The Wild Bunch

Scott is joined by Ryan Rebalkin (Director’s Chair Network CEO) for a deep dive into Sam Peckinpah’s most famous film, The Wild Bunch (1969). They discuss the groundbreaking violence, nihilistic themes, aging outlaws, male codes of honor, and the film’s massive influence on later movies like Heat, Young Guns, and Tombstone.

Ryan shares his first-time watch thoughts, they break down the infamous final shootout, behind-the-scenes chaos, animal cruelty controversies, and why this film changed the Western genre forever.

0:00 – Intro & Guest Ryan Rebalkin
1:06 – The Wild Bunch Overview & Stats
2:38 – Ryan’s First-Time Watch Experience
8:36 – Peckinpah’s Evolution from Earlier Films
11:11 – Influence on Michael Mann, Young Guns & Tombstone
16:10 – The Final Shootout & Slow-Motion Sequence
28:39 – Themes of Nihilism, Masculinity & Men Out of Time
37:30 – Animal Cruelty & Behind-the-Scenes Stories
44:47 – Character Deep Dives & Ending Discussion
55:51 – Final Thoughts & Peckinpah Legacy

Creators and Guests

Host

Ryan Rebalkin

Host

Scott Murphy

What is The Director's Chair Network?

Join Ryan and many featured guests and other hosts as they break down and review a variety of directors and their films!
So far, this podcast has featured films from Edward Zwick, John Hughes, Brian De Palma, and Michael Mann.
Soon, we will feature Edgar Wright, Sam Peckinpah, Paul Verhoeven, and David Fincher!

94177755-f5ed-db76-97b5-18cdc0251d38.mp3
Thank you.
Thank you.
We will be looking back at Peckinpah's probably most famous film, The Wild Bunch.
As always, I have a very special guest.
This time in the form of the Director Chair Network head honcho, Ryan Rebolkin, and also obviously host of a number of podcasts that he can tell you about.
Welcome, Ryan.
Well, thanks, Scott. It's really cool to be here. Did you say third? I think this is his fourth film. Am I reading that right?
Did I say third edition? I meant to say fourth edition because obviously we have previously covered The Deadly Companions, Ride the High Country, and Major Dundee. So yes, I misspoke there. It is very much the fourth edition of Bloody Sam.
Well, I was getting nervous like, holy crap, did I watch the wrong film? No.
No, no, no. It's very much his fourth film. That is correct.
Well, I'm excited. And thank you, Scott, for joining the network for your season of Sam. And like you know and like your listeners know, I do run the Director's Chair Network. The idea of that network is I wanted other people to pick a director and kind of run that show themselves.
Like I've done with Ed Zwick, Michael Mann, and now Terrence Malick, and have other rotating hosts come on. So you took that banner for Sam Peckinpah. So I'm really grateful that you did that. I don't know if I ever would have picked Sam, but I'm really excited going through these films. And then you asked me, of course, which film do you want to do? And I right away picked The Wild Bunch, one because I'm a huge Western fan. And I had thought I had seen this film, but I was wrong. I've never seen this film before until watching it for the show.
Wow. That really surprises me because I know you're a big Western guy. So I thought you'd be coming in, having seen it multiple times. So this puts me in an interesting position because as I've mentioned throughout the series, I'm not necessarily a massive Western guy. My kind of natural homes are like action, comedy, and horror.
So that really surprises me. So this is fresh to you. This is a brand new film. Wow. Okay.
You know what I thought? I was watching it, and I was about half an hour into it, and my brain was like, Ryan, no, no, you're thinking The Magnificent Seven. I'm like, oh my gosh. I got the two movies mixed up in my head.
And I've seen The Magnificent Seven because I was thinking, oh, they did a remake of this one recently with a guy from the Marvel films.
Oh, yeah.
The remake. Yeah, they did do a remake. Like Denzel Washington's in it.
Oh, maybe I'm thinking of the wrong guy. I think so. Maybe a bunch of them. It's not too bad, actually.
It wasn't too bad of a film because I like Western so much. Like even a bad Western is still kind of fun to watch. And I thought The Magnificent Seven remake was just fine.
But my brain was like, no, no, Ryan, totally different movie, different title too. I'm just old, okay?
And then as I'm watching the film, I'm like, okay, I have not seen this before. I was, yeah, we'll get into it then. So this was a first time watch for me. So I don't have anything expert to say. I'm just going to gush about the film with you, if that's okay.
That is perfectly fine. That is perfectly fine. We can gush away. I will quickly do the stats that I normally do, and then we can get into the gushing.
Today's film was released on June 18th, 1969. It was written by, the screenplay was written by Wallen Green, who has an interesting TV career, like screenwriting career.
He has also, his notable credits, film credits include Sorcerer, the William Friedkin film, and some random films, Robocop 2 and Eraser.
But he has a lot more, like television credits. He did a bunch of episodes of Hill Street Blues, NYPD Blues, some ER, a couple of different Law & Order shows, including the original and Criminal Intent.
The screenplay was co-written with Peckinpah himself, and it was based on a story by a guy called Roy N. Sickner, in his only writing credit, as he was mainly a stuntman and actor.
Critically, it is currently sitting on 91%, based on 67 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, 98 on Metacritic, based on 20 reviews.
It has a 7.9 on IMDb, that's out of 10 on IMDb, and a 4.1 out of 5 on Letterboxd.
It was also selected for preservation by the National Film Registry in 1999, and was ranked the 79th greatest American film by the AFI in their top 100 American films,
as well as being ranked 6th in the AFI's top 10 Westerns.
So there you go, of all time.
American Westerns, obviously.
Yeah, sure.
Yeah.
So there we go.
It is obviously highly regarded.
It is one of Peckinpah's most famous films.
It probably is his most famous film, and definitely one of his most celebrated as well.
So, like...
Remind me, why did you pick Peckinpah?
Why did I pick Peckinpah?
I think that, like, Peckinpah is an interesting director.
I think that, like...
I just thought it'd be interesting to talk about his films, many of which I really like.
The Wild Bunch being one of them.
Bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia being another.
I just thought it'd be an excellent opportunity to explore the whole filmography of a director that I'd seen, like, just under half of his films, kind of before, you know, starting this show.
So I thought that.
And I think that, like, his films are also, in the modern day, very interesting to talk about.
Because I think that he is a director that has a certain machismo and masculinity that has fallen out of fashion.
And that it's interesting to kind of talk about that kind of complex legacy of how, like, some of his films are, you know, perceived quite rightly as very misogynistic.
But also how he satirizes on toxic masculinity as much as he represents it.
So I think there's a variety of factors that drew me to Peckinpah as a director.
Oh, great.
Yeah.
And I'm looking at his filmography and I haven't seen...
Boy, this is a director that I'm surprised I never kind of latched onto back in the day.
I think part of it is just age.
Like, I am a little bit older.
But that being said, I mean, this film came out six or seven years before I was even born.
So it's not like he was...
He was already an old director when I was a teenager.
So I never really went back to his films.
But I'm glad you're doing it like that.
That's exactly why I did what I do.
There's directors that I enjoy, but I know I haven't seen their whole filmography.
So it kind of, I wouldn't say forces you, but it's nice to do that completest work of a director's journey to see how they change over the films.
So my question to you now is with the three films on your belt, this being the fourth film, what...
Maybe other than the violence, obviously, or maybe there was violence in those first three films.
But what's the biggest change that you found Paco Pa doing here from his first three films to this one?
Or some changes?
I think, like...
I don't...
It's interesting.
I mean, the violence is like the kind of extremity of the violence is kind of like notched up from the three previous films.
