrader
Paul Schrader
Paul Joseph Schrader is an American screenwriter, film director, and former film critic. Apart from his credentials as a director, Schrader is most notably known for his screenplays for Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and Raging Bull....
, Walter Hill, John Milius
John Milius
John Frederick Milius is an American screenwriter, director, and producer of motion pictures.-Early life:Milius was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Elizabeth and William Styx Milius, who was a shoe manufacturer. Milius attempted to join the Marine Corps in the late 1960s, but was rejected...
, Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...
, Kathryn Bigelow
Kathryn Bigelow
Kathryn Ann Bigelow is an American film director. Her best-known films are the cult horror film Near Dark , the surfer/bank robbery action picture Point Break , the science fiction/film noir Strange Days , the historical/mystery film The Weight of Water and the war drama The Hurt Locker...
, Michael Mann, Takeshi Kitano
Takeshi Kitano
is a Japanese filmmaker, comedian, singer, actor, film editor, presenter, screenwriter, author, poet, painter, and one-time video game designer who has received critical acclaim, both in his native Japan and abroad, for his highly idiosyncratic cinematic work. The famed Japanese film critic...
and Park Chan-wook
Park Chan-wook
Park Chan-wook is a South Korean film director, screenwriter, producer, and former film critic. One of the most acclaimed and popular filmmakers in his native country, Park is most known for his films Joint Security Area, Thirst and what has become known as The Vengeance Trilogy, consisting of...
.
Peckinpah's themes have also been influential on other filmmakers and other Western films. Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood
Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. is an American film actor, director, producer, composer and politician. Eastwood first came to prominence as a supporting cast member in the TV series Rawhide...
's High Plains Drifter
High Plains Drifter
High Plains Drifter is a 1973 American Western film, with a hint of the supernatural, directed by and starring Clint Eastwood and produced by Robert Daley for The Malpaso Company and Universal Pictures. Eastwood plays a mysterious gunfighter hired by the residents of a corrupt frontier mining town...
, The Outlaw Josey Wales
The Outlaw Josey Wales
The Outlaw Josey Wales is a 1976 American revisionist Western film set during and after the end of the American Civil War. It was directed by and starred Clint Eastwood , with Chief Dan George, Sondra Locke, Sam Bottoms, and Geraldine Keams.The film was adapted by Sonia Chernus and Philip Kaufman...
and Unforgiven
Unforgiven
Unforgiven is a 1992 American Western film produced and directed by Clint Eastwood with a screenplay written by David Webb Peoples. The film tells the story of William Munny, an aging outlaw and killer who takes on one more job years after he had hung up his guns and turned to farming...
also take up Peckinpah's themes of the dangers of revenge, the nature of human violence, and men seeking to be honorable in dishonorable surroundings. The theme of the passing of the West into history and the destruction of the Western way of life by modern industrialism has also been explored by many post-Peckinpah Westerns.
In many ways, Peckinpah's greatest legacy lies in his aggressive breaking of taboos. He allowed a new freedom to emerge in cinema, not only in the depiction of violence, but also in editing styles, narrative choices, and the willingness to portray unsympathetic or tragic characters and stories. His notorious reputation has often overshadowed the depth of his influence on modern film.
Biographies
- There have been at least 12 books written on Sam Peckinpah's life and career including Bloody Sam: The Life and Films of Sam Peckinpah by Marshall Fine, If They Move…Kill 'Em! by David WeddleDavid WeddleDavid Weddle is an American television producer and writer, best known for episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , The Twilight Zone , Battlestar Galactica , and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation with writing partner Bradley Thompson...
, Peckinpah A Portrait in Montage by Garner Simmons and Peckinpah: The Western Films, A Reconsideration by Paul Seydor. - Sam Peckinpah has been the subject of two documentaries including the BBCBBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
production Sam Peckinpah: Man of Iron (1992), directed by Paul Joyce, and The Wild Bunch: An Album in Montage (1996) directed by Paul Seydor. The latter was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Documentary Short SubjectAcademy Award for Documentary Short SubjectThis is a list of films by year that have received an Oscar together with the other nominations for best documentary short subject. Following the Academy's practice, the year listed for each film is the year of release: the awards are announced and presented early in the following year.-1940s:*1941...
