What makes this stand out from any other generic Western? - The Wild Bunch (1969) Discussion

[–] jonathan_k80 8 years ago

I believe this was the first film to address the idea of the "Wild West" era coming to a close. I mean the actual era itself, not just the end of a career for an individual outlaw or a gunfighter. It was now the early 20th Century: new technology was being utilised, a revolution was raging in México, and entry into World War I (or as it was called then, the Great War) was on the horizon for the U.S.

As you said, the characters seemed a bit confusing. The first time I saw this film, I thought Bishop and the Bunch truly were soldiers in the opening sequence; when it was revealed they were actually the robbers in disguise I was totally caught off guard. There was so much complexity to the characters as opposed to the simplistic "good guys" versus "bad guys" seen in the Westerns of the 1940s and 1950s. Each character possessed both good and evil traits. They had their doubts and conflicts. They both questioned and tried to preserve their loyalties. They were human.

I hope you were able to view the "Original Director's Cut," the version that runs 145 minutes. If not, I would recommend it. The restored scenes really flesh out the story, particularly the parts concerning the background of Bishop and Thornton's former partnership.

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[–] KingCobra686 8 years ago

Yep I've got the 145 min version. I picked it up at the library last week. If I dont run out of time I might give it another watch before I return it. I was also confused by that opening sequence, so it would probably help to watch that again.

I didnt pick up on the theme of the Wild West ending when I was watching, but now that you mention it I can see that it was a strong theme throughout the movie. That does distinguish it from the rest of the generic western movies out there. Considering how much the Wild West is idealized in movies, its a change of pace to show the end of it.

Thanks for the input

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[–] jonathan_k80 8 years ago

You're welcome.

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[–] shepardjessica-1 8 years ago

The END of the West, more realistic dialogue, more realistic violence, no weak characters, and Peckinpah loved Westerns.

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[–] yelzohy 8 years ago

The gatling gun and automobile were good indicators for the ending of the west.

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[–] nickm2 8 years ago

Belt fed Maxim gun, actually but you are right about it being 'the closing of the west';

Why can't you wretched prey creatures understand that the Universe doesn't owe you anything!?

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[–] christomacin (4655) 5 years ago

or was it a Vickers gun?

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[–] db20db (17235) 5 years ago

Check this out as far as a good " end of the West " western: https://moviechat.org/tt0163913/You-Know-My-Name

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[–] Galactus03 (4373) 5 years ago

https://moviechat.org/tt0074776/The-Last-Hard-Men

This one as well....

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[–] Galactus03 (4373) 5 years ago

https://moviechat.org/tt0066831/Big-Jake

And of course Big Jake....

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[–] db20db (17235) 5 years ago

I've heard of Big Jake and the other one seems familiar. I'll keep an eye out for them.

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[–] Galactus03 (4373) 5 years ago

They are both good turn of the century westerns....I believe they coincidentally are both set in 1909...

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[–] jonathan_k80 (6436) 4 years ago

The Wild Bunch preceded all these films.

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[–] NutMustardx 8 years ago

The depth. The loyalty of the men to stick w Angel. The way the film was shot. The things that are subtle and there's no silliness like good an the ugly with blondie shooting angel eyes hat into the grave. It's a solid film. Add things like the old man asking how his boy did ..who knew it was his son that got left behind?? I find no real weaknesses

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I was around in 1969, and the key starting point and selling point for The Wild Bunch was: the bloody shootouts that both open the film(the crossfire attack in the border town) and that end the film(the "battle of bloody porch" : 4 men against 200, all dying, but taking them down with them.) The Wild Bunch was "the shocker Western," a bloodbath that was to the Western what Psycho had been to the thriller and Bonnie and Clyde had been to the gangster movie. And The Wild Bunch had more blood and deaths than either of those two predecessors.

There had been violence in the spaghetti Westerns of Clint Eastwood, but those shootouts were quick and very much like the olden days.

Not so, The Wild Bunch. The intercutting of slow motion AT DIFFERENT SPEEDS. The way blood burst out not only of the front when men got shot, but straight out their backs, too. How Angel got his throat cut.

