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.

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!

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

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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.

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

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.

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?

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

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



Chuck

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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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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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.

Looks like yet, another attempt to ruin a good movie by modernizing and pcing it. I'd never watch it. The only good thing with the remake, is the portrayers would have to get killed in the end.

I recall the symbolism in the scene where the kids are "playing" with the scorpion and the ants. It was there that the bunch saw their end in a metaphor.

Emilio "El Indio" Fernández Romo, the actor who played Mapache, is credited for coming up with that for the movie. It was an activity he and his childhood friends engaged in as a boy in Mexico. He suggested it to Peckinpah, and Peckinpah put it in the movie.

I personally don't think a remake would get made. It's been floating around in Hollywood for four years now, and frankly, drug-DEA-cartel-action type films are boring now. Will Smith probably has enough star power to get the film made if he wanted to, but I just think the idea is dead. Plus, he really hasn't made a worthwhile film since Ali in 2001. He might not want to attach himself to a remake that'd end up dying at the box office. He also might be smart enough to realize there are some things that simply can't be improved upon.

Randolph Scott is buried in a cemetery just up the road from my house.

Hoping that's the case. For several years now, its also been floating around for a remake of: Decision Before Dawn, which is a flawless movie. Its based on the excellent book called: Some Dare Call It Treason, which is based on actual events. The only possible actors name I've heard for this movie, if remade? is German actor, Thomas Kretschmann, of Stalingrad and U-571 fame. He is supposed to play the Oskar Warner: Karl Maurer---Happy--part.

Remakes seldom measure up. The Wild Bunch, original The Getaway, Warren Oates, version of Dillinger, great, great movies. Here's one for you guys which only die hard old movie buffs would have seen...1932's The Beast Of The City with Walter Huston. You have to see the shoot out at the end between the cops and the gangsters. It's kind of like a western movie shoot out only multipled by by a couple of dozen shooters in a "modern" setting.if you can't wait to catch it on TCM and don't mind seeing the end of the movie here's a link to see it on you tube

"The Beast of the City" clip 3.mp4 - YouTube

1997's "L. A. Confidential" had a pretty good shoot-em-up sequence at the end - Good cops vs. bad cops. They burned up a lot of blanks making that one. Not as graphic as TWBs, however.

I think that entire introductory sequence bracketed on each end by the ants vs. the scorpion drama is the most memorable of the movie. Had I been Peckenpah, I would probably have changed a few details and some dialog, but it is pretty good as-is.

It might be a subtle director's comment by Peckinpah, but keep in mind...when the film opens, the members of the gang who ride into town are wearing stolen army uniforms and riding stolen army horses...and all of them are carrying 1911s that were most likely stolen, too. It's all part of their disguise.

And in addition to Pike, Dutch and Angel carry 1911s all through the film, although they aren't as much in evidence as Pike Bishop's.

Another interesting thing to me is Peckinpah's use of Winchester pump shotguns. He uses the Model 97 and the Model 12. For me, this dates the story after or during 1914, because Winchester didn't bring out the Model 12 in 12-gauge until 1914. Most reviewers and analysts of the film say it takes place in 1913. And the '97 Pike's carrying in the final sequence has obviously had the barrel shortened because it ends right at the end of the magazine tube, which is a good bit shorter than the factory 20-inch cylinder bore barrel on the '97 riot gun.

I'll have to go back and watch the film again (no problem!) and take a closer look at the shotguns carried by the others.

For a film that was pretty much roundly disliked when it was released almost forty-seven years abo, The Wild Bunch has finally been recognized as a true classic film, and people will probably still be analyzing it on its 100th anniversary.

I watch it every time its on TV. It's one of my all-time favorites.

I especially like the scene around the campfire, and the dialogue between Pike and Dutch. It's one of the best dialogues ever.

There's a documentary where Sam Peckinpah discussed the making of the film. It this particular scene, Peckinpah got so caught up in watching the dialogue between Holden and Borgnine, that he couldn't bring himself to call "cut". He said he wept while directing. Very powerful acting.