. - Over a 4-year period German film maker Mike Siegel produced and directed Passion & Poetry - The Ballad Of Sam Peckinpah a two-hour long film about Sam Peckinpah which includes rare Peckinpah - interviews and statements. In 2009 the 2 - disc special edition with a running time of 270 minutes was released on DVD.
Parodies
- John BelushiJohn BelushiJohn Adam Belushi was an American comedian, actor, and musician, best known as one of the original cast members of the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, The Star of the Films National Lampoon's Animal House and the The Blues Brothers and for fronting the American blues and soul...
portrayed Peckinpah as a deranged lunatic who directs his first romantic comedy by beating up his leading lady in the first season, fifth episode of Saturday Night LiveSaturday Night LiveSaturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
. Many in Hollywood said the SNL sketch inadvertently gave a portrayal of the real Sam Peckinpah. - Peckinpah's use of violence was parodied by Monty PythonMonty PythonMonty Python was a British surreal comedy group who created their influential Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series...
in Sam Peckinpah's "Salad Days", one of the more controversial episodes of Monty Python's Flying CircusMonty Python's Flying CircusMonty Python’s Flying Circus is a BBC TV sketch comedy series. The shows were composed of surreality, risqué or innuendo-laden humour, sight gags and observational sketches without punchlines...
, in which a lovely day out for an upper class English family turns into a blood-soaked orgy of severed limbs and gushing wounds. Peckinpah reportedly loved this sketch and enjoyed showing it to friends and family. - Peckinpah's penchant for filming action scenes in slow motion was satirized by Benny HillBenny HillBenny Hill was an English comedian and actor, notable for his long-running television programme The Benny Hill Show.-Early life:...
in a Western skit called "The Deputy" that first aired on his March 29, 1973 special. In one scene, Hill's titular character shoots one of the villains (Bob ToddBob ToddBob Todd was an English comedy actor, mostly known for appearing as a straight man in the sketch shows of Benny Hill and Spike Milligan. For many years he lived in Tunbridge Wells, Kent....
), who then proceeds to pirouette in extremely slow motion before collapsing. - In the film FletchFletch (film)Fletch is a 1985 comedy film about a wisecracking investigative newspaper reporter, Irwin M. Fletcher , who writes under the name of Jane Doe...
(1985), the main character, imitating a doctor in order to examine medical records, calls out, "And bring me the head of Alfredo GarciaBring Me the Head of Alfredo GarciaBring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is a 1974 American action film directed by Sam Peckinpah and featuring Warren Oates....
!" - In the 1973 Sergio LeoneSergio LeoneSergio Leone was an Italian film director, producer and screenwriter most associated with the "Spaghetti Western" genre.Leone's film-making style includes juxtaposing extreme close-up shots with lengthy long shots...
/Tonino Valerii spaghetti westernSpaghetti WesternSpaghetti Western, also known as Italo-Western, is a nickname for a broad sub-genre of Western films that emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's unique and much copied film-making style and international box-office success, so named by American critics because most were produced and...
, My Name is NobodyMy Name Is NobodyMy Name is Nobody is a 1973 Spaghetti Western comedy film. The film was directed by Tonino Valerii and, in some scenes, by Sergio Leone. It was written by Leone, Fulvio Morsella and Ernesto Gastaldi. Leone was also the uncredited executive producer...
, the characters Jack Beauregard (Henry FondaHenry FondaHenry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor.Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins...
) and "Nobody" (Terence HillTerence HillTerence Hill is an Italian actor. He is best known for starring in multiple action and western films together with his longtime filmpartner Bud Spencer.-Biography:...
) meet at a cemetery. Nobody walks past the tombstones reading the names and comes across one labeled "Sam Peckimpah." He says "Sam Peckimpah. That's a beautiful name in Navajo." Leone named the gang in the film "The Wild Bunch." Nobody has Beauregard face The Wild Bunch in order to be known in history books. - Various Peckinpah films are parodied in Jim ReardonJim ReardonJim Reardon is an animation director and storyboard consultant, best known for his work on the animated TV series The Simpsons. He has directed over 30 episodes of the series, and was credited as a supervising director for seasons 9 through 15...