You know, like Deadly Companions is very relatively tame.
And Major Dundee is relatively tame.
Although the producer's cut that was released in 2005 has got more...
Stronger violence in it.
Right, the high country is relatively tame by the standards of this and today's standards.
But by 1962 standards is really quite violent.
So there's that.
I think, like, it's less about how he's changed.
It's more about how he's, like, amped things up.
Like, he kind of became known...
I mean, that's how he got the nickname, Bloody Sam.
He kind of became known for violence.
And he kind of became known for, like, a particularly nihilistic worldview.
And you can see threads of that in the other films.
But he kind of ratchets that up.
And, like, he kind of...
I guess, like, he's kind of digging further into, like, themes he's already starting to explore.
He seems to be most fascinated with, like, kind of male codes of honor, male friendships, men who are out of time, who are, like, who are kind of past their cell by date.
And the world no longer fits them.
And they don't quite know how to fit in.
Like, that seems...
That's, like, a major theme that is...
You know, he's explored and he kind of deepens here.
So, I think, like, there's a lot of themes that he's already kind of working on.
But he's just kind of deepened and expanded in this film.
And he's really doubled down on them.
You know?
Okay.
That's cool.
And watching this film for the first time after many, many years of films and many years of Westerns.
I'm almost ashamed that it's taken me so long to watch the film.
Because of the...
I don't know if I say tropes isn't the right word.
But things that I've enjoyed, I'll just say right now.
Tombstone.
The Young Guns films.
Those are my favorite Westerns of all time.
I grew up with those films.
I was a teenager when they came out.
And, wow.
Did the Wild Bunch not only influence those films, but Michael Mann as well.
And I don't know when you want to get into some of those correlations.
I'm happy to go at any time.
But I found myself like, oh my gosh.
Michael Mann took that.
And the directors of Young Guns, the writers of Young Guns took that trope.
And then Tombstone.
I'll just say this right now before I forget.
The famous scene in Tombstone before the OK Corral shootout was the four of them walking together towards the shootout in slow motion.
And when the four guys at the end of The Wild Bunch, when they're walking towards the Mexican general and his crew, that same slow motion, people moving out of the way.
I was like, that's bang for bang.
The director of Tombstone, which is argued to be, well, it's George B. Cosmatis officially, but I think it was Kurt Russell that took over the directors.
That's a knock to The Wild Bunch.
It has to be.
There's no way the people that made Tombstone doesn't know The Wild Bunch.
What are your thoughts on that?
No, I absolutely agree.
I absolutely agree.
I think that like, I definitely think that's a nod.
And the interesting thing, the fascinating thing that I did not know before researching the episode was that sequence was like kind of on the fly.
It was like, it wasn't in the script.
It was improvised by Peckinpah.
He was just like, we need like a, we need like a little bit of a buildup before we get into this final battle that, you know, they dubbed the Battle of Bloody Porch.
And yeah, so I definitely think that that was, that was a nod.
Yeah, for sure.
Oh, it has to be.
It just has to be.
Both of the, mostly, what do you call it, talked about shootouts.
Okay, Carl, being a real event, this one being a film event.
But that being said, yeah, that was definitely a nod.
And then just the, like you're saying with the companionship of these hooligans, you know, go to Young Guns.
Of course, Billy the Kid and his squad.
They're not good people in the sense of these are morally correct individuals, but their honor amongst thief that, I keep saying the word trope.
I don't know what the other word is because trope has a negative connotation.
But the idea of you have a group of individuals who aren't obeying the law, but the law itself is corrupt.
That's what Peckinpah delves into here is you have these thieves who are good people in the sense they're, you know, brothers and they'll die for each other.
But yeah, they're working in an institution of land and government that's corrupt in itself.
And so it's like, who's really the bad guy here?
And that's what I love about these films.
So Young Guns, again, they're on the run from the law, but they're also run from, you know, they're sort of on the run from the world.
So again, Peckinpah, I don't know which Westerns did this before Peckinpah is what I'm getting at.
I'm not a, I'm a Western fan, but I'm not a Western nerd, Phil.
Like people who are obviously, you know, like people study this stuff.
I just enjoy the films.
I mean, I watched the Spaghetti Westerns with Clint, but even that was just about Clint being the, you know, the nameless cowboy.
John Wayne films too, you know, so it's sort of heroic.
Even John Wayne said that Peckinpah destroyed the romantic myth of Westerns with this film.
Yeah.
So like, I like you, I'm not, I'm not a Western expert.
I would never claim to be a Western expert, but I do think that like, you know, obviously you mentioned the, you know, the Clint and the man with no name trilogy.
And I think that had a big impact.
And then I think, yeah, in terms of American Westerns, I think this was kind of the first wave of what would become known as, as revisionist Westerns.
That was like a dirtier, dustier, like uglier West that kind of looked at the kind of underbelly of the West and didn't have like, you know, kind of white hats and black hats.
And just had everybody, you know, everybody is kind of shitty in their own way.
And some people are like a little bit more noble than other people, but, you know, even the somewhat noble people are still kind of shitty.
And like, yeah, I think like that hadn't really been done until, until this period, until we get into this kind of tail end of the sixties and then, you know, it would explode further into the seventies where it was, it was kind of uglier, nastier West that was shown.
That was, you know, probably truer to history.
And the other thing that young guns borrowed was the whole, I mean, this is common in Westerns, but the whole, the group having time in the whorehouse before, you know,
the big moments of battle and the marriages, the guy comes in and this movie says, meet my fiance.
That happened literally in the first young guns film.
They're going to the whorehouse and the guy gets married before the big shootout.
So there's like, I couldn't believe how many I, there were so many, I should have wrote them down.
But as I'm watching the wild bunch, knowing these other films I grew up with, like, holy, this movie rightfully so has influence heavily later films.
So this is sort of the, the same way, boy, I don't know the same way maybe Alfred Hitchcock kind of revolutionized, um, not horror movies, but, you know, uh, atmospheric type scary movies.
I think, I mean, he did kind of revolutionize horror movies with psycho.
Like, like, like, psycho is like, cause like 19, I mean, this is a minor diversion, but like 1960 with, with, with psycho and, and peeping Tom and eyes without a face where, where like that was seen as like a real turning point year in horror.
That kind of moved away from kind of like, you know, kind of like Gothic horror, like, you know, Dracula and Frankenstein and, and, and, you know, the, the, you know, the werewolf man and, and all that towards kind of more kind of horror in, you know, kind of urban environments.
And, and, and, and kind of the, the quote unquote real world and, and, and stuff like that.
So like, yeah, I mean, he was definitely part of that kind of major turning point in horror history.
Yeah.
And he doesn't have as many films as I thought he might've had one because he died so fricking young compared to today's age.
He died at 59.
That's right.
That's right.
So he died in 1984.
Um, because he was, uh, I mean, uh, obviously that, uh, something, uh, that we regularly talk about that he, he is a heavy drinker.
He was throughout his life.
He was a very, very heavy drinker.
Um, and like alcoholism was, you know, um, yeah, uh, just a, a, a, a big part of, um, his life.
And, and it seems like, you know, he was a genius on set some days and like kind of a tyrant other days and, um, and like, you know, um, unprofessional other days.
And it, yeah.
And his alcoholism was, was the driver, uh, for that, you know?
So it, uh, yes.
It might explain his six marriages.
Yes.
It definitely explains.
It definitely explains a lot about his, uh, about his personal life.
And, and, uh, but apparently when he wasn't, you know, apparently he was like quite a, you know, according to some of the actors I've seen interviews with, uh, like a pretty nice guy when he wasn't, you know, smashed.