But it was interesting, what happened: it was the blood, the blood, the blood that made The Wild Bunch famous. But the blood turned out to be in the service of a great "end of the West" story that ended dramatically with a bunch of old guys deciding to die together in a good cause. "Let's go." "Why not?" . And then the coda, with one aged survivor inviting another aged survivor to join his new , ragtag gang: "It isn't like the old days, but it'll do." These back-to-back endings -- one sad, one happy -- TOUCHED people . Moved them.

I might add that, in the summer of 1969 when The Wild Bunch hit, there was a critic named Judith Crist who went on the Johnny Carson show and said of "The Wild Bunch": "Its the worst movie of the year. Bring your barf bag."

Meanwhile critics for Time and Newsweek were saluting The Wild Bunch as "great bloody art." It was the kind of critical showdown that was popular back then.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Interesting: The Wild Bunch came out in the summer of 1969. That fall, we got "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." Left out of the movie was the fact that Butch's gang was called "The Wild Bunch" in real life. Butch and Sundance died against 200 at the end of Butch Cassidy, too -- but we didn't see it. Indeed, most of Butch Cassidy was without the blood and violence of The Wild Bunch.

And Butch Cassidy was the biggest hit of the year.

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[–] db20db (17235) 5 years ago

I agree with the OP that it's overrated. It's supposed to be groundbreaking because of its depiction of violence but Peckinpah just copied a trend he saw catching on with Bonnie & Clyde in 1967. It's like Pepsi following Coke or Hardee's with McDonald's.

Plus, I thought William Holden was seriously miscast in this trying to appear tough, ruthless and cold-blooded. Someone like Richard Boone could have pulled off that role much more effectively. Holden didn't have as much as a 5 o'clock shadow throughout the film. I guess in his interpretation of the character of Pike, being clean shaven every day was more of a priority than all of the other dangerous, life threatening situations he was constantly facing.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

I agree with the OP that it's overrated. It's supposed to be groundbreaking because of its depiction of violence but Peckinpah just copied a trend he saw catching on with Bonnie & Clyde in 1967. It's like Pepsi following Coke or Hardee's with McDonald's.

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Well, yes and no. Peckinpah WAS inspired by the bloodshed in Bonnie and Clyde, but his opening and closing gunbattles took the "basics" of the comparatively brief slo-mo gundown of B and C to enthralling "gigantic" levels (keep in mind that much of the rest of the bloodshed in B and C was NOT in slo-mo and often felt like the gunbattle footage of previous movies.)

I suppose you could say that what Psycho did for the thriller, and what Bonnie and Clyde did for the gangster movie, The Wild Bunch did for the Western. All three were linked in taking up the violence to 11, but all three were also exceptionally well made, written and acted movies.

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Plus, I thought William Holden was seriously miscast in this trying to appear tough, ruthless and cold-blooded. Someone like Richard Boone could have pulled off that role much more effectively.

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I am the biggest Richard Boone fan on earth, and Boone WAS sent the script(along with Charlton Heston, James Stewart, Greg Peck -- EVERYBODY) after Lee Marvin dropped out as Pike.

But I think that Holden was great casting here.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Holden didn't have as much as a 5 o'clock shadow throughout the film. I guess in his interpretation of the character of Pike, being clean shaven every day was more of a priority than all of the other dangerous, life threatening situations he was constantly facing.

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Ha. Maybe so. There is an elegance to Holden's Pike Bishop..notice how at one point in the movie, he is effectively wearing a suit and (bolo) tie...its rather in accord with this movie being "a Western in the time of motorcars and airplanes." Maybe Pike shaved to keep up appearances as a "businessman whose business is blood." (Recall that he fakes being an Army officer in the first scene; THEY shave.)