's student film Bring Me the Head of Charlie BrownBring Me the Head of Charlie BrownBring Me the Head of Charlie Brown is an animated short directed and animated by Jim Reardon, who would later become director and storyboard consultant for The Simpsons. The cartoon was made in 1986 while he was at CalArts...
. - In the film Deadfall (1993), when the character Eddie (Nicolas CageNicolas CageNicolas Cage is an American actor, producer and director, having appeared in over 60 films including Raising Arizona , The Rock , Face/Off , Gone in 60 Seconds , Adaptation , National Treasure , Ghost Rider , Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans , and...
) mortally wounds a would-be assassin, he asks the man "Who sent you?" The killer responds, "Sam fuckin' Peckinpah." This film was later adapted into a song of the same name by SnotSnot (band)Snot was an American rock band from Santa Barbara, California. Formed in 1995, the band released their debut studio album Get Some with founding vocalist Lynn Strait in 1997 and disbanded after his death in 1998. In 2008, the lineup of guitarists Mike Doling and Sonny Mayo, bassist John Fahnestock...
. - In the John WatersJohn Waters (filmmaker)John Samuel Waters, Jr. is an American filmmaker, actor, stand-up comedian, writer, journalist, visual artist, and art collector, who rose to fame in the early 1970s for his transgressive cult films...
film Cecil B. DeMentedCecil B. DementedCecil B. Demented is a 2000 black comedy film written and directed by John Waters. The film stars Melanie Griffith as a snobby A-list Hollywood actress who is kidnapped by a band of terrorist filmmakers who force her to star in their underground film...
(2000), several characters have the name of a legendary film director tattooed on their body. One of the characters has "Sam Peckinpah" tattooed on their arm. - In the 1986 horror film Chopping MallChopping MallChopping Mall is an American horror/science fiction film, produced by Julie Corman and originally released on March 21, 1986 under the title Killbots....
, a store in the mall that survivors use to supply themselves with assault rifles, ammunition and grenades is named Peckinpah's Sporting Goods, a wry reference to the director's film violence. - In the 2006 film Hot FuzzHot FuzzHot Fuzz is a 2007 British action dark comedy film written by Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright, and starring Pegg and Nick Frost. The three had previously worked together on the 2004 film Shaun of the Dead as well as the television series Spaced...
, one of the characters is mentioned to be an extra in Straw Dogs, and a farm is owned by the Treachers, making it Treacher Farm. - In the 1993 Denis LearyDenis LearyDenis Colin Leary is an Irish-American actor, comedian, writer and director. Leary is known for his biting, fast paced comedic style and chain smoking...
song "AssholeAsshole (song)"Asshole" is a song by Denis Leary, released as the only single from his album No Cure for Cancer. The song became a minor hit, thanks in part to the video, which gained airplay on MTV and MuchMusic in a censored form....
", Leary states he is "going to get the Duke (John WayneJohn WayneMarion Mitchell Morrison , better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height...
), John CassavetesJohn CassavetesJohn Nicholas Cassavetes was an American actor, screenwriter and filmmaker. He acted in many Hollywood films, notably Rosemary's Baby and The Dirty Dozen...
, Lee MarvinLee MarvinLee Marvin was an American film actor. Known for his gravelly voice, white hair and 6' 2" stature, Marvin at first did supporting roles, mostly villains, soldiers and other hardboiled characters, but after winning an Academy Award for Best Actor for his dual roles in Cat Ballou , he landed more...
, Sam Peckinpah and a case of whiskey then drive down to Texas" before being cutoff by a bandmate and getting called an asshole. - In the BBC Radio 4 panel show I'm Sorry I Haven't a ClueI'm Sorry I Haven't a ClueI'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, sometimes abbreviated to ISIHAC or Clue, is a BBC radio comedy panel game broadcast since 11 April 1972 at the rate of one or two series each year , transmitted on BBC Radio 4, with occasional repeats on BBC Radio 4 Extra and the BBC's World Service...
, the Film Club round usually includes a film name based on Bring Me the Head of Alfredo GarciaBring Me the Head of Alfredo GarciaBring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is a 1974 American action film directed by Sam Peckinpah and featuring Warren Oates....