But like, um, but he could be very, very violent, very temperamental when he had a drink in them.
And, um, you know, yeah, it cost them.
It cost them a lot.
Um, well, some of the actors on this movie, of course I did read behind the scenes stuff where I could find it.
And, and, uh, I do love this, uh, of course you probably know this, but maybe some of our listeners don't.
So Robert Ryan, who played Thornton, he, um, complained about the top billing.
Look, I get it.
I mean, these are all, I'm gathering, I don't know these actors very well, but I suspect these actors at this time in 69 were, they were already old in 69.
Let's keep that in mind.
So these, some of these, uh, the main cast were already older actors.
So they had their time in Hollywood, probably in the forties and fifties.
Right.
So here are these older actors, uh, who have been around the block.
So Robert Ryan being one of them was like, Hey, look, man, like I want higher billing or top billing.
You want a top billing.
And it bothered Sam Peck about so much that when they're showing the credit, see, I don't know these actors names.
So when they're showing the names next to the actors, I was like, Oh, is that the actor's name that, you know, when they freeze on the face at the beginning of the film.
So apparently he put his name on the horse's butts at the, uh, during that part.
That's, that was his way of saying his, uh, yeah.
So it was like Robert ran the horse's ass.
So I, I did, I did enjoy that.
And also the actors were saying that during the filming, he was, it seems like these directors, like from Kubrick to others, they really paneled their actors, but it brings out some sort of performance though.
I don't know.
There's something about the dickish director that makes the performance on screen at least better.
Is there, is there a correlation to that?
I'm not advocating for assholery, but there seems, it seems to work.
I don't know.
I mean, obviously it's a thorny issue.
Um, obviously, you know, like, you know, instinctively, you don't want people to be treated like that.
Um, but, you know, like, um, you know, you definitely, and, and it seems like, because like, um, um, I mean, generally, I think on this film, there was a lot of heavy drinking.
Um, because like, um, one of the other lead actors, William, William Holden, who plays Pike, uh, Pike Bishop, um, he was also an alcoholic.
Um, and, um, so like, um, yeah.
Um, and yeah.
So like, I, I think there was a lot of temperamental phase, but, um, yeah.
I mean, certainly does push people, I guess, like, you know, um, apparently like William Holden does tell a story or I heard him tell a story about, um, like from an old interview where like the first day on set, they had the scene.
And, and it, the, the scene, the first scene that they shot was like the scene where they go to see, uh, old man Sykes for the first time after the, the, the, the robbery, um, um, uh, the, the initial robbery that happens.
And, um, apparently some of them kind of stumbled over the lines or didn't quite know their lines.
And like Peckinpah chewed them out and was like, I expect actors to know the lines.
And like, you know, and it's like, I'm going to give you 20 minutes.
And if, if in 20 minutes, you don't know all your lines, the first person that stumbles over a line is getting fired.
I don't care who it is.
And like, so like, and just went off crazy.
And then they all ran off into the bushes, memorized their lines, came back, everybody hit their beats and it was fine.
Nobody got fired, but like, that's just like a little insight to like the kind of things that were happening on set, you know?
Very intense.
He fired 22 people during that film.
And so he sounded like a very intense, uh, boss or director.
Uh, yeah.
So I, I know I love this behind the scenes stuff.
I mean, I, I don't want to, what, what's the word?
I don't want to railroad.
There you go.
Railroad.
Excuse me, but you're sure.
You're sure.
But I find that behind the scenes stuff, I'm very fascinating just how this stuff came together.
Um, the movie has a, but the movie as a whole for a Western there, I mean, it's funny.
There's parts of it where you could see that it was in the 60s.
I mean, 69, there's still just, just the nature of films at the time.
You could tell it was a little bit aged.
Some of the editing was a little bit.
I know that he was really big on the editing on this film.
I don't know what the purpose of that was.
There's just like 2000 plus edits.
It was kind of new for its time.
It's almost very standard now.
Remember the 2000s with editing, the jarring editing?
Yeah, but I don't find it, I don't find it as annoying here as I do like the Michael Bay thing, which I find infuriating.
Like I, I, I find that that editing style almost unwatchable.
Yeah, I agree.
I agree totally.
This is done subtly, smoothly, better, it's a better word.
So I actually didn't think it was a lot of edits until I read the trivia that it was a lot of edits.
Like that's interesting because it just, like you said, it didn't feel jarring or, uh, there were some interesting zoom in moments that I found that were interesting.
Um, yeah, this, uh, I, I know we're going to talk about the, the shootout at the end.
Because even I knew before watching this film that this film was famous for the quote unquote big shootout.
And Peckinpah did say that he wanted to bring that back to films, i.e. Bond and Clyde, which I think came out in 67.
So before, before this film, they already had sort of that big shootout.
Granted, it was just two people getting shot, you know, to pieces outside the car.
So it's a very small audience or, or, or casualty count.
Uh, I would suspect, again, I don't know.
Was there another film before this one, at least on state side that had such a body count in 69 and that, in that kind of manner?
Or was this really sort of the first of its kind?
Um, off the top of my head, I, I, I don't know.
I, I mean, like, uh, possibly, but like, I definitely think in terms of this high of a body count and this level of bloodiness, I think it was, it's, it's stood out.
It stood out.
And, and, and, and, you know, because like people weren't used to it because like, um, you know, when this film first came out, you know, it wasn't like massively critically, uh, acclaimed.
Like people didn't like it, you know, critics like, you know,
called it pornographic and, you know, and damned it for its violence and, and, and all that.
So I do think it was, it was jarring and different for its time.
I think that like, um, uh, yeah, I, I think that's one of the reasons it kind of stood out or disturbed and upset people.
Um, uh, when it first came out, I mean, 69, uh, that's, let me do my math here.
50, almost 57 years ago.
And I guess there would have been some pro clutching at the time.
And so when I'm getting ready to watch the big shootout, I was like, Oh, come on.
It's just really how, how, how, how brutal can this be?
I don't mean brutal.
Like, I wonder why people were clutching the pros, but I'm watching now in 2026 eyes.
And I've seen a lot, a lot of violent films in my time.
And I gotta say, because it's so, because it's that raw guerrilla filmmaking that we don't have any, any more today.
There's something like lovingly beautiful about the rawness of the violence that I love that we don't see today.
Yeah.
The blood, the squibs are a little bit, you know, there's different squibs back then.
They're better now.
And the redness of the blood is almost too red.
It's a catch of you look that they're better at doing now.
But that being said, yeah, it's, you know, it's on their, it's on their outfits and stuff.
You see the red just looks, it looks like paint almost.
But the shootout though was, it was really good.
And we knew that machine gun was going to be used and I loved how it was used and I thought it was fantastically done.
And there's one scene where the Mexican soldiers are coming through the doorway, the tunnel.
And one of the, one of the brothers there is just laying in the waste as they're coming through like a video game.
And I just thought that was fantastic.
I loved it.
I loved watching the bodies fall.
I thought it was fantastic.
And then with the wild bunch being gunned down, I kind of knew they were all going to die, but how they died again, it reminded me of young guns.
One, when they were caught in the, the burning house here, they're caught in, you know, they're trapped at this, you know, part of the base where they can't get out of them surrounded by the military.
Again, young guns, one surrounded by the military in the burning house.
And a couple of them made it alive, but the rest of the crew got killed in that gunfight.
So again, young guns borrowed heavily from this.
How do we get out of the situation?
But what I liked about the wild bunch is nobody got out alive.
I thought it was fantastic.
Yeah.
And I think that's, that's, that's, that's very deliberate.
And I do think it's the, the shooter.