But what is important in the Holden casting is that, in the fifties, he had been not only one of the biggest stars in Hollywood(Number One a time or two) but at once the epitome of "the All American Man"(that smile, that body) AND "the epitome of the American loser." Holden dies in many of his key fifties films, and he's beaten up in Stalag 17. There was something cynical about his characters too. All of that movie past sounds in the movie present of The Wild Bunch. I thought Holden was the best casting for Pike of the men sent the script. Heston and Peck were too stolid; Stewart too old; Boone TOO craggy and vicious on sight. And even the much bigger star(at the time) Lee Marvin, who first accepted the role, was wrong BECAUSE he was successful. Holden made sense -- he was on the fade, losing it -- just like Pike Bishop.

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[–] db20db (17235) 5 years ago

The point in my opening comment was that I've often seen Peckinpah mistakenly credited as having launched the trend of less sanitized and more graphic, even shocking violence in films. Yes, I agree he brought it to the western genre, along with his own unique interpretation of the style. Upon reconsidering, Hitchcock's Psycho is probably more accurate as the flash-point and 1960 the pivotal year for the emergence of that trend.

That's very interesting and eye-opening about the stars that turned down the role and it reinforces my opinion about Richard Boone. It also suggests that Holden was a last resort choice, an act of desperation on the part of Peckinpah. With that additional information in mind, I feel even more justified in my perception of his performance. It was what one would expect from such a casting choice.

As for the comments about being clean shaven, that was a bit of sardonicism on my part but I think they also contain some relevance since that just seemed to contribute to the lack of credibility I was feeling with him. It only makes sense in the beginning when he fakes being an Army officer but why maintain that look throughout the film when being on the run for their freedom and lives was the driving force and the highest priority? It almost made me see him as a "drugstore cowboy", a sign of vanity, preoccupied with his star image. It is titled, after all, The Wild Bunch and everyone else appeared appropriately scruffy.

You've got good, valid reasons for your opinions, ecarle but I'm sticking to my guns ( pun appropriate, I think) with mine as well. Boone and Marvin make the most sense to me for the role of Pike. They both exhibit that subdued style of malevolence and alpha male quality the role calls for. Holden was too overt, as if he was trying too hard but lacked the essence.

Thanks for a stimulating and informative response, ecarle.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

The point in my opening comment was that I've often seen Peckinpah mistakenly credited as having launched the trend of less sanitized and more graphic, even shocking violence in films. Yes, I agree he brought it to the western genre, along with his own unique interpretation of the style. Upon reconsidering, Hitchcock's Psycho is probably more accurate as the flash-point and 1960 the pivotal year for the emergence of that trend.

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Yes, I think it is Psycho that made the history here. There is less violence in Psycho than in Bonnie and Clyde and in The Wild Bunch, but it was really the FIRST violence with such graphicness, blood and...length of time on screen(Stephen King wrote that it felt like Janet Leigh was getting stabbed "forever" in that shower scene.) The shower scene was a bit "abstract" but the bloody slash down the face of the detective made a more brutal kind of screen history -- and was mirrored, in Bonnie and Clyde, when a bank clerk is shot point blank in the face through the window of the getaway car he has jumped upon.

In short, Psycho(which studio lawyers and censors tried to stop) "opened the door" to slasher movies, Bonnie and Clyde, spaghetti Westerns...and The Wild Bunch.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

That's very interesting and eye-opening about the stars that turned down the role and it reinforces my opinion about Richard Boone. It also suggests that Holden was a last resort choice, an act of desperation on the part of Peckinpah. With that additional information in mind, I feel even more justified in my perception of his performance. It was what one would expect from such a casting choice.

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Hmm...well, Marvin (having gotten the green light for The Wild Bunch) dropping out almost killed the picture. Perhaps there was some desperation in Peckinpah's choice. That the script went to so many stars shows he knew it would be tough to get somebody to sign on for the bleak ultraviolence of the picture.

In 1969, Richard Boone had been a top TV star(Have Gun Will Travel) now plying his trade in major movies and usually as a "smiling villain." Mostly Westerns(Rio Conchos, Hombre, and soon, Big Jake) but also contemporary thrillers like The Night of the Following Day and The Kremlin Letter. But soon Boone would return to TV(Hec Ramsey, TV movies.) William Holden, by contrast, had been a very BIG movie star in the fifties, one of the biggest, and had slowly declined in the 60's to the point where Peckinpah actually got him pretty cheap.

