Major Dundee

8/10. Watched this Sunday evening on DVD.

After the success of Ride the High Country, Sam Peckinpah was asked to direct an epic western, a Civil War-era Lawrence of Arabia (which won seven Oscars in 1962). Then production began, and chaos ensued. Some of it was Peckinpah's fault; some of it wasn't. But the bottom line is that the movie released in 1965 was not Peckinpah's movie.

Last year, an "extended version" of the movie was released, which restored a lot of what Peckinpah had intended. But because much footage has been lost and some scripted scenes were never filmed, a true "director's cut" of Major Dundee is sadly impossible.

The version I watched was the extended version, and the good news is that despite some obvious gaps (particularly toward the beginning) Major Dundee is a terrific movie. Most significantly, it's a cinematic leap forward for Peckinpah. Here it's more evident that we're in the hands of the man who later made The Wild Bunch and Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid.