"The wild bunch is a violent film" Topic

Even by modern standards

Watching the movie for the gazilionth time. and when you see now, even today 40 years later it's a VERY violent movie.

If you take film like die hard 4 and compear it to this film, then this film is a hell of a lot more violent and gory.

I wish I was 18 in 69 just so I could have seen it with frensh eyes, it must have been a punch to the stomack, mabye the first real action movie, with out it, there would never have been a Die hard or Terminator ect.

Also the look that Borgnine gives at the end, right when they have shot the general and they might have gotten away.
And he just gives this look, and laughs, in his eyes you can see, what his telling the others, come on lets 'em, lets kill them all.
His looks says a thusands words with out having to be beeped out.

I kind of set the standards for violence in film in its time and was a bit of a shocker. Everything else that followed was an imitation of Peckenpah. Today, it seems like no big deal as we are now used to seeing such violence in our films. I'm not sure that violence makes a film better.

My favorite western of all time. Great performances, great script, great story and great action. What more can you say?

Gratuitous violence….added nothing to the film except shock value.

No to mention all those Federales

Also – today's movie violence is kind of hyperactive, emesis inducing from motion sickness – Peckenpah had kind of a slower quality to it

When I say the title of the post, my first reaction was "no foolin'" – as you say, that look at the end is just great

Most action movie violence is cartoonish. There are not that many action movies that hit the right note of realism.

The Wild Bunch is one of them. Violence and the effects of violence are pretty much the point of the movie. If you watch it and think the gunplay is glamorized, you're not getting it.

The movie is about violent men, then at first seem not to care about anything(look at the robbery, using women as human shields, at the start they are probebly one of the most coldblooded people portaied in movies so far,(and they are supose to be the "heores"
They make the dirty dozen seem like kindergarden workers.

Then in the end they find something to die for other the gold, they try to save their friend, and when they can't they decide to take on half of mexico. As I said KILL THEM ALL

Movie stands alone without the violence. Good stuff

And, of course,

YouTube link

One of the best in my opinion.

You are right. Sam Peckinpah's "the Wild Bunch" was certainly at the cutting edge of the violent portrayal of lawlessness. The tone is definately set in the beginning with children burning scorpions as the bandits ride into town.

I was that about that age in 1969 and indeed found the cinematic handling unsettling. Since then, directors have escalated the level of shock sensation that viewers become numb.

So when does humanity switch off and the deamon take over?

I would love to see a film of "Camarone". I can imagine the last three legionaires having that same demonic look of desparation, but later would show relief as they were spared by the Mexican command. Something not too often seen in film.

cheers,

A great western from beginning to end. Good cast. "Who are they".HA HA HA (remember).

I think the only movies that have the same graphic feel of violence is modern war movies like we were soldiers and mabye Rambo 4.

Sure you have lots of movies(like zombie movies) that have more blood and gore then wild bunch, but zombie movies are allways semi comical you can't take any of them dead seriously.

And even hard action movies like the first die hard only reaches wild bunch in violence it dosn't exeed it.

So the only movies I can rember were the violence stick to your minde the same way and exeeds it in violence is, we were soldiers and Rambo 4.

I don't know: Saving Private Ryan was shocking . D-Day beachhead and at the end the way that German armored car blew the G.I.s to piece off that tank; I've only seen it once and that was unforgettable.

I liked Wild Bunch; saw it for the first (and so far only) time just a couple of years ago. It was satisfyingly carnageous; and I liked the moral upswing at the end, which offered some redemptive quality to the characters that wasn't there until then….

True, but I never get the feel that the movie shows so much of it, most of the time the gore is over in a few seconds, the Flak gun on the GI's was over very quick and you realy didn't se much of the after effects, had the torn bodies been laying on the ground and the camera stoped at it for some time, then it might have had a bigger effect on me.

Black Hawk Down also have sevral gory scenes, like the guy blown in half but still alive, in the movie he dies after saying a few words, in in real life the guy stayed alive for quite some time.

There wasn't an armored car in SPR. What blew the US troops apart on the Tiger was either a FLAK 30 or FLAK 38 20mm.

Damon.

So when does humanity switch off and the deamon take over?

They are one and the same.
-Kle.

I wish I was 18 in 69 just so I could have seen it with frensh eyes, it must have been a punch to the stomack,

Well I was just 18 in summer 1970 when it was shown in the UK and yes, it was a gut punch of a film.

Later that year we got the even more shocking, harrowing film Soldier Blue, which has since been heavily censored for TV and video. Then in 1971 Peckinpah released Straw Dogs – a very nasty sexually violent non-western. Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange followed in Jan 72 and then disappeared without trace for the next 20 years in the UK. (Kubrick's self censorship)

It's like they were just competing and pushing the boundaries with every new release back in the early 70's. All great films mind you, and I'm glad I got to see them all, intact, on their initial cinema release.