I mean, like, yeah, I mean, obviously, yeah, we've kind of jumped to them.
So we're here.
So we'll talk about it.
So like, I'm sorry, I go over the place.
It's all right.
It's all right.
We can, we can jump back and forward.
It's totally fine.
But the, I think the interesting thing about it, and you can definitely see like, as well as like influence in Western films, you can see like its influence on action films as well.
But the thing that makes it different that I think is like, and this is like, and I guess like my thoughts on this have grown as this is like the fifth time I've seen the film.
Is like the thing about the kind of violence you get in like a John Wick film or the kind of violence you get in like Tarantino's like Kill Bill films or the kind of violence you get in like, you know, the kind of what the quote unquote heroic bloodshed of John Woo films is like that.
Violence is exciting, you know, and it's meant to be exciting.
It's meant to be exciting and it's meant to be cathartic in some way.
However, this is, it's not, it's not, it's not stylized.
It's not exciting.
It's just brutal and messy and dirty and sad.
It's just, and I, I kind of, I kind of agree with Peckinpah, like watching it this, this time, I probably ruined it in my teens when I first saw it.
But Peckinpah said that he did not regard this as an action film and was offended that people regarded this as an action film.
And he viewed it as a tragedy.
And it, and it is like, because they're, the interesting thing about this battle is like, possibly it didn't need to happen.
It's like, they kill the general.
Everybody freezes because they're like, holy fuck.
He's just killed.
They just killed the general.
And like, so fantastic.
I love that right away.
Killed the top guy right away.
And when that happened, I'm like, well, that's it.
You got, there's no way you can get out of here.
And I love that idea that everyone's in shock.
Like, oh, they just shot the president right in front of us.
And what do we do now?
Exactly.
I thought it was great writing to wait, to wait that beat.
Like, yeah.
But there is a pause that like, yeah, there, there is, there is that pause.
And like, there's a pause long enough that maybe they could have got away.
Yeah.
Like, if they wanted to, but they don't want to.
Like, Ernest Borgnine's Dutch character, you know, smiles and then laughs and then looks and looks at the other guys.
And they know, they know it's a suicide mission.
They know they're like, they want to die at that point.
They're like, they're past their time.
You know, like they've no longer got the legs for being, you know, gunfighters.
You know, like they've, you know, there's no need in this new West of like 1913 for gunslingers.
You know, like they've got machine guns now, you know, and they're, they're old and they're, well, they're not old, old by our standards.
Cause like, you know, like, you know, Ernest Borgnine was like 52.
William Holden was like 50.
And like the Gortz, the actors who played the Gortz brothers were in their early forties, I think.
But anyway, but they're, they're expired and that's it.
So they're like, fuck it.
And that's, that's it.
And so, I mean, they go in knowing that they're going to be slaughtered, but they're going to take down as many people as they can before they do that.
And again, back to young guns, they had the machine gun at the end.
Is that weird?
Yeah.
It's interesting.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's interesting.
I love it.
I love the aging cowboy.
Yeah.
Trope.
Storytelling.
The Unforgiven was a good, good film for that.
Open range with Robert Duvall, rest in peace.
And Kevin Costner.
Was it, I don't know if you've seen that film, Open Range.
I think I did when it came out, but I mean, obviously that's a long, long time ago, like 20 years ago or something.
Almost.
I think it's 2008.
2008.
Right.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Fantastic Western.
But those are the type of Westerns I like.
I love the, the aging Western guy.
I love that.
I think even Logan, the Marvel film, Logan touches on that.
Yeah.
And it's kind of stylized like a Western, even like it's kind of, it kind of feels like a Western at Logan, even though it's not technically.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like, it is interesting though, because like, I don't know, how old did you think that the bunch were?
Would you have played, would you have placed them?
Like, like, you know, at that kind of age?
I usually do do ages of people.
I admit I'm one of those guys, like how old are the actors?
And I always do whatever the actor's age is.
I'm like, that's your character's age.
I don't care.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm one of those people.
And I actually didn't do the ages.
So it's your typical, everyone looks older than they really are.
Like, it's weird.
Peckinpah, like I'm looking at his photo right now on Wikipedia, the one that you use for your, which is a great picture, the one that you use for your podcast artwork.
He looks like he might be 72, but he died at 59.
And that picture was taken in 68.
So that, it's weird.
He was 46 in that photo or something like that.
Is that weird?
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's right.
Yeah.
Because he was 1968.
He was born in 1925.
1925.
1925.
He's 43.
Yeah, he's 43.
He's 47 years younger than I.
I'm 50.
I'm 50 right now.
And I didn't see that photo.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, alcohol does age you.
I mean, that is one thing.
Like, alcoholism will age you.
You know, like that is.
This is lemonade.
This is lemonade.
So.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's.
So that definitely, that definitely, you know, puts years on you.
But, like, I think, like, people did look older back in those days.
And it is interesting because I do feel that, like, the kind of, we've got, you know, the guys who play the kind of the wild bunch here.
And we've got, you know, William Holden as Pike.
We've got Ernest Borgnine as Dutch.
Warren.
Warren Oates as one of the Gorch brothers.
And then Ben Johnson as the other Gorch brother.
Yeah.
And they, like, they all have.
And Peckinpah deliberately did this.
He wanted people with kind of lived in faces.
And, like, the, you know, there is certain actors that he's worked with a lot.
Like, that are in, that are in this film.
You know, he's got kind of all of his regulars in this movie.
Like, he's done a lot of Warren Oates.
The guys who play the, the guys who are, like, always, like, trying to get things robbing the corpses and stuff like that.
They're played by Strother Martin and LQ Jones.
That guy, again, they're, they're kind of Peckinpah regulars.
And, yeah, so there is a few of them that are, like, who are, like, recurring actors that I've already seen a bunch of times.
And I will see a bunch more times.
And Ben Johnson as well, who plays the, the other Gorch brother, Tector.
Again, he's, he's another one who regularly, regularly turns up.
But, you know, he kind of got people who had kind of deliberately got people who had kind of lived in faces.
And it's the kind of face you just don't get in movies now.
You know, like, it's just, you don't really see that kind of old, haggard, not even that they were old.
They were all, like, middle-aged.
But, like, you know, that kind of haggard face.
You don't really see that anymore.
Well, what's his name?
Ernest, how do you say his last name?
Ernest Borgnine.
Borgnine, that's right.
Just like a, so he was, he was born in 1917, so 69, he was 52.
52, yeah.
So he was a little bit there.
And William Holden, I think, was the same.
I think William Holden was, like, 51.
I think he was 1918.
And for some reason, he was the only face I recognized.
Yeah, he was, I mean, I don't know, maybe you, I mean, he's in a, he's in a bunch of things.
He was, he was a big, yeah, he was a big actor in the 40s and 50s.
I mean, the things I would have known him for are Sunset Boulevard, which I've seen a couple of times, and Bridge on the River Kwai, which is like my dad used to like war films.
So like I've seen Bridge on the River Kwai a few times.
So that would have been the things that I'd known him for a couple of times at the top of my head.
But the interesting thing about him was that he was kind of he was big in the 40s and 50s, but he was kind of experiencing like a kind of career downturn at the time.
And he was not the first choice to star as Pike.
The first choice was Lee Marvin, who took the role, but then walked away from the role because he was offered a bigger paycheck and a much easier schedule to film Paint Your Wagon.
And then he cycled through a bunch of people who turned it down.
Robert Mitchum, Gregory Peck, Jimmy Stewart, and a few other actors.
And then he finally got to William Holden, who I think was kind of known as kind of a kind of dashing leading man.
And Peckinpan is in his head, kind of put him in that and what just wasn't the face he wanted.