While we're on Boone, this: he was sought after to play villains a lot and director George Roy Hill really wanted Boone for the bad guy Doyle Lonnigan in The Sting(1973.) The role in the script kept getting beefed up to attract Boone, but he said "no" -- so the role went to Robert Shaw. Two years later, when Lee Marvin turned down Quint in Jaws, the producers of Jaws (also the producers of The Sting) said to Spielberg: why don't you use Robert Shaw from The Sting?

So: Richard Boone got Robert Shaw two of his greatest roles. And Lee Marvin turned down The Wild Bunch and Jaws. (!!)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Also: the Ernest Borgnine role in The Wild Bunch was written for a young man -- a "surrogate son" to Pike Bishop. But the producer of The Wild Bunch really liked Ernest Borgnine and wanted him in the movie. So Peckinpah rewrote the role older, gave it to Borgnine, and made him more of a brother to Pike than a son.

About that "Wild Bunch" producer: one reason that the gunbattles and blood and slo-mo and other different film speeds are so massive and great in The Wild Bunch is that the producer saw early rushes and felt that Peckinpah was delivering a masterpiece...so he kept giving Peckinpah all the budget money and TIME he needed to film the gunbattles for as long as he needed, with ammunition and bloody costume replacements by the score.

The gunbattles in Peckinpah's later films never had that "size" again, because he never had a producer willing to spend time and money like he did on The Wild Bunch.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

As for the comments about being clean shaven, that was a bit of sardonicism on my part but I think they also contain some relevance since that just seemed to contribute to the lack of credibility I was feeling with him.

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Fair enough. And sardonicism is a good thing...

We all see movies -- and movie stars -- different ways. I personally learn a lot when I get a "different take" on a movie , a star, or a performance.

William Holden made a lot of Westerns, but he was really closer to Cary Grant as a screen star: suave, romantic, etc. It WAS a shock for audiences to see Holden killing away in The Wild Bunch(as it would have been to see Cary Grant in the role), but it might well have been a bit miscast.

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It only makes sense in the beginning when he fakes being an Army officer but why maintain that look throughout the film when being on the run for their freedom and lives was the driving force and the highest priority? It almost made me see him as a "drugstore cowboy", a sign of vanity, preoccupied with his star image. It is titled, after all, The Wild Bunch and everyone else appeared appropriately scruffy.

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Ha. I can't argue with that. Or more to the point, I WON'T. I suppose the "wildness" in Holden in this movie is more "internal" than external but...that's it. No argument from me..

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You've got good, valid reasons for your opinions, ecarle but I'm sticking to my guns ( pun appropriate, I think) with mine as well.

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That's a good thing. We've had a good discussion.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Boone and Marvin make the most sense to me for the role of Pike. They both exhibit that subdued style of malevolence and alpha male quality the role calls for. Holden was too overt, as if he was trying too hard but lacked the essence.

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Well, to repeat, I'm a HUGE Boone fan(he made plenty of money as a TV star, but he should have been a bigger movie star) and Lee Marvin was certainly a favorite -- he was great in The Professionals as the deadpan and..sardonic...buddy of the more flamboyant Burt Lancaster. And that movie is a dry run(in setting and story) for The Wild Bunch.

So I'm sure that I would have liked Boone OR Marvin in The Wild Bunch. I'm guessing Warners would not have found Boone big enough for the lead, and Marvin is the man they wanted but couldn't keep.

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Thanks for a stimulating and informative response, ecarle.

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Thank you for reading!

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[–] db20db (17235) 5 years ago

Again, ecarle, thanks for all of that very interesting background information. This is a major reason I enjoy watching TCM, which is where I saw The Wild Bunch, by the way, because I always get a generous amount of that from the host of a film.

