The Wild Bunch: The making of the final shootout.

Wyatt Burp · Dec 16, 2015

Here's a pretty good short video about the shoot out that repulsed, nauseated, and in my case THRILLED people from that moment on. It changed forever the way violence was depicted on film, and sam Peckinpah took all the arrows for film directors who followed.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iFT7hTZCMk[/ame]

DWalt · Dec 16, 2015

The original 2-DVD set of The Wild Bunch contains a fairly lengthy treatment of "The Making of..." I don't remember how many, but TWB set the record for the number of rapid cuts, several thousand. And all in the days before digital editing. Some years ago I bought the DVD set at a flea market for $2. TWB still shows up every so often on TCM.

The first time I saw it was at a drive-in with my dog. It was part of a double billing with, I think, The Cincinnati Kid. I had a boring life back then.

Wyatt Burp · Dec 16, 2015

DWalt said:
The original 2-DVD set of The Wild Bunch contains a fairly lengthy treatment of "The Making of..." I don't remember how many, but TWB set the record for the number of rapid cuts, several thousand. And all in the days before digital editing. Some years ago I bought the DVD set at a flea market for $2. TWB still shows up every so often on TCM.

The first time I saw it was at a drive-in with my dog. It was part of a double billing with, I think, The Cincinnati Kid. I had a boring life back then.

I was about fourteen babysitting my six year old nephew and took him to the show a couple blocks away. Double feature was two movies I knew nothing about: The Wild Bunch and The Culpepper Cattle Company. Not exactly Walt Disney for a little kid, but my nephew turned out OK. but what a great double bill!

CAJUNLAWYER · Dec 16, 2015

"If anybody moves, kill them." William Holden-real men movie quotes

DWalt · Dec 16, 2015

There were two gun blunders that I remember. The one guy in the posse was using a M1903A3. The machine gun was a Browning M1917, which didn't go into production until after the US entry into WWI in 1917. In fact, very few M1917s made it to France before the war's end.

loknload · Dec 16, 2015

This post made me get it out and watch it,,,,,Great picture, fantastic ending!

Kinman · Dec 16, 2015

It was so revolutionary when it came out, I remember the line stretching out down the block. I don't think I saw a movie that came close until the first Star Wars. Epic movie, had some of the best western character actors in any movie. I liked the humor scenes like the guys getting drunk in the bath, it was all very well done, Pekinpah at his best.

DWalt · Dec 16, 2015

I'm a little surprised that no one (to my knowledge) has attempted a re-make of it. Maybe the Coen Brothers would be interested. Wonder who would be cast in it if it was re-made, since about everyone in the original is probably dead by now. Nominations?

steveno · Dec 17, 2015

please don't do a remake. there isn't any actor alive now that is worthy of it.

chud333 · Dec 17, 2015

And this was not the only good shootout in the Movie.
I enjoyed the bank as much or better.
Classic

Chuck

the ringo kid · Dec 17, 2015

steveno said:
please don't do a remake. there isn't any actor alive now that is worthy of it.

I think that Tom Selleck and Sam Elliott could easily be the William Holden and Ernest Borgnine characters. Other than that, I wouldn't want to see a remake.

amazingflapjack · Dec 17, 2015

Peckenpah only made it to 59-but what a legacy!

Watchdog · Dec 17, 2015

DWalt said:
I'm a little surprised that no one (to my knowledge) has attempted a re-make of it.

Unfortunately, there is a potential remake being shopped around Hollywood, but so far, cooler heads have prevailed against it.

I am not making this up, okay?

The concept for the remake involves drug cartels around the modern day California/Mexico border.

If you haven't vomited yet, you will.

The rough outline of the script involves Will Smith

playing a DEA agent, although it may have been revised by now to make him CIA.

This has been in the planning stages for a few years now, but I think it may be dead in the water. Hopefully, it is.

I won't talk about this any more, because it makes me physically ill to even think about it.

DWalt · Dec 17, 2015

So who would be General Mepache? I know - Gary Busey.

Watchdog · Dec 17, 2015

The Wild Bunch and Ride the High Country

Sam Peckinpah had a recurring concept in his mind, and The Wild Bunch was the culmination of that concept.

Take a look at Peckinpah's Ride the High Country, released seven years before The Wild Bunch.

The plot involves two aging gunmen...Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott...hired to guard a gold shipment. The film even has Warren Oates and L. Q. Jones in it, two actors who would reappear in The Wild Bunch.

Here's what's really interesting to me. Take a look at Joel McCrea in the film. He bears a startling resemblance to William Holden's Pike Bishop in the later film, both in his mannerisms and even his wardrobe and gunbelt. Holden and McCrea could be brothers, they look so much alike in the films.

I believe Peckinpah had this ideal in his head, this inner vision of what an aging cowboy/gunfighter should look like. He started it with McCrea, and polished it to its finished form with Holden...the finishing touch, I think, is Holden's mustache in the later film. A small detail, but in my mind, it completes the character.

Taking it one step further, I think he carried the idea of the One Last Big Score over into modern times with The Getaway in 1972. But that's for another discussion, I think.

EDIT: I added a couple of photos of William Holden in The Wild Bunch, the better to see the similarities.

DWalt · Dec 17, 2015

There are a few plot parallels between the original Getaway with Steve McQueen and The Wild Bunch. The later Getaway (remake of 1994) with Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger was a stinker.

Watchdog · Dec 17, 2015

DWalt said:
There are a few plot parallels between the original Getaway with Steve McQueen and The Wild Bunch. The later Getaway (remake of 1994) with Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger was a stinker.

I couldn't bear to watch the Baldwin/Basinger remake. Seriously. I got about five minutes into it and just thought...no, I won't do this.

Ranger514 · Dec 17, 2015

I walked into the showing of The Wild Bunch at a local theater when it was first released and was completely blown away from the bank robbery to the final shootout. Nobody had come close to the violence involved in that movie...slow motion bullets striking and exiting victims...full scale slaughter. I knew it was ground breaking and bound to become a classic. It was about the end of an age, and an end of the old western outlaws. They knew their time was over, and they went out in style. This movie has stood the test of time, and nobody will ever do it better than Sam and the cast he chose.

brucev · Dec 18, 2015

WB... good movie. In the same class as Once Upon a Time in the West, etc. Sincerely. bruce.

hangnoose · Dec 18, 2015

GREAT POINT

RE McCRea & W Holden, I agree. One thing about TWB & Pikes character is his carrying a then very modern 45 acp, hidden for the most part under a vest. His acknowledgement of changing times? Who knows if it was intentional, but it stuck out in my mind anyway. I could see Randolph Scott being one of the charectors. In Blazing saddles, every time RS's name was mentioned there would be a hats off standing O, HE EARNED IT.

The Wild Bunch: The making of the final shootout.

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