Thankfully my mental pictures of Soldier Blue dwell on the scene where Honus Gent has to chew away on Candice Bergen's thongs, erm, wrist ties, rather than the graphic violence.

The Wild Bunch is a superb flick with a terrific cast of characters and actors. I saw it as a young man and was stunned by the brutal violence. I disagree though that it was gratuitous. I think it had a point to make.

BTW, while I cannot recall the title of it, there is a book written too about the making of the Wild Bunch and what went on with cast and film crew plus Pekinpah's antics. A fun read, almost as wild as the movie.

The Wild Bunch is one of my top five movies.

"It's not your word, it's who you give it to that counts!"

A lot of those older movies are more "realistically" violent than the ones today. Nowadays they go overboard with "shock" and then couple it with lame acting. No comparison to the Hollywood violence of yesteryear IMO.

for more Pekinpah…try Cross of Iron.

Wild Bunch is my favorite western with Good the Bad and THe Ugly a close second.

There is a cut of The Wild Bunch that was even more violent, ruthless and cynical than most of you will ever know. I saw the film in New York City at the Trans Lux a couple of weeks after it's opening and it was a different film than the one currently being shown as a "directors cut". The story of the editing and re-editing of The Wild Bunch is very complicated and explains why I saw something that you probably didn't see and most likely never will. Here's why.

When the film was shown in previews, before it went to theaters, the audience members were asked to fill out comment cards on it and the reaction was very negative. One person even called her Congressman to complain, and much of the film was trimmed, including an innocuous back story about Pike and an old flame. I believe that some of this was restored in the "directors cut", but I'm not sure. I'll explain why I'm not sure if you stay with me here.

After the "premiere" at the Trans Lux in New York, and on Hollywood Blvd in LA, in and several theaters in Texas, the box office showed a smash on both coasts, but a disaster in Texas, so the head of Warner Brothers decided to pull the film and have the producer re-edit it himself without any word to Sam Peckinpah! Some of the scenes that were edited out and later returned in the "directors cut" were the scene with Mapache's men fighting Pancho Villa's forces at the train and some of the sequence that shows Deke and Pike's previous relationship.

The "premiere" prints were pulled and sent back to distribution exchanges with editing instructions. Unfortunately, sometimes the cuts were done correctly and sometimes they were just a hatchet job. And sometimes they never got edited at all! What's more, I believe that some scenes were removed and substituted with scenes that should have only been seen in Europe! The cut that I saw did *not* contain the scenes with Mapache at the train, and the earlier scenes with Deke and Pike, but did have additional scenes not appearing in the "directors cut".

Here are the scenes that I saw that I doubt that you saw:

1- While escaping from the town, "Buck", the outlaw that was shot in the face, falls off his horse and begs Pike to take him with them. In the scene in current distribution Buck finally says "I can't ride…finish it" and Pike mercifully shoots him. In the edit that I saw, Buck keeps begging for his life right up to the end and Pike cuts off his begging by shooting him in cold blood! If you have a copy of this on DVD, listen closely and you'll hear that the "finish it" line was "over dubbed". There was also an extreme bloody close up of Buck's face that is also now gone.

2- When "Crazy Lee" shoots the woman and the two clerks in the "directors cut" you do not actually see them get shot. In the substituted scene that I saw, which was probably only supposed to be shown in Europe, you see the bullets impact on them with squibs squirting blood as they are blasted down!

3- The scene where Crazy Lee is shot by Deke and the others was considerably longer with Lee being hit *many* times in bloody, graphic, slow motion. If you take look at it now the scene has been either trimmed *way* down, or a milder scene was substituted.

4- During the scene at the table where one of the group compares the bunch to Mapache's men and Dutch says "we don't do THAT"!, the "Directors cut" doesn't show what "that" is, because the scene has been removed. What Dutch was referring to was a scene of several men that had been obviously tortured and left hanging, which was left intact in the version that I saw.

In any case, what I saw was an odd edit that must have been done in the lab when the prints were pulled, and whoever did it not only cut scenes, but substituted scenes as well. Who knows. There were so many different edits in distribution by that time that I may never see the same film again. Too bad. Those scenes actually made a different movie that in some ways I thought was better.

>>The Wild Bunch is one of them. Violence and the effects of violence are pretty much the point of the movie. If you watch it and think the gunplay is glamorized, you're not getting it.<<

Excuse me for saying this. And i hope that you don't take offense, but I don't think that you got it either.

