Major Dundee

So, "Major Dundee": Flawed masterpiece or promising concept gone awry? I'm, unfortunately, going to have to lean more towards the latter on this one. The elements are sure enough there: great director (Sam Peckinpah ["Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia"]), excellent cast (Charlton Heston ["Planet of the Apes"], Richard Harris ["Gladiator"], James Coburn ["In Like Flint"], Ben Johnson ["The Wild Bunch"], Warren Oates ["In the Heat of the Night"], and Slim Pickens ["Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb]), and solid material, but it just never quite seems to come together for reasons very much known. Director Sam Peckinpah and the studio heads clashed over every conceivable aspect of the production: music, length, graphic content, voiceover narration, et cetera, and the studio eventually won out, inserting out of place narration and an inappropriate score, and editing out graphic content, amongst other things, in order to shorten the film and enable it to be shown more times a day during its initial theatrical run. About the only good thing to come out of the making of "Major Dundee" was that it laid the groundwork for future Peckinpah masterpiece "The Wild Bunch", but we'll save that critique for another day.

As for the Peckinpah pelicula (that's Spanish for film, mis amigos) at hand, well, here's the story, morning glory. "Major Dundee" takes place near the end of the Civil War. A band of Apaches (not to be confused with the band The Apaches, who may or may not exist, but if they do exist, they should have a song that goes a little something like this: Hey, hey, we're The Apaches! People say we Apache around... I smell platinum, or, at the very least: Silver and gold, silver and gold, instead of trading all our land for trinkets, we should have held out for some silver and gold. I've got a million of 'em! [That's a lie. What you read is all I have...so far (call me!)]), who have been terrorizing Texans, have fled into Mexico, and U.S. Cavalry officer Major Amos Charles Dundee (Heston) has put together a patchwork (yes, I did think about using 'Apachwork' instead of 'a patchwork', but thought better of it until just now. Let's just say that me and thinking better of things go together like wolves and baby caribou) brigade of Confederate prisoners of war, U.S. Army regulars (many of them freed slaves), American Indian and Anglo scouts, and various other locals, both reputable and disreputable, to track down the Natives and exact revenge. It's a western in the vein of "The Wild Bunch", "Stagecoach", "The Searchers", and "The Magnificent Seven", but not "Wild, Wild West", "The Three Amigos!", "Blazing Saddles", or "Back to the Future, Part III". Or was that the other way around? Oh, whatever, potato, tomato. Oops, started writing my grocery list. Sorry. Anyway, Dundee and crew take the law and their lives into their own hands in heading south of the border to bring those Apaches (again, not the band) to justice. Their mission is not sanctioned by the U.S. or Mexican governments, they manage to cross a French occupying army along the way, drawing their ire, of course, and the Apaches aren't exactly a pushover themselves, to say the least. Also, Dundee and crew have much infighting, as there are many grudges within their own ranks: Dundee versus Captain Benjamin Tyreen (Harris), the leader of the Confederate prisoners of war and an ex-compatriot of Amos's, Confederates versus freed slaves, Native scouts versus Anglos, freed slaves versus Anglos, in general, Confederates versus the U.S. Army regulars, local reputables versus local disreputables, etc... I mean, it's a wonder they don't all kill each other before they ever even get around to taking on the Apaches (I do mean the band this time, The Dundees versus The Apaches face off in a sort of battle of the bands).

All that being said, you know what's even more of a wonder? That with all that going for it, "Major Dundee" is just never all that engaging. The action's castrated. The plot becomes muddled at times (probably due to poor editing-hey, kind of like this review!) And there are pacing issues galore (again, most likely the product of the poor editing-oh, man, again, kind of like this review...which is what I was going for. You buy that, right?) You know, I really hate the idea of remakes, but I have to say, when the right film's redone the right way, it can turnout great (see "Ocean's Eleven), and to me, this is a film that's just crying out for that type of treatment. However, this version of "Dundee" is still very much worth a glance for western and/or Peckinpah fans, so they can see the roots of a later masterpiece, and enjoy what's right about this film, which, despite my caveats, actually, outweighs what's not.