The Wild Bunch
USA, 1969
Director: Sam Peckinpah
Screenwriters: Sam Peckinpah, Walon Green, Roy N. Sickner
Genre: Twilight Western / Revisionist Western
Soundtrack composer: Jerry Fielding
Editor: Louis Lombardo
Production: Phil Feldman
Starring:
William Holden (Pike Bishop)
Ernest Borgnine (Dutch Engstrom)
Robert Ryan (Deke Thornton)
Edmond O’Brien (Lyle Gorch)
Ben Johnson (Tector Gorch)
Warren Oates (Buster)
Jaime Sánchez (Angel)
Bo Hopkins (Buck)
Alfonso Arau (Pinto)
Emilio Fernández (General Mapache)
Plot
A group of horsemen, posing as soldiers, arrive in a town and rob a bank. On the roof of the house across the street lurk some armed individuals, who seem to be waiting for them: they are bounty hunters. When the robbers try to flee, a shootout ensues in which several villagers are also killed.
The robbers, led by Pike, flee to Mexico. Once there, they are in for a nasty surprise, as the loot they have just stolen turns out not to be what they expected…
Meanwhile, the bounty hunters, whose boss is Thornton, set out to capture the fugitives. Thornton and his men are themselves former criminals and ex-convicts. An official, the one who has hired them to eliminate Pike and his henchmen, gives them an ultimatum: If they do not liquidate or capture the bandits within a month, they themselves will return to prison.
Meanwhile, back in northern Mexico, Pike’s gang allies with General Mapache, a sort of local “warlord” fighting against Pancho Villa’s faction in that turbulent era (the story is set in the midst of the Mexican Revolution).
Pike and his men want to carry out one last coup to be able to retire, since with the exception of young Angel the members of the gang are all already quite mature. Angel, by the way, will come into conflict with Mapache, since his former girlfriend Teresa has become the general’s mistress…
Commentary
Violent twilight western by the master Sam Peckinpah, filmed in Technicolor and with a great variety of camera angles (especially in the action scenes), and an excellent editing. The film is visually very powerful, and the shooting scenes are very forceful, with an intense and relentless graphic violence.
The central theme revolves around Pike (William Holden) and his gang, most of them elderly, who want to strike their last blow before retiring. Many changes and novelties were happening in the Wild West at the time the film is set, since being a late western it is set in the final stretch of that era (in 1913, to be exact; while most of the films of that genre develop their plots in the decades of the ’60s and ’70s of the nineteenth century). Pike and his gang, as well as Thornton (Robert Ryan) and his (the bounty hunters), are characters from an era (the “old wild west”) that was then already on the verge of disappearing. The characters move between the nostalgia of an era that is coming to an end, and the beginning of the modern and “civilized” era.
The film was entirely shot in Mexico, and several actors came from that country. Among them Emilio “el Indio” Fernández, who plays General Mapache. And also the great filmmaker Chano Urueta, specialized in the horror genre and one of the most prolific Mexican directors (with titles such as “El monstruo resucitado” or “El espejo de la bruja”) plays a small role.
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