The point of the movie, at least on the surface, was to show the passing of the Old West and the men from that era into the new west of the 20th century. But going deeper, the film was written to be stark and ruthless depiction of a violent outlaw gang without a trace of romanticism. At least not until the climax.

Pike Bishop refuses to change with the times. Yet he's at the end of his trail and sometimes he can't even mount his horse without trouble. His gang are very bad men, which is shown graphically during the robbery that opens the film. And they have been murderers and thieves for a long time with nothing to show for it. So in a bid for final redemption Pike and "the bunch" do the right thing for once and sacrifice themselves trying to save a compadre.
In the wake of this final showdown Deke can finally cut himself loose from the past and also do something honorable by joining the revolution. And we have closure.

So, in a sense the violence *is* glamorized as the The Wild Bunch ends itself in a blaze of gunfire, glory and atonement.

I love the movie but still think Peckinpah was a misanthrope.

>>I love the movie but still think Peckinpah was a misanthrope.<<

Probably, but the question is does that misanthropy inspire real art. Many artists are a bit "wacky". So what?

Jonathan Swift, Mark Twain, John Ford, yep quite a few anyway.

>I love the movie but still think Peckinpah was a misanthrope.

The ending was quite optimistic about humanity.

I love WILD BUNCH but I love CROSS OF IRON even more. I'd seen it on TV several times before i watched it late-night enough to see the 'uncut' version of the scene with the Nazi & the Russian women soldiers! I like the atmosphere of dysfunction, sickness, even madness; not an easy mood to pull off.

it's worth reading the original novel too. Novel is interesting from POV of real WWII fighting, seems to be psychologically accurate, Steiner's 'platoon' is the size of a full strength squad & I doubt that's poor translation…

My mum watched this with my son, he was about 12 at the time, she fast forwarded through the topless scenes because she thought they were inappropiate for a 12 year old.

Don't care for the Wild Bunch nor Cross of Iron.

Extreme Prejudice on the other hand is genius in the Peckinpah milieu : )

My mum watched this with my son, he was about 12 at the time, she fast forwarded through the topless scenes because she thought they were inappropiate for a 12 year old

Thats very "american" of you(i know your a Brit)
Ok for a 12 year old to watch one of the most violent movies made, but a few boobes are bad.
Now I don't disagree as it would have been quite imbaressing for him to watch boobs with his grandma.
But he probebly have allready watched porn for over a year(in inherited my brothers 80s porn when I was 11)

>>Extreme Prejudice on the other hand is genius in the Peckinpah milieu : )<<

Are you pulling our collective leg? If not, please elucidate.

As others have said, when "The Wild Bunch" was first released, it was like a kick in the solar plexus. "Bonnie and Clyde" had a similar impact.

If you want to find out more about the movie, how it was made, what Peckinpah was trying to say, and its impact on film-making, I highly recommend "Doing it Right": link followed closely by "Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch": link

>>If you want to find out more about the movie, how it was made, what Peckinpah was trying to say, and its impact on film-making, I highly recommend "Doing it Right" followed closely by "Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch"<<

Why did you like them? How about a review of both?

Extreme Prejudice was much more entertaining than the wild Bunch.

The WB was crap 60's experimental cinema.

EP knew it was just entertainment.

>>The WB was crap 60's experimental cinema.<<

"Experimental"? All innovations in art are experimental until they're widely accepted. You can say that you think that The Wild Bunch was an unsuccessful experiment, if that's your opinion, but there's nothing wrong with experimenting in an art form. In fact, that's pretty much what art is all about.

True. But that doesn't make it good. Right up there with the slow mo charge of the Scots Greys in Waterloo.

Hexxenhammer,
You are right. You have to see it a couple of times before you realize that it is the story of how the "bad guys" learned how to be a cohesive unit while the "good guys" were just a bunch of no account sleaze balls. The Wild Bunch personify the old saw of honor among thieves.
Count Natokina.

>>True. But that doesn't make it good.<<

"Good" is relative to a *lot* of things, and I'd be the last person to accept what others think is good as having real value. I've mentioned that I didn't like "Dances With Wolves" and "High Noon" and I also said that they don't deserve the accolades that they received, but I also gave my reasons why, and have argued those points in this forum. If you're going to knock an iconic film you should give all of your reasons and suffer the inevitable arguments.

>>Hexxenhammer,
You are right. You have to see it a couple of times before you realize that it is the story of how the "bad guys" learned how to be a cohesive unit while the "good guys" were just a bunch of no account sleaze balls. The Wild Bunch personify the old saw of honor among thieves.<<

I'm confused. Are you agreeing with Hexenhammer or are you agreeing with me?

Shadow,
I had read Hexxenhammer as implying what I said and having gone back and read your comment on the Director's cut, which I have on VHS, I agree with what you expressed much better than I did.
Count Natokina.