But then when he saw him, because William Holden, also an alcoholic, so had a much rougher face by the time 1969 was rolling around.
Yeah, he was like, OK, yeah, I think we can do this with you.
So it was interesting that like he's great.
And I wouldn't have anybody else playing Pike, but he was like, you know, eighth on the list to get it or something like that.
Speaking of Michael Mann and the movie, one of his, of course, his biggest films is Heat.
So I think Heat would probably like this is Peckinpan's Heat.
All right.
And Heat is Michael Mann's Wild Bunch.
And what I mean by that, a couple of similarities here.
Again, Michael Mann, I'm sure he's very familiar with the Wild Bunch.
Being a director, it's almost incumbent upon directors to know the films that came before the, you know, shaped films.
And Heat has the same formula.
That formula is you have thieves who rob.
And you as the viewer, you're sort of rooting, like you're not rooting against the thieves.
And when I'm watching this film, I'm not rooting against these thieves.
I don't want the Mexican army to capture them.
And I almost don't want Thornton to capture them.
But I love the cat and mouse.
And he did, I think he just over time did a better job at the cat and mouse game between Pacino and De Niro's character.
But that's the same.
What I'm getting at this, Michael Mann, what he's good at is he shows you both sides.
The old-fashioned filmmaking, of course, the old westerns before the Wild Bunch would be, we saw just sort of the life of the good guy.
And as the bad guys came across the good guy's path, we got to know the bad guys a little bit.
But what I like about the Wild Bunch and Heat is we see and understand the motives or the story of the quote-unquote bad guys.
And we see them as human.
And so when they are gunned down, even though they weren't quote-unquote good people throughout their life,
I mean, there's a scene where one of them uses a whore as a meat shield.
And, you know, these aren't necessarily good people in that way.
They're not moralistically the kind of people you'd want to be.
But as a viewer of the film, you're not rooting for their demise.
And Michael Mann's very good at that as well.
And the other thing that Michael Mann took from Peckinpah, maybe inadvertently, but Peckinpah, he didn't want the standard pew, pew, pew sounds of guns.
He wanted to ensure that every firearm had its own sound that was with that firearm.
And that was the very thing that the very famous L.A. downtown shootout and Heat, that was the big thing that Michael Mann wanted.
He wanted all of his guns to sound unique to the weapon.
So there you go.
There's my Michael Mann-Peckinpah crossover.
Yeah, no.
And that makes perfect sense.
And I do think, like you say, I think there is similarities in terms of like Peckinpah's main fascinations and Michael Mann's main fascinations.
And again, that's to do with masculinity, male friendships, particular kind of masculine codes of honour and sticking to those codes of honour, what those codes of honour mean and exploring that.
And like you say, I mean, nobody is a good guy in this film.
Like, you know, like there's no good guys.
Like, you know, Mapache's, you know, army is horrible and they're raiding villages.
You know, the Wild Bunch are horrible.
You know, they're outlaws.
They like, like in the opening scene, Pike, like, you know, leaves one of his guys behind thinking he's disposable only to find out later that like, to be sad about it later because he finds that there's a connection to an other person in his group.
And then he also like, you know, to start the gun, you know, the shootout at the start of the film, he mercilessly throws a bank teller out of the bank, knowing that that bank teller is going to be shot up to give them time to escape from the bank.
You know, so like these are ruthless motherfuckers.
And then also, you know, Deke Thornton's character, he's been hired by this Mr. Harrigan guy who just, he only cares about the interests of the railway and, you know, and commerce.
And that's all he cares about.
You know, like he doesn't care about the law either.
So like everybody in this film is a bad person in some ways, you know, but like you say, you know, because you kind of like follow these characters journey, you kind of bond with them.
And you kind of sympathize with some of the elements of them, even though all of them have done horrendous, horrific things that you would definitely not stand by.
Yeah.
I mean, I love that.
That's what makes for great movie watching is you.
Yeah, you're not challenged, maybe is the right word, but you're on a journey with these guys and you don't know where it's going to go.
And there were scenes and moments where like, I don't know how this is going to end.
I don't know how they're going to get out of this mess.
I don't know who's going to quote unquote win.
There's like good double crosses too with the silver being washers, you know, just stuff like that.
I love the old, the, the, the double cross.
And like you give us the coordinates to this or that, and then I'll give you, or PS, I'll tell you where the weapons are.
Another thing that I like too, is the whole angel being captured and dragged through the streets.
I love that they went back for angel, but they didn't get them.
And he got his throat slit, which is probably a big deal back then.
Right.
It was pretty quick cut, but still you see the blood pour out of his neck and that's like very games of game of Thrones type betrayal and violence that they go back to get angel.
Like a lesser filmmaker, but it'd been like, yeah, we'll get them and we'll, we'll rescue them out of this.
But no, they, they, they butchered them in front of the friends.
You want him?
Here he is.
They slash his throat.
I love that.
Yeah, absolutely.
And again, like angel is kind of presented as one of the kind of slightly more noble characters of the film.
Cause he gave up, he gave up his weapon, sorry.
He gave up his money or his cut to, to give weapons to his people so they could protect his land.
So yeah, he was probably the most noble.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Even though, even though, even though, he is also a bad dude because like, because like he, he, he murders his ex-girlfriend for hooking up with Mepachi.
Like, because like, you know, like, which unintentionally maybe is like, uh, is, is, is a fierce comment on like men's inability to experience shame and rejection.
Like that, like that is, I mean, so like, that's so fucked up.
Um, but yes, like this character who is presented as probably the most noble character in the film, also kind of a piece of shit.
I love that he, he shot the woman next to the general.
And I thought when that happened, like, Oh, they're dead already.
There were, we're only like 40 minutes at the film.
These guys are going to be killed.
And then the general was like, Mepachi is like, Oh, I thought you're trying to shoot me.
Oh, you just killed her.
Lover's quarrel.
No big deal.
Let's have some drinks together.
Like, Oh my gosh.
You know, they got out of that because they're just like, Hey, she's, she's a whore.
Like, okay.
And yeah, the way they treat women, this film is very much.
Yeah.
They're, they're property.
And, but that might've been maybe how they were viewed back then.
I don't know.
I don't know what it was like in 1913 in Mexico.
And yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, probably they were, I mean, like one of the, one of the things this, uh, this film is kind of criticized for.
And, and like, yeah, I mean, I'm sure women horrifically probably would have been seen as disposable at the time.
And, and in many ways, that's one of the most horrifying moments in the film because, because that woman is just treated so disposable, you know, like, Oh, Oh, she's dead.
Again.
Who cares?
You know, like that's, yeah, exactly.
That's, that's all they're used for.
And I think, yeah, one of the things that the film's often criticized for is like the, the fact that the, all the women are sideline and they're not really given characters and they're just there to, to witness.
And I guess Peckinpah's argument against that is like, you know, that they're, they're, they're viewing like all the terrible things that, that, that, that, that, that men and violence are rotting in the world.
You know, like that's, that's, that's kind of, that's kind of what I think the message he was trying to convey.
Although, you know, I think through viewing it through modern eyes, it just comes across as like, you know, women don't matter.
And, and so I think he was trying to do something, but I just think like to a modern sensibility, it just doesn't come off.
They could have like given them a little bit more character instead of just making them witnesses, you know.
But not all the women were treated necessarily poorly in the sense of, remember Pike, after he laid with that very young girl, at the end, she, he saw the baby on the floor, you know, that was her baby.
Yeah.
And he gave her way more gold than she's probably seen her life or silver or whatever.
So they're, again, showing that they, they're not heartless, but they will also use a woman for a meat shield if they're in a gunfight.
