The Wild Bunch is a 1969 American epic revisionist Western film co-written and directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Edmond O'Brien, Ben Johnson and Warren Oates. The plot concerns an aging outlaw gang on the Mexico–United States border trying to adapt to the changing modern world of 1913. The film was controversial because of its graphic violence and its portrayal of crude men attempting to survive by any available means.
The screenplay was co-written by Peckinpah, Walon Green, and Roy N. Sickner. The Wild Bunch was filmed in Technicolor and Panavision in Mexico, notably at the Hacienda Ciénaga del Carmen, deep in the desert between Torreón and Saltillo, Coahuila, and on the Nazas River.
The Wild Bunch is noted for intricate, multi-angle, quick-cut editing using normal and slow motion images, a revolutionary cinema technique in 1969. The writing of Green, Peckinpah, and Sickner was nominated for a best screenplay Oscar, and the music by Jerry Fielding was nominated for Best Original Score. Additionally, Peckinpah was nominated for an Outstanding Directorial Achievement award by the Directors Guild of America, and cinematographer Lucien Ballard won the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Cinematography.
Regarded as one of the greatest films of all time, The Wild Bunch was selected by the Library of Congress in 1999 for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant". The film is ranked 79th on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 best American films and the 69th most thrilling film. In 2008, the AFI listed 10 best films in 10 genres and ranked The Wild Bunch as the sixth-best Western.
Plot In 1913 South Texas, Pike Bishop is the leader of a gang of aging outlaws – most of them disguised as a U.S. Cavalry troop – who hope to retire after a final robbery of silver from a railroad payroll office. But corrupt railroad agent Pat Harrigan has been tipped off about the heist. Subsequently, he hired a posse of bounty hunters and paroled Pike's former partner Deke Thornton to reluctantly lead them. Spotting the bounty hunters, Pike attempts to utilize a temperance union parade to shield their getaway, which escalates into a bloody, confusing shootout that claims numerous innocent bystanders and more than half of Pike's gang.
Pike escapes with his close friend Dutch Engstrom, brothers Lyle and Tector Gorch, the inexperienced Angel, and a fifth man blinded by buckshot, whom Pike mercy-kills. The loot from the robbery turns out to be worthless steel washers planted by Harrigan. Needing money, they head for Mexico accompanied by the cantankerous Freddie Sykes and cross the Rio Grande to the rural village where Angel was born. The village elder, Don José, warns them about Mapache, a vicious Huertista officer in the Mexican Federal Army. Mapache, a Brigadier general (judging by his rank insignia) who nevertheless styles himself ‘Generalissimo’, has been raiding local villages to supply his campaign against the forces of Pancho Villa. He had hanged Angel's father for supporting the revolutionaries.
The gang goes to the town of Agua Verde, where Mapache has set up his headquarters. Angel spots his former lover Teresa in Mapache's arms and shoots her dead, forcing Pike and Dutch to defuse the ensuing standoff. Mapache offers them $10,000 in gold to rob a U.S. Army train carrying 16 crates of rifles, to resupply his army and provide samples of modern American weapons to his German military adviser Commander Mohr (for historical background see Mexico in World War I and Zimmermann telegram).
Angel offers his share of gold to Pike in return for sending one crate to a band of Piro Indians friendly with his village, ensuring their protection from Mapache. The heist goes as planned until Thornton's posse emerges from the train and chases them to the Mexican border. Pike's crew blows up a trestle bridge spanning the Rio Grande, dumping Thornton and his men into the river.
The gang discovers that an M1917 Browning machine gun is among the weapons cache. Pike, anticipating a double-cross, hides the arms and sells them to Mapache in four separate loads. However, Mapache hears from Teresa's mother that Angel stole a crate of rifles and at the final exchange demands he be handed over. Dutch, who accompanied Angel, is forced to agree.
Sykes is wounded by Thornton's posse while securing more horses, forcing Pike to leave him behind. Dutch curses Thornton for working with the railroad, but Pike is more understanding, having abandoned Thornton to be arrested in the first place. The gang buries most of the gold and returns to Agua Verde, where the army is drunkenly celebrating the weapons acquisition. Mapache refuses to 'sell' Angel, who is being dragged through town by Mapache's red roadster, but invites the gang to join the celebration. After a night of reflection in an Agua Verde brothel, Pike and the others arm themselves to rescue their friend.
Mapache seemingly agrees to release Angel, but abruptly cuts his throat. Enraged, Pike and Dutch shoot the general. As the drunken soldiers freeze indecisively, Pike then kills Mohr. A massive gun battle ensues as the gang fights their way to the M1917 and uses it to slaughter dozens of troops. The gang is soon outnumbered and eventually killed in a hail of bullets.
In the aftermath, Thornton arrives and takes an unused revolver on Pike's belt before allowing the railroad posse to scour the bodies for valuables and take them to claim the reward. Having fulfilled his obligation to Harrigan, Thornton chooses to stay behind in Agua Verde. Some time later, Sykes arrives with Don José and a band of rebels, intimating that they caught up with the bounty hunters and avenged the gang. Sykes invites Thornton to join the coming revolution against the Mexican government; Thornton smiles and rides off with them.
