Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974)

User Rating:

7.5/10   

Director:

Sam Peckinpah

Writers:

Frank Kowalski (story) and
Sam Peckinpah (story) ...

Release Date:

August 1974 (Austria)

Genre:

Adventure | Crime | Drama | Thriller | Western

Tagline:

It's got guts!

Plot:

An American bartender and his prostitute girlfriend go on a road trip through the Mexican underworld to collect a $1 million bounty on the head of a dead gigolo.

Plot Keywords:

Piano Player | Mexican | Prostitute | Violence | Bounty Hunter

Cast

Warren Oates	...	Bennie
Isela Vega	...	Elita
Robert Webber	...	Sappensly
Gig Young	...	Quill
Helmut Dantine	...	Max
Emilio Fernández	...	El Jefe (as Emilio Fernandez)
Kris Kristofferson	...	Biker
Chano Urueta	...	Manchot, the bartender
Donnie Fritts	...	John (as Donny Fritts)
Jorge Russek	...	Cueto
Chalo González	...	Chalo (as Chalo Gonzalez)
Don Levy	...	Frank
Enrique Lucero	...	Esteban
Janine Maldonado	...	Theresa
Tamara Garina	...	Grandmother Moreno

Also Known As:

Tráiganme la cabeza de Alfredo García (Mexico)

Runtime:

112 min

Country:

USA | Mexico

Language:

English | Spanish

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:16 | Germany:16 (re-rating) (2005) | West Germany:18 (original rating) | Singapore:M18 | New Zealand:R16 | Australia:R | Finland:K-18 | France:-12 | Italy:VM14 | Sweden:15 | UK:18 (video rating) (1987) | UK:X (original rating) | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Chalco, México D.F., Mexico

Company:

Estudios Churubusco Azteca S.A.

Trivia:

Gig Young appears in the film at the bar where Warren Oates is playing piano. When he and Robert Webber leave, Oates asks Young his name and Young responds, "Fred C. Dobbs," a reference to Humphrey Bogart's character in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948).

Goofs:

Crew or equipment visible: At a little after 1:33 in the movie, as Bennie crosses inside his apartment, alone and talking to Alfredo's head ("A friend of ours used to take a shower in there...You know that? You know that!"), a crewman in black clothing can be glimpsed ducking behind an adjacent transom. A second later, his arm reappears as Bennie reaches for a bottle in the pantry.

Quotes:

Bennie: [after a shootout] Am I still gonna get paid?
Sappensly: [pulling out a gun] Yeah, you'll get paid.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005)

Soundtrack:

A Donde Ir

Unrivaled.

It is my humble opinion that Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia comes as close to capturing the maddening drive of man as any movie. That is to say that it sits at the same table as the greats, perhaps across the way from Citizen Kane or Raging Bull. If you contest this it is perhaps only because the film is not as beautiful, not as magnificent, as the rest of its ballpark. I would argue that that is partially the point.

Bennie's quest is stripped to its core so that the brutality of the film is expressive of Bernie himself. There is not a violent film with more validity for its actions than this one, it is the maddening human mind which causes deaths here. Peckinpah shows us everything that is important in this man's life and then shows us what a man is capable of doing once all that is taken away. The difference between this film and other similar films is perhaps that the movie has such humble beginnings. We build ourselves inside of Bennie. When we first meet him he is casually and happily playing the piano, quietly dreaming of settling into a different kind of love. We share a quiet picnic with him, witness his wedding proposal.

Perhaps also there has never been a chaotic killing spree that has seemed this environmental. While usually the hero goes on a rampage in a way that is appropriately heroic itself, Bennie is no hero. He is a man forced into a situation by the world around him, as it seems he is always forced into situations. Since he is never the man he wants to be it seems natural that he would become the kind of man that is the amalgamation of love and hate.

All the emotion a movie in this genre could handle.