Monday 21 March 2016

MY DVD COLLECTION 15

Sam Peckinpah 1925 - 1984

What can one say about Sam Peckinpah ?  Love him or hate him. My first Peckinpah film was RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY and even that early it seemed obvious to me that there was something very special. Outrageous stories about the difficulty of working with him abound - many of them, admittedly quite funny. I was working at Columbia Pictures in London when the MAJOR DUNDEE debacle happened which was, I think, partly fuelled by the studio's problems with Roger Corman on a not dissimilar project, THE LONG RIDE HOME. But Sam did things his way even if the studio hacks did the butchering later. Thankfully a few of his films have been restored more or less as it is thought he would have wanted them. With PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID he made my all time favourite Western, one of the saddest films I've ever seen. Peckinpah's films in my collection are: THE DEADLY COMPANIONS (1961) RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY (1962) MAJOR DUNDEE (1965) THE WILD BUNCH (1969) THE BALLAD OF CABLE HOGUE (1970) STRAW DOGS (1971) JUNIOR BONNER (1972) THE GETAWAY (1972) PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THJE KID (1973) BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA (1974) THE KILLER ELITE (1975)  CROSS 0F IRON (1977)  CONVOY (1978) THE OSTERMANN WEEKEND (1983)

1 comment:

Cerpts said...

I like Peckinpah (with PAT GARRETT being my favourite film of his) but own sadly little of his work.

The Peckinpah films in my OWN DVD collection: RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY, THE WILD BUNCH and PAT GARRETT & BILLY THE KID.