Cast
Credits from the AFI Catalog of Feature Films.
Production Development In April 1965, producer Reno Carrell optioned an original story and screenplay by Walon Green and Roy Sickner, called The Wild Bunch.
In 1967, Warner Bros.-Seven Arts producers Kenneth Hyman and Phil Feldman were interested in having Sam Peckinpah rewrite and direct an adventure film called The Diamond Story. A professional outcast due to the production difficulties of his previous film, Major Dundee (1965), and his firing from the set of The Cincinnati Kid (1965), Peckinpah's stock had improved following his critically acclaimed work on the television film Noon Wine (1966).
At the time, William Goldman's screenplay for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid had recently been purchased by 20th Century Fox. An alternative screenplay available at the studio was The Wild Bunch. It was quickly decided that The Wild Bunch, which had several similarities to Goldman's work, would be produced to beat Butch Cassidy to the theaters.
Writing By the fall of 1967, Peckinpah was rewriting the screenplay and preparing for production. The principal photography was shot entirely on location in Mexico, most notably at the Hacienda Ciénega del Carmen (deep in the desert between Torreón and Saltillo, Coahuila) and on the Nazas River. Peckinpah's epic work was inspired by his hunger to return to films, the violence seen in Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde (1967), 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 also the crude men attempting to survive the era. Multiple scenes attempted in Major Dundee, including slow motion action sequences (inspired by Akira Kurosawa's work in Seven Samurai (1954), characters leaving a village as if in a funeral procession, and the use of inexperienced locals as extras, would become fully realized in The Wild Bunch.
Casting
Peckinpah considered many actors for the Pike Bishop role before casting William Holden, including Richard Boone, Sterling Hayden, Charlton Heston, Burt Lancaster, Lee Marvin, Robert Mitchum, Gregory Peck, and James Stewart. Marvin actually accepted the role but pulled out after he was offered more money to star in Paint Your Wagon (1969).
Peckinpah's first two choices for the role of Deke Thornton were Richard Harris (who had co-starred in Major Dundee) and Brian Keith (who had worked with Peckinpah on The Westerner (1960) and The Deadly Companions (1961)). Harris was never formally approached; Keith was asked, but he turned it down. Robert Ryan was ultimately cast in the part after Peckinpah saw him in the World War II action movie The Dirty Dozen (1967). Other actors considered for the role were Henry Fonda, Glenn Ford, Van Heflin, Ben Johnson (later cast as Tector Gorch), and Arthur Kennedy.
Among those considered to play Dutch Engstrom were Charles Bronson, Jim Brown, Alex Cord, Robert Culp, Sammy Davis Jr., Richard Jaeckel, Steve McQueen, and George Peppard. Ernest Borgnine was cast based on his performance in The Dirty Dozen (1967). Robert Blake was the original choice to play Angel, but he asked for too much money. Peckinpah was impressed with Jaime Sánchez in Sidney Lumet's film adaptation of The Pawnbroker and demanded that he be cast as Angel.
The role of Mapache went to Emilio Fernández, the Mexican film director, writer, actor, and friend of Peckinpah. Peckinpah first offered the part to German actor Mario Adorf, who had appeared in Major Dundee, but he turned it down due to his discomfort playing such a violent character, a decision he regretted after seeing the finished film.
Stage actor Albert Dekker was cast as Harrigan the railroad detective. The Wild Bunch was his last film, as he died just months after its final scenes were completed. Bo Hopkins had only a few television credits on his resume when he played the part of Clarence "Crazy" Lee. Warren Oates played Lyle Gorch, having previously worked with Peckinpah on the TV series The Rifleman and his previous films Ride the High Country (1962) and Major Dundee (1965).
Filming
The film was shot with the anamorphic process. Peckinpah and his cinematographer, Lucien Ballard, also made use of telephoto lenses, that allowed for objects and people in both the background and foreground to be compressed in perspective. The effect is best seen in the shots where the Bunch makes the walk to Mapache's headquarters to free Angel. As they walk forward, a constant flow of people passes between them and the camera; most of the people in the foreground are as sharply focused as the Bunch.
By the time filming wrapped, Peckinpah had shot of film with 1,288 camera setups. Lombardo and Peckinpah remained in Mexico for six months editing the picture. After initial cuts, the opening gunfight sequence ran 21 minutes. By cutting frames from specific scenes and intercutting others, they were able to fine-cut the opening robbery down to five minutes. The creative montage became the model for the rest of the film and would "forever change the way movies would be made".
Peckinpah stated that one of his goals for the movie was to give the audience "some idea of what it is to be gunned down". A memorable incident occurred, to that end, as Peckinpah's crew were consulting him on the "gunfire" effects to be used in the film. Not satisfied with the results from the squibs his crew had brought for him, Peckinpah became exasperated and finally hollered: "That's not what I want! That's not what I want!" He then grabbed a real revolver and fired it into a nearby wall. The gun empty, Peckinpah barked at his stunned crew: "THAT'S the effect I want!!"