The casting of Ernest Borgnine was a wise choice on the part of the producer, I think. He's a fine, versatile actor and was a perfect complement to Holden's character. A favorite film of mine, Emperor of the North, has Borgnine and Lee Marvin cast as adversaries, a very dynamic pairing, in my opinion.

Speaking of time and money spent on a film, a favorite scene in The Wild Bunch was the collapse of that lengthy, very sturdy looking bridge with all of those riders and horses trapped on it. That had to have been costly, difficult to set up and especially, time just right.

Yes, it's been a good discussion. What I learned from it is very much appreciated.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Again, ecarle, thanks for all of that very interesting background information. This is a major reason I enjoy watching TCM, which is where I saw The Wild Bunch, by the way, because I always get a generous amount of that from the host of a film.

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Yes, they get that stuff from the same books and articles that I do...except they read a LOT more books and articles than I do...for all those movies they show.

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The casting of Ernest Borgnine was a wise choice on the part of the producer, I think. He's a fine, versatile actor and was a perfect complement to Holden's character.

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What fascinates me is that Borgnine won the Best Actor Oscar in 1955(Marty), did a few years as a "movie character star" -- then went to a TV sitcom(McHale's Navy) that COULD have sunk his movie career, but then came BACK as a movie star, in such important films as The Dirty Dozen, Ice Station Zebra, The Wild Bunch, Willard, and The Poseidon Adventure. And Emperor of the North...an incredible "comeback." And Borgnine kept working films and TV into his 90's , almost to his death.

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A favorite film of mine, Emperor of the North, has Borgnine and Lee Marvin cast as adversaries, a very dynamic pairing, in my opinion.

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Yep..two "old guys" (a hobo and a train conductor) fighting it out on a train during the Depression. Would that movie be made today? I doubt it.

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Speaking of time and money spent on a film, a favorite scene in The Wild Bunch was the collapse of that lengthy, very sturdy looking bridge with all of those riders and horses trapped on it. That had to have been costly, difficult to set up and especially, time just right.

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Absolutely..it was the last scene they filmed, I think, because of the danger. But no expense was spared...

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Yes, it's been a good discussion. What I learned from it is very much appreciated.

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And thank you..

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[–] db20db (17235) 5 years ago

I am the biggest Richard Boone fan on earth

I happened to come across this https://moviechat.org/tt0072615/Against-a-Crooked-Sky while channel surfing this morning. Boone is excellent in it, definitely in his element with the character he portrays.

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[–] snepts (11123) 5 years ago

I would have loved to see Richard Boone as the lead here. Seems like the actors were supposed to be "old" and I don't know what age Boone was at the time, but as much as I like William Holden, both he and Robert Ryan aren't really that "sexy" on screen by now. I think Boone would still have had that intelligent, confident and intimidating voice he is so well known for.
I really should watch this again. I know seeing Magnificent Seven not long ago reminded me of a lot of aspects to it I had not noticed or forgotten previously. Although to be honest, for the most part I'm not keen on seeing people getting shot, especially in some realistic manner.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

I would have loved to see Richard Boone as the lead here. Seems like the actors were supposed to be "old" and I don't know what age Boone was at the time, but as much as I like William Holden, both he and Robert Ryan aren't really that "sexy" on screen by now.

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It has been noted that in the 60s and 70s, the Western was sort of a place where former male heartthrobs were put into retirement of sorts. John Wayne had a lot of starpower, but guys like Holden and Glenn Ford and Richard Widmark and Kirk Douglas and, yes, even Robert Mitchum found themselves being "paired up" in various two-man Westerns. I recall that 1967 had that roundelay of Wayne-Mitchum(El Dorado); Wayne-Douglas(The War Wagon) and Mitchum-Douglas(The Way West, with Widmark "thrown in.")

The Wild Bunch SEEMED like it was going to be "one of those." In fact I recall thinking that Borgnine wasn't quite big enough(as a star) to be matched with Holden. Why not Mitchum?

Oh, well, the world found out that The Wild Bunch was NOT "just another Western" when it hit the screen with that match-up of blood, cinematic pyrotechnics, art and "majesty."