It just, I guess it just depends on the circumstance.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I mean, like, yeah, I, yeah, I, I, I know, I know what you mean.
Like, so, so not all of them are actually horrible, but I think in terms of like the, the way the film presents things, I think like, you know, I mean, I don't know, but like they definitely, they could have, you know, had like maybe one or two female characters.
They maybe had a little bit of personality or had a character rather than just being kind of a witness to like, and always being kind of attached to kind of male action rather than having like, uh, you know, an independent spirit of their own.
Um, uh, I do, you know, like, yeah.
I was going to say, I do find it funny in this film that the violence is pretty amped up.
There's some nudity.
There's that, uh, wine fat scene.
And with those, uh, females, uh, bathing in wine with the, with, with the bunch.
With the Gortz brothers.
Although the thing, the thing I would, I think I would mention about that, that I found in the behind the scenes, um, is that the, the, the, the women bathing in the wine with, uh, Warren Oates and Ben Johnson.
Um, not actresses, real Mexican sex workers.
Um, and still like, and, and like apparently Peckinpah used to like to joke that Warner brothers bought hookers for the, uh, for the production.
I love that.
Um, so yeah, I was going to say that.
And what's funny too, is very, there's no real cursing son of a bitch, bitch, but no F bombs.
And I find it interesting that even back then, there were the more concerned about F bomb dropping than they were about nudity and violence.
Is that weird?
Yeah, probably.
Um, uh, yeah, I guess like you don't get like a lot of swearing generally in like films of that age.
So like, yeah, I think, yeah.
Even back then they were more concerned with, um, like kind of talking about, uh, their, their, their crass and their speech, you know, they're talking very adult conversations, but there was, it's just weird that I suspect people 1913 dropped the F bomb back then.
I presume so.
I can't, I can't, I can only presume.
I do know that.
Like, I don't know.
Like, um, yeah, I mean, I would assume so, but like, I think generally in my experience, even in present.
Day, even in present day, I do think that like British people swear more than American people.
So I don't know.
I don't know how much swearing, swearing was going on, but I assume, I assume probably there would have been a few F bombs going on, particularly amongst these kind of like gnarly kind of outlaw figures.
I assume probably they were swearing and, you know, like, um, you know, it's not like they were, um, from genteel society, you know, they were like, you know, they were outlaws.
So, so yeah, I mean, I think just in terms of like films of the day, I think at that stage, you just didn't get a lot of swearing and, um, yeah.
And it kind of, it kind of pushed the boundaries in other ways, but not with swearing for some reason.
Can we talk about animal cruelty?
Um, yes, we, we, we, we, we, we can.
Um, there is like some interesting behind the scenes on that.
Like, I guess like the thing we should mention is like in this era and I'm glad this has changed, but in this era, Hollywood did not care about animal cruelty.
They, they, they, they, like the, the kind of dividing line that changed animal cruelty in Hollywood was heaven's gate, which they killed a bunch of horses.
And then after that, they started having the thing where, you know, at the bottom of movies that, you know, you show, um, that there's no animal cruelty in, in the movie.
And it started being more closely regulated and from the early eighties onwards, but this is 1969.
So apparently in Hollywood, you could do whatever the fuck you like.
So you, you go ahead of the Ryan.
And well, yeah, I just, I look, I'm not a bleeding heart per se, but I don't, I'm not a big fan of, uh, no, I'm not a big fan of animals being like injured in general.
And I know the horse, like my daughter writes horses.
So we've watched the movies where the horses fall.
She gets very nervous about the horses falling.
I try to tell her where those are stunt horses.
They're trained to fall.
I think they're much better about it now, but still in this movie,
there was a scene where there's like six or seven men on horses on a bridge.
And there was a one take stunt where the men knew that the bridge was going to quote, unquote, blow up and topple to the water, but the horses didn't.
Yeah.
They don't know what's coming.
How do you, how do you communicate to a horse that the bridge is going to blow and topple?
And these, these men and horses look on one side, it's an incredible stunt and there's no CGI.
There's no trickery.
It's literally we're blowing up the bridge and you're going to fall into the water with horses.
Yeah.
On the other side, these four horses just landed in the water and I, maybe none of them died.
I don't know.
What's your take on that?
Um, like as far as I could find from the research, I don't think they died, but several horses were injured.
Sure.
I think like, like, so it's, it's interesting because it's like, it's the kind of cruelty that you wouldn't get away with now, thankfully.
Um, but it's kind of in some ways, um, this most of the stunts, apart from the bridge blowing up, I think most of the stunts in some ways, weirdly were kind of less cruel than like other Western productions.
Because apparently, uh, Peckinpah wanted the falls to look more realistic.
So they trained the horses to fall.
Um, whereas like older productions just use like tripwires and stuff, which actually, yeah, apparently so.
Like, um, yeah, yeah.
So like, uh, so it's like crueler than what you would get away with now.
You know, you definitely wouldn't get away with what Peckinpah was doing now, but somehow kind of less cruel than some of the stuff that came before.
It's kind of weird.
But, um, um, but, but yeah, so like particularly the, I mean, yeah, I, as far as I'm aware that a bunch of horses were injured, uh, and that's not good.
Um, but I'm not sure that any died, um, or I couldn't find any information about horses that died, thankfully.
Um, but even just the, the ants and the scorpion scene, like, I know it's just insects, but the whole, like, we don't even do that anymore, right?
You're.
Yeah, no, no, no, we, we definitely wouldn't, we definitely wouldn't do that.
Um, and I felt dead, dead or dying bird.
Yeah.
Like that's, that's probably, yeah, they probably, they probably did that.
Um, yeah, like, because like, that's just what they did back in the day.
They just didn't, they just didn't have any thought about animal cruelty, which is mad.
Um, you know, to think about now, but yeah, apparently they just didn't think about it at that, in that era.
That's a, I said, I'm not a bleeding heart per se, but yeah, I admit I, uh, it's all about consent and animals can't consent to that kind of stuff.
Absolutely. Absolutely. You're right. You're absolutely right. And I think, um, yeah, I have like complicated feelings about like the kind of like what you're talking about, the opening, um, with the, the scorpions and the ants.
Cause like that is cruel. Um, um, and like, I kind of wish that wasn't there, but unfortunately it kind of does work thematically for the film.
Like, you know, in terms of like the kind of nihilism of the film, it's kind of like there's violence everywhere. This world is violent. It, the violence is everywhere. It infects everything. Even the children, even the children are fucked.
You know, like they've seen so much violence that they don't care about violence that they're, they're committing this kind of heinous, horrible, they're torturing the scorpion, you know, like, um, and, um, and I think like that was like seen as like a change from normal Westerns or Westerns before as well, where like, you know, um, children were generally used as kind of paramours for, for innocence, for a better future.
Where in this film, it's just like, they have also been infected by, by the violence that, that, that is around them. And like, and everything, like everything in this world is fucked.
Look, this movie is incredible. I loved it. I can't believe it's taken me so long to watch it. And, uh, but it's kind of, I'm actually kind of glad in some way that like, that it took me so long. Cause now seeing it after I'm watching all these movies, all these years, it's kind of cool to see the, the OG, one of the OGs that set a standard for films for Quentin and for modern day Westerns. Uh, yeah, this, I, I think this is a,
this is a true original and it's not even based on a book. I thought, Oh, is this based on a book? No, this is a true original story.
There wasn't another Western like this or else if there was, we'd be talking about it. I think this is the Western that kickstarted and or changed course corrected the Westerns as we know it today.