. - Kris KristoffersonKris KristoffersonKristoffer "Kris" Kristofferson is an American musician, actor, and writer. He is known for hits such as "Me and Bobby McGee", "For the Good Times", "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down", and "Help Me Make It Through the Night"...
recorded "Sam's Song (Ask Any Working Girl)", a brief tribute to the director, for his 1995 release "A Moment of Forever".
Filmography
- 1961 The Deadly CompanionsThe Deadly CompanionsThe Deadly Companions is a 1961 Western. It was directed by Sam Peckinpah and starred Maureen O'Hara, Brian Keith, Steve Cochran and Chill Wills. The film is based on A.S. Fleischman's novel of the same name. The film was Peckinpah's motion picture directorial debut...
- 1962 Ride the High CountryRide the High CountryRide the High Country is a noted 1962 American Western film. It stars Joel McCrea, Randolph Scott, Ron Starr, Edgar Buchanan and Mariette Hartley. It was written by N.B...
- 1965 Major DundeeMajor DundeeMajor Dundee is a 1965 Western film written by Harry Julian Fink and directed by Sam Peckinpah. It starred Charlton Heston and Richard Harris as officers from opposing sides in the American Civil War who band together to hunt down a band of Apaches....
- 1966 Noon WineNoon WineNoon Wine is a 1937 short novel written by American author Katherine Anne Porter. It was published in 1939 as part of Pale Horse, Pale Rider , a collection of three short novels by the author, including the title story and "Old Mortality." A dark tragedy about a farmer's futile act of homicide that...
(television film) - 1969 The Wild BunchThe Wild BunchThe Wild Bunch is a 1969 American Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah about an aging outlaw gang on the Texas-Mexico border, trying to exist in the changing "modern" world of 1913...
- 1970 The Ballad of Cable HogueThe Ballad of Cable HogueThe Ballad of Cable Hogue is a 1970 Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring Jason Robards, Stella Stevens and David Warner.Set in the desert of Arizona during the transitional period when the frontier was closing, the movie follows three years in the life of Cable Hogue, a failed...
- 1971 Straw Dogs
- 1972 Junior BonnerJunior BonnerJunior Bonner is a film released in 1972 directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring Steve McQueen, Joe Don Baker, Robert Preston and Ida Lupino. The film focuses on a veteran rodeo rider as he returns to his hometown of Prescott, Arizona to participate in an annual rodeo competition and reunite with...
- 1972 The GetawayThe Getaway (1972 film)The Getaway is a 1972 American action-crime film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw.The film is based on a novel by Jim Thompson, with the screenplay written by Walter Hill...
- 1973 Pat Garrett and Billy the KidPat Garrett and Billy the KidPat Garrett and Billy the Kid is a 1973 Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring James Coburn and Kris Kristofferson. Co-star Bob Dylan composed multiple songs for the movie's score and the album Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid was released the same year.The film was noted for...
- 1974 Bring Me the Head of Alfredo GarciaBring Me the Head of Alfredo GarciaBring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is a 1974 American action film directed by Sam Peckinpah and featuring Warren Oates....
- 1975 The Killer EliteThe Killer EliteThe Killer Elite is a 1975 American action thriller film starring James Caan and Robert Duvall and directed by Sam Peckinpah.The screenplay was written by Marc Norman and Stirling Silliphant adapted from the Robert Syd Hopkins novel, Monkey in the Middle. The novel was written under Hopkins'...
- 1977 Cross of IronCross of IronCross of Iron is a 1977 war film directed by Sam Peckinpah, featuring James Coburn, Maximilian Schell, James Mason and David Warner. The film is set on the Eastern Front in World War II during the Soviet's Caucasus operations that forced the Wehrmacht to retreat from the Taman Peninsula on the...
- 1978 Convoy
- 1982 Jinxed!Jinxed!Jinxed! is a 1982 comedy-drama film starring Bette Midler, Rip Torn and Ken Wahl. Directed by Don Siegel, the veteran filmmaker would suffer a heart attack during the troubled production...
(stunt director) - 1983 The Osterman WeekendThe Osterman Weekend (film)The Osterman Weekend is a 1983 suspense thriller film directed by Sam Peckinpah, based on the novel of the same name by Robert Ludlum. The film stars Rutger Hauer, John Hurt, Burt Lancaster, Dennis Hopper, Meg Foster and Craig T. Nelson...