"If you're going to knock an iconic film you should give all of your reasons and suffer the inevitable arguments."

Should I?

OK silly slow mo death scenes that remind one of actors chewing up the carpet in community shakespear productions.

OOh look. He's been shot. OOh look there's blood! No doubt this had great appeal among 12 year olds. Brings to mind the old saw that "mature" rated movies really appeal to the immature.

Unlikeable characters all around. Couldn't be arsed to care about what happened to any of them.

Should hasten add that I enjoy a lot of immature movies:

Hammer vampire films, and as mentioned Extreme Prejudice, among some other howlers.

Bob

Hi

My objection to Extreme Prejudice was that it was too much like Wild Bunch!

Rocky

Rocky,

It was the Wild Bunch done right! : )

Bob

I've never cared for The Wild Bunch, and MC hit the nail on the head …unlikable characters all around.

Movie starts with a group of criminals, none of which are pleasant fellows. They have committed many crimes. Robbery (for sure), murder and rape (likely).

Then a bunch of stuff happens.

At the end, we have … the same group of nefarious criminals. Are they now rushing into burning buildings to save innocent kids? No. They decide that "their" west is gone. No more fun times (bank & train & stage robberies) left. No more random violence, since "the times" will no longer tolerate this. It's no longer motley possees chasing them, it will be soldiers!

So they decide to take on everyone and go out in a blaze of glory. Oh, sure, try and tie that in to the fact that one of their own is pretty much mangled and soon dead, and so their deaths will show how they grew from uncaring about any one, to caring a bit about one of their own.

Big deal.

Contrast that to The Shootist. We have a gunman who made his living with same. He had a code he lived by. Was he always on the side of the good guys? Probably not. He was a wild man for wild times and wild situations. His west is changing too. And he's got cancer.

Does he decide to pass death in bed, in pain, and go rob a bank (suicide by cop so-to-speak)? No, he challenges three local tough guys to a fight all at once. He doesn't plan on surviving the fight.

So his last act is to clean up a town while he goes down shooting.

The Wild Bunch doesn't hold a candle to The Shootist.

Or take The Professionals (one of my top 10 favorite westerns). This group takes on a contract. They go deep into Mexico and have to go up against someone they admire (and used to fight along side of). They find out the "truth" isn't quite what it seems. But they live up to the terms of their contract. They have a code. Even if it means killing their former friend.

And they keep their word, right up until they are told they fulfilled the terms of their contract. And then …

For The Wild Bunch, I didn't mind the slo-mo filming style, or the use of lots and lots of blood. It was a gritty film, and thats fine. Directors will be directors, and Sam is well known for this. But the story left me uninterested from start to finish. I watched it because it was an iconic western film, and I felt I should see it. I did.

It will never be part of my movie collection. I'll never be interested in seeing it again.

I'll go one step further.

The Wild Bunch is considered a Western and like Oklahoma and Purgatory may be considered as such taking place in the 19th century in the American West.

However in plotting and characterization the film is more properly a crime movie which had been popular in the 30's and were starting to come back into vogue in the late 60's early 70's.

In that sense it is comparable to films like Little Caesar, The Godfather, and all those Peter Fonda biker gang movies.

While we as the audience can agree that there was little admirable in the conduct of Little Caesar or the Corleones, they were at least interesting characters to watch.

Lack of character development left the Wild Bunch closer to AIP Biker films then high end crime movies.

It's been many years since I saw Extreme Prejudice. I remember that I enjoyed it, but I don't have a copy of it to view it again and refresh my memory. I ordered a copy from Amazon tonight. It's full screen, but that's the only DVD copy available. Anyway, after I check it out we'll discuss this further.

Hi

perhaps I know more career criminals than some of ya'll. With wild bunch, I was not sure "good guy" was an issue. I "know" those guys, as it were. There is always a self distructive streak in all the sociopaths I have known. They are "brave" in a fight because they either cannot conceive of their own death, or if they can, they have the sneaking suspicion that the world ends when they do! Nihilistically going out in a loud noise whould seem characteristic.

Like the bad guy in 48 hours!

I think Peckenpah liked doing "no good guy" movies. Which career criminal in the Getaway is the good guy? Or "Pat Gerrett and Billy the Kid"? Or even Major Dundee.

Are we all somehow wedded to the 30s Cowboy "B-Pictures" where the good guys wear white hats?

Rocky

Just like Cole and Hitch they have morals, just hard to find them.

From the last half of the movie, you among other things hear that it's who you give your word to that counts, and in the end they come to save their friend, and when that didn't work out the decided to kill most of the army to give the rebels a chance.

So I think they have morals just not neseseraly the same morals as you and me.