I mean, there's still the old school, you know, ones are a little bit tamer, calmer, but I, I admit I'm a fan of Westerns like the young guns and tombstone and open range and unforgiven.
Unbeknownst to me, I became a fan of those Westerns because this film, I think changed the course. So I have this film to thank for my fandom of Westerns. There you go.
Yeah. And I think like, I mean, yeah, I think like this was this, this summer, the summer of 69 was kind of, yeah, game changing summer for the, for the Western because like also, um, um, the, the arrival movie came out, um, of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kids, which is not as violent as this film, but also is kind of like presenting a slightly, slightly different West. So like, um, so yeah, it, it really, it really, it really kind of changed the genre.
That's, that's 1969, a big year for, for, for Westerns and, and, you know, and how it would develop, uh, post that. Yeah. And you know, yeah, I mean, I guess like when you've seen a lot of, when you've seen a lot of Westerns like yourself or a lot of action movies like me, you can see it's kind of influence, uh, permeating throughout the decades, um, in, in both genres.
Um, right, go ahead.
Oh no, no, no, no, you, you go ahead.
You go ahead.
Well, I mean, I, I, I just, I don't have much more to say, but I just, I just feel like this is a movie that everyone needs to see.
I know we did a lot of spoilers, but whatever.
I always say, if you remembered all the spoilers, good for you for having that kind of memory.
If you haven't seen this film and you're listening to this episode, which is weird, this is fine, which is possible.
Uh, yeah, you need to watch this film.
I think this is a film that, um, because it inspires so many films that people enjoy today.
I think people owe it to themselves to watch this film.
So shame on me.
And I'm grateful that you started this journey.
That's why I started my journey with the other directors.
Because I know there's films from directors that I enjoy that I haven't seen.
So, uh, I think it's great you're doing this.
I'm actually, I actually am almost jealous that you picked this director now.
You know what I mean?
Like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, like, it would have been just, I would have done this journey.
I would have loved to have done this journey on my own too.
Like, oh man, there's some cool films there.
Like, for example, you got Straw Dogs coming up, which is another movie I've heard about.
Uh-huh.
And, and I actually saw, I thought, I, I don't know, shame on me.
I think I've seen the remake of this one with, um, oh, that dude, what's his name?
He was in the, uh, he was the Cyclops in the X-Men.
Oh, James, James Marston?
Marston, yeah.
Yes.
I think he did a remake of this.
And that remake was pretty good.
Like, the film was pretty good.
But I still haven't seen the Dustin Hoffman version of this film.
Mm-hmm.
Straw Dogs.
So you got some good, uh, The Getaway, I believe, was, was remade with Al Baldwin.
That's right.
That's right.
So, like, I've seen both of them.
So, um, yeah, the originals, Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw.
Yeah.
And then, and then.
How cool is that?
Yeah.
And then, yeah, the remake was, like you say, Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger.
Um.
Yeah.
And then you've got Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.
Like, I haven't seen this version.
And that's one of my favorite stories of all time.
So I'm like, oh my gosh, these are some good films.
You lucky bastard.
Anyways.
All right.
No, that's, that's, that's, that's all right.
I, I, I mean, yeah.
I mean, like, I, I don't think, I, I don't think we need to apologize for spoilers.
Because, like, you know, this film is, is, is, is like you say, like, you know, it's 57 years old.
Um, you know, like, you, you, you've had, you've had a long time.
And, you know, you saw the title of the episode coming in.
And if you wanted to watch the film before you listen to the episode, you very much could.
Um, and I, I kind of be like, I, I presume that most of the people listening to the podcast are Peckinpah fans or have some Peckinpah fandom.
And I think, like, like me, I think the entry level Peckinpah films are like the Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia.
These are the ones that, like, you know, people, if they've, if they've seen Peckinpah at all, these are the, probably the ones that they've seen.
And the Wild Bunch would be top of that list.
I mean, like, um, you know, this, this kind of the one that I think like most of them have seen.
I don't know.
That's why I, that's why I picked it.
Cause I, even when I picked it, I thought I'd seen it before.
I'm like, Oh no, I haven't seen this yet.
So I'm really glad I picked it.
Amazing.
What do you, like, I mean, like, um, yeah, we've talked a lot about different aspects of the film and it's a fascinating film to watch.
And it's a fascinating film to, to read about as well, because like, you know, the behind the scenes was crazy.
Like the whole final battle at the end, like, you know, like they actually, like, again, you know, that I guess to add realism or whatever, like, um, you know, they're not actors.
They, they, they, they hired Warner brothers, hired a regiment of the Mexican army and the real Mexican army, um, to, to be extras in the movie.
And also, um, they were filming in a place in Mexico called Paris.
Um, that like the, cause they, cause it had a very old kind of rural look to it and they thought, Oh, that makes sense.
You know, for, you know, it could look like 1913.
And at that stage they were just installing electricity and Warner brothers paid the town to delay that installation for six months.
Um, so they could have that kind of old school kind of 1913 look.
They could retain that.
Um, so like, I mean, so I would recommend people watch it.
I remember when people checking out the behind the scenes, cause it's absolutely, um, fascinating.
I guess one thing I, you know, if, if we're kind of, you know, kind of wrapping, uh, wrapping up the chat, winding down, winding down the chat.
One thing I would like to know is like, um, is how you experienced the film.
And that what I mean by this is, uh, I'll kind of tell you about my journey of the film.
When I first saw it as a teenager, I thought it was like exciting and action packed.
And, and like, I think I got kind of swept up in the kind of machismo and swagger of, of the, of the bunch.
But now, you know, I've, as I've grown with the film, as I've got older, I'm 40 now.
Um, I, you know, like it's just, I, I feel like it's like every frame of the film.
It's just kind of sad.
All the characters are sad, you know, like all, it's a very melancholic film.
You know, they, they, they don't know, they, they are men out of time.
They don't know what to do with themselves.
And, and same with Deke Thornton on the, the apparently alleged other side of the law, you know, again, he's kind of like at the end of his rope.
And like, um, so it just because, so as a more middle-aged man now, I just view it as like a kind of very sad film and everybody's kind of fucked.
And it's just, but once you get to the end of it, I feel not exhilarated by the battle at the end, but just exhausted and just kind of like, just kind of, just kind of, just kind of like, yeah.
You know, because like almost as drained as the characters themselves.
And I don't know how you experienced the film as also somebody who's, you know, middle-aged like me.
I am older.
I'm 10 years older.
People could do the math.
People could do the math at home.
Yeah.
Um, so seeing it for the first time, I think, uh, I've maybe had a different experience.
I was exhilarated.
Okay.
Uh, I kind of can feel what they were feeling, the fatigue of life and the fatigue of, um, their journey and their, and their spot in the world and just how the world will continue when you're gone.
Um, so, but I was exhilarated as a film watcher, not by that journey per se.
I'm saying as a film watcher, I'm like, this is a great film.
I love these old guerrilla style.
Like, I just love that you can feel the texture of the film almost by watching it.
And you can feel the dust and the dirt and the sweat and the grime and the horrors.
And the, yeah, we, you know, the storylines original and the twists and turns are good.
It must have shocked audiences back then because it's not spelled out for the audience.
This is not a entertaining film in the sense of, uh, like, woohoo, like star Wars is an entertaining film.
For example, that film is about entertainment.
This is a journey of people's lives at the, at the end of their life about friendships, betrayal, loyalty.
Uh, it's also a message about government and how corrupt they are.
Um, yeah, this is just a, a fantastic film.
So it's the first time watcher at my age.
I, I was thrilled by the film.
Uh, but I get what you're saying.
There is, it's not a feel good film.
Oh, oh, I'm glad if brain kicked in.