Television credits
- 1955-58 GunsmokeGunsmokeGunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West....
- Episode 10 - The Queue (Writer)
- Episode 18 - Yorky (Writer)
- Episode 27 - Corker (Writer)
- Episode 31 - How To Die For Nothing (Writer)
- Episode 35 - The Guitar (Writer)
- Episode 43 - The Round Up (Writer)
- Episode 47 - Legal Revenge (Writer)
- Episode 52 - Poor Pearl (Writer)
- Episode 78 - Jealousy (Writer)
- Episode 103 - Dirt (Writer)
- 1956-58 Broken ArrowBroken Arrow (TV series)Broken Arrow is a Western series which ran on ABC-TV in prime time from 1956 through 1958 on Tuesdays at 9 p.m. Eastern time. Repeat episodes were shown by ABC on Sunday afternoons during the 1959–60 season...
- Episode 29 - The Assassin (Writer)
- Episode 41 - The Teacher (Writer)
- Episode 72 - The Transfer (Writer & Director)
- 1958 Have Gun – Will Travel
- Episode 22 - The Singer (Co-Writer)
- 1958-63 The RiflemanThe RiflemanThe Rifleman is an American Western television program that starred Chuck Connors as homesteader Lucas McCain and Johnny Crawford as his son, Mark McCain. It was set in the 1880s in the town of North Fork, New Mexico Territory. The show, filmed in black-and-white with a half hour running time, ran...
- Episode 1 - The Sharpshooter (Writer)
- Episode 2 - Home Ranch (Writer)
- Episode 4 - The Marshal (Writer & Director)
- Episode 22 - The Boarding House (Writer & Director)
- Episode 33 - The Money Gun (Co-Writer & Director)
- Episode 52 - The Baby Sitter (Co-Writer & Director)
- 1960 The WesternerThe Westerner (TV series)The Westerner is a 1960 Four Star Television Western series on NBC created by Sam Peckinpah. The series stars Brian Keith as Dave Blassingame and features John Dehner as semi-regular Burgundy Smith...
- Episode 1 - Jeff (Writer & Director)
- Episode 2 - School Days (Writer)
- Episode 3 - Brown (Director)
- Episode 4 - Mrs. Kennedy (Co-Writer)
- Episode 6 - The Courting of Libby (Director)
- Episode 8 - The Old Man (Co-Director)
- Episode 12 - Hand on the Gun (Director)
- Episode 13 - The Painting (Director)
- 1961 Route 66Route 66 (TV series)Route 66 is an American TV series in which two young men traveled across America. The show ran weekly on CBS from 1960 to 1964. It starred Martin Milner as Tod Stiles and, for two and a half seasons, George Maharis as Buz Murdock. Maharis was ill for much of the third season, during which time Tod...
- Episode 39 - Mon Petit Chou (Director)
- 1960 Klondike
- Episode 1 - Klondike Fever (Co-Writer and Director)
- Episode 2 - River of Gold (Director)
- Episode 3 - Saints And Stickups (Director)
- Episode 4 - The Unexpected Candidate (Director)
- Episode 5 - 88 Keys To Trouble (Director)
- Episode 6 - Swoger's Mules (Co-Writer and Director)
- Episode 7 - Sure Thing, Men (Director)
- Episode 8 - A Taste of Danger (Director)
- Episode 9 - Bare Knuckles (Director)
- Episode 10 - Halliday's Club (Director)
- Episode 11 - Bathhouse Justice (Director)
- Episode 12 - Swing Your Partner (Co-Writer)
- Episode 13 - The Golden Burro (Director)
- Episode 14 - Queen of the Klondike (Director)
- Episode 15 - The Man Who Owned Skagway (Director)
- Episode 16 - Sitka Madonna (Director)
- Episode 17 - The Hostages (Director)
External links
- Earned in Blood A discussion forum for fans of Sam Peckinpah
- Senses of Cinema: Sam Peckinpah
- Essays about Sam Peckinpah's films
- Roger Ebert review of The Wild Bunch
- Sam Peckinpah versus Michael Mann
- A Tribute to Sam Peckinpah by ConvoyTM.com
- "A Glorious High" by Pauline Kael at austinchronicle.com
- Best Sam Peckinpah Westerns from American Movie Classics