The Wild Bunch (1969)

An aging group of outlaws look for one last big score as the "traditional" American West is disappearing around them.

Director:

Sam Peckinpah

Writers:

Walon Green (screenplay), Sam Peckinpah (screenplay)

Stars:

William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan

Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 6 wins & 5 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
William Holden	...	Pike
Ernest Borgnine	...	Dutch
Robert Ryan	...	Thornton
Edmond O'Brien	...	Sykes
Warren Oates	...	Lyle Gorch
Jaime Sánchez	...	Angel (as Jaime Sanchez)
Ben Johnson	...	Tector Gorch
Emilio Fernández	...	Mapache (as Emilio Fernandez)
Strother Martin	...	Coffer
L.Q. Jones	...	T.C
Albert Dekker	...	Harrigan
Bo Hopkins	...	Crazy Lee
Dub Taylor	...	Wainscoat
Paul Harper	...	Ross
Jorge Russek	...	Zamorra

Storyline

It's 1913, and the "traditional" American West is dying. Among the inhabitants of this dying era are an outlaw gang called "The Wild Bunch." After a failed railroad office robbery, the gang heads to Mexico to do one last job. Seeing their times and lives drifting away in the newly formed world of the 20th century, the gang takes the job and ends up in a brutally violent last stand against their enemies deemed to be corrupt, in a small Mexican town ruled by a ruthless general.

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Plot Keywords:

arizona | yuma territorial prison | shoulder holster | arizona territory | yaqui indian | 

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Taglines:

The land had changed. They hadn't. The earth had cooled. They couldn't.

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Genres:

Action | Adventure | Western

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

USA Mexico

Language:

English Spanish German

Release Date:

7 August 1969 (Hong Kong)

Also Known As:

Divlja horda

Filming Locations:

Bavispe, Sonora, Mexico

Box Office

Budget:

$6,244,087 (estimated)

Gross USA:

$638,641, 31 December 1995

Company Credits

Production Co:

Warner Brothers/Seven Arts

Technical Specs

Runtime:

145 min (director's cut)

Sound Mix:

70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints) DTS (1995 re-release) Dolby Digital (1995 re-release) Mono (35 mm prints) SDDS (1995 re-release)

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Sam Peckinpah, notorious for being a demanding director, fired 22 cast members during the course of the shoot. According to producer Phil Feldman, "Sam had no compassion for a guy with a job who had a family at home who makes a mistake; that wasn't his concern--Sam had no tolerance for that . . . He had no understanding of a mistake that the guy made that is correctable, after all. He was volatile, and if a guy committed a mistake on the set or elsewhere, he was ready to jump on him. And that's too bad".

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Goofs

After the hijacked train crashes into the railroad car holding the horses of the army unit assigned to guard the train, the sergeant in charge orders a corporal to ride to the garrison and report the train robbery. The corporal salutes with his left hand and responds, "Yes, Sir!" Soldiers salute with their right hand and sergeants are neither addressed as "Sir"--except in basic training--nor saluted. A raw recruit might make such mistakes in such a stressful situation, but not someone who has been in the army long enough to become a corporal.

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Quotes

[first lines]
[indistinct voices]
Rev. Wainscoat: Do not drink wine or strong drink, thou, nor thy sons with thee, least ye shall die. Look not though upon the wine when it is red, and when it bringeth his color in the cup, when it moveth itself aright at the last, it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder. Now folks, that's from the Good Book, but in this here town it's five cents a glass. Five cents a glass, now does anyone think that that is a price of a drink?

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Alternate Versions

The second domestic version (sometimes called the American version) is missing all the material just described and runs about 135 minutes.

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Connections

Referenced in Taxi Driver (1976)

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Soundtracks

La Golondrina
(uncredited)
Written by Narcisco Serradell
[Sung by the Mexican villagers as the bandit protagonists leave Angel's Mexican village]

User Reviews

It's wild, all right

The "old" West was changing, and director Sam Peckinpah recognized those changing times. By 1969, Sergio Leone and his "Spaghetti" westerns were the real deal, but when Peckinpah brought forth his film, "The Wild Bunch," that same year, it ushered in a whole new wave of films as its vision was simply landmark. Building on the violent stylistic template and chic of "Bonnie and Clyde" (1967), "The Wild Bunch" begins and ends with two of the bloodiest screen battles ever envisioned, and it tells the story of an aging group of outlaws, led by William Holden and Ernest Borgnine, as they attempt one last score, with Robert Ryan as an ex-Wild Bunch member in hot pursuit. They become involved with Mexican rebels and from that point on, we get an engaging story as the outlaws party with the Mexican army, their hookers, and their alcohol - all of this leading up to the notorious ending where the Wild Bunch man their guns and duke-it-out with their enemies. "The Wild Bunch" has obtained a notorious reputation for being one of the most violent movies ever made and is credited for being the movie that changed the way we looked at the "old" West and action cinema in general. Sam Peckinpah was a true revolutionary during a time when America was not so innocent, as proved by "Bonnie and Clyde" two years before it.

10/10