There's one other thing that one of my favorite films stole from this film.
Absolutely had to, uh, predator.
Uh, what I'm saying?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, we're going to go with this.
Uh, we'll see it.
We'll see if I've guessed it, but yeah, go on, go ahead.
Go ahead.
So the end credits of this one, they have all the characters, yeah, they have all the characters,
actors smiling at the camera, laughing, just like you're saying, they went through hell in
the film.
And now we see the characters like, go fine and everything's okay, but they're dead.
But the actors slash characters are laughing.
Like things are good.
This is what happens in predator.
Everyone dies.
But of course, Arnold spoiler alert.
And we see the end of the film with their names and, uh, the actors names and character
names together.
That was the only thing this one didn't do, but they had to have done those.
It had to be a complete, that's complete.
I had never seen the only two films I've ever seen do that are these two films where you
have such a journey of characters of death and carnage.
Now they're kind of laughing.
Like it's the end of a nineties sitcom.
So, yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, like it could, it could, it could very well be, but I have to be, I have to be.
Okay.
Yeah.
No, I mean, like, like you, I've not seen any other kind of, um, film of this sort, um,
like, like, like, like this, but that does actually remind me, um, that like, um, of something
I was, I was intending to say, jogged my memory.
Um, that that's kind of, um, that that's kind of almost like a thread throughout the movie.
There's like a kind of like, it's like there, that like, there was a number of scenes where
they, they, they, they, they fall about in hysterical laughter.
They're often at things that aren't particularly funny.
And it's like, they, they're so desperate for joy that they're almost like forcing it.
They're, they're all just like, you know, um, just, you know, just trying to, to, to, to,
you know, you know, it's, it's like they, they kind of fall about in hysterical laughter after,
after the, the, the, the, you know, the, the, the, the, the job at the start, the robbery at
the start kind of fails because they, they've robbed washers instead.
And they thought they were getting silver and like, and there's various other points
in the movie where they're kind of down on their luck, where they just start falling about
in hysterical laughter.
And it's that kind of like, they're just trying to like, they're just trying to, to see something,
you know, like it's, it's like, it's a, there's a desperation in the laughter.
And I, I feel like it's almost perfect for the film that's ended with them all dying to
end like this because you know, that desperation echoes until the very end.
Yeah.
That's fantastic.
So there, I think it's a good note to end on too.
Yeah.
That's a great ending.
And I'm so glad my memory got jogged by that.
So final thoughts.
Yeah.
I, I, I love this film and I'm so glad I got to see it.
And, uh, thanks.
I think you gave me first choice.
Maybe not.
I gave you, I gave you first choice.
You were the first on the list.
I'm sure people would have grabbed this.
I knew it was kind of an easy grab, but I, I'm glad I did that.
I'm glad I pulled the selfish card to grab this one.
Yeah.
Okay.
So, um, we're talking about memory jogged.
Um, the other three episodes I've, I've, I've, I've, I've developed a little game and where
I end the episode, I end the episode with three quick questions.
They're very quick, you know, like, um, um, so the three quick questions are, uh, number
one, um, we, we do, we do a couple of ratings out of five and then we give a final decision.
I think we know what the final decision is.
Um, but number one is how would you, I mean, I think we know the answer, but, um, how would
you rate this on my bloody Sam scale?
So like, you know, this is terms of violence of the movie, you know, one, one being bloodless
Sam five being bloodiest Sam.
What would, how would you rate this, um, rate this movie?
Well, we'd have to rate a five or people are going to, they're going to want our heads.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
A five.
Um, so like the second question again, feels like the answer is we can tell the answer,
but again, um, uh, there is what I call the Nietzsche scale, which is how nihilistic the film
is how nihilistic.
So one is not at all nihilistic, very peachy.
Um, you know, five being bleak is all hell.
Um, so like on that scale, well, minus the laughter at the end, it's, uh, it's definitely five.
And these, uh, these, uh, these men, these men and everyone in it, uh, yeah, this is a
nihilistic life.
They're leading.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think there is no good guys in this film.
Um, you know, the, there is just bad guys from every angle.
I think we can say is what even the children are evil in this film.
Um, I think we could say, I think we could say it is a five.
And again, I think we can tell the answer, but the final thing is that, you know, in a kind
of, um, you know, Siskel and Ebert style, um, instead of it being a thumbs up and thumbs
down, um, we either give this a pecking yeah or a pecking nah.
So of course, pecking yeah.
You got to watch this film folks.
This is a film that everyone needs to watch.
It's, uh, even if you know, some of the general spoilers that we gave, if you haven't seen it,
it's been a while you've seen it.
There's so much that goes on.
So many nuances.
You could, you could easily have done what I did with heat on the Michael Mann.
You could divide us up into like five episodes and a different host for each part of the
film.
There's so much in this film.
It's, it's almost too big to swallow in one episode, but it's, uh, that is, that is, that
is very true that the film is, um, two hours and 25 minutes.
And like, yeah, I mean, you could analyze this, uh, for hours from every angle, diving deep into
just the, just the stunt work and the practical effects and, and the action to the, you know,
to the individual characters, to the, the, the, the kind of, you know, the, the, the themes
that we, we, we talked about, about, you know, men out of time codes of honor, all these things
that Peckinpah is obsessed with.
So you could just split it up into one episode, you know, kind of themes, one episode characters,
one episode stunts and actors, stunts and practical effects.
Um, you know, like, um, and, and, and, and another episode on, on the behind the scenes
and all the kind of fascinating madness that was going on and everybody pushing themselves,
um, 110%.
You know, apparently when this movie ended, you know, Peckinpah, like call, you know, you
know, uh, cold cut the movie, you know, on the final shot.
and apparently he walked off
and then he
found a spot himself and he burst into tears
he was physically
and emotionally exhausted and I think
everybody else on the cast and crew
was the same
this was truly
blood, sweat and tears
this movie
I hope we did it
a good service
today
but yeah
you could have a multi-part series
just on this film alone
like you say, I would 100% agree on that
so yeah
that's it
for this episode of Bloody Sam
before we do
head on out
Ryan, you're our host of
multiple podcasts
so like
promote and plug
obviously we try and
plug the Directors Chair Network
which we are a part of
but yeah
all your other ventures
well I'll just keep it simple
it's fine
I mean a couple of the shows I'm doing
are wrapping up
like the Rocky series I do
you can check it out
if you're a Rocky fan
it's called the One More Round
the Rocky series podcast
but it's coming near to an end
but if you're listening to this
on the Sam Peckinpah
like standalone feed
which is great
that Scott has it
I encourage you guys to
Google
just have to use your old Google engine
and search for
the Directors Chair Network
we're on YouTube
we're on the audio feeds
and you'll hear other directors
that are covered
like Michael Mann
Ed Zwick
John Hughes
Paul Beerhoven
has been covered right now
and more to come
and yeah
so check that out
Terrence Malcolm
covering right now
and yeah
check it out
we really appreciate you Scott
coming on to the network
and yeah
this is great
this is a great coverage
of Sam
this is fantastic
he's a fantastic director
this is the kind of director
we want on the network
so this is a perfect thing
nice
well thank you very much
thank you very much
for having me
and thanks
once again
for coming on
this episode
and thanks
to the listeners
for checking out
this latest episode
I hope you can
join me again
for the next episode
which apparently
is a little bit different
for Peckinpah
not a typical
not a typical
Peckinpah film
a little bit more humorous
a little bit more light
it's the ballad of Cable Hogue
so that'll be
that'll be interesting
to see Peckinpah
in a lighter mood
so join us next month
where we'll be checking out
that one
until then though
see ya
Thank you.