Indeed, Bill Holden started work on the film, saw Peckinpah directing "hard art"(throwing dirt on the clothes of his actors) and headed back to his dressing room. "Where you going?" asked Peckinpah. "To study my lines more deeply," said Holden. "I didn't realize you were trying to make a REAL movie."

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

I think Boone would still have had that intelligent, confident and intimidating voice he is so well known for.

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Its funny. In the fifties, William Holden was one of the most handsome and hard-bodied men on screen -- and Richard Boone was a craggy young character actor with a great voice but not much of a face.

Came the 70's, Boone and Holden had about evened out, "craggy face" wise. But Boone had the presence and that voice.

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I really should watch this again. I know seeing Magnificent Seven not long ago reminded me of a lot of aspects to it I had not noticed or forgotten previously.

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The 1960 original?

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Although to be honest, for the most part I'm not keen on seeing people getting shot, especially in some realistic manner.

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Yep. Shows you how history DOES change things. 50 years ago in 1969, the ultra-violent shootings of The Wild Bunch were "wild fiction to enjoy vicariously." Now, this is a monthly event in real-life America. 50 years makes a difference in humanity...

But I still like a fictional shoot em up....

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

I happened to come across this https://moviechat.org/tt0072615/Against-a-Crooked-Sky while channel surfing this morning. Boone is excellent in it, definitely in his element with the character he portrays.

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Yes, Boone had the lead in that one. A bit of a low budget, independent film, but he could still draw bank.

I find "the great Richard Boone years" to be rather narrowcast: from 1964 to 1979.

It goes like this: in the fifties and early sixties, Boone was given "too serious" roles and played them without flash or humor. And his most famous and lucrative role , Paladin on Have Gun Will Travel, was rather confined by its half hour length and TV censorshiop. Boone was dynamic and heroic on the show, but he needed to branch out.

In the movies from 1964 on...he did. And rather like(I'm not kidding) Jack Nicholson and Al Pacino as THEY aged, its like Boone added more personality to his characterizations, more "pizazz," more flamboyance. He laughed, he smiled, and he was an absolute master at using his pointing fingers to make a point.

Here are my favorite Boone peformances:

1964: Rio Conchos -- Boone gets top billing(very rare) in a "four men on a mission" Western (Tony Franciosa is the other cool one; Stuart Whitman and Jim Brown are the "straights") that resembles The Professionals but is rather more fantastical, like The Wild Wild West or something.

1967: Hombre. Paul Newman's the good guy(white man raised by Indians) Richard Boone is the bad guy on an Arizona stagecoach ride. Boone enters the movie about a half hour in with his saddle over his shoulder and pure menace in his eyes. The final verbal showdown between Newman and Boone ("You got a lot of hard bark on you" says Boone to Newman) is classic...before the REAL showdown.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

1970: The Kremlin Letter. A modern day spy tale directed by John Huston. Boone is billed second alphabetically(after Bibi Anderson) but he's the star...a dark star...with his moustache shaved off, his hair dyed white(to suggest old age, or blondness?) and a cracker barrel wistfulness to his every utterance. He's always calling his younger secret agent charge(a dull Patrick O'Neal)..."nephew," and its funny every time. Possibly Boone's best role. a good guy and a horrible bad guy all mixed together.

1971: Big Jake. John Wayne finally persuaded Boone to play the bad guy(after several other lesser offers of vehicles) and Boone has fun in a script written partially by the Dirty Harry writers, the same year. Harry saying "Do you feel lucky, punk?" here becomes Boone, and then Wayne saying "Anything goes wrong -- your fault, my fault, NOBODY's fault, I'll kill the boy." Yes, Boone and his band of psycho killers have kidnapped Duke's grandson(played by Duke's SON.) It ain't gonna be pretty when it ends. Wrote one critic: "Boone here plays the best villain in any John Wayne picture"(edging out Lee Marvin's too-evil Liberty Valance.)

1972: Goodnight My Love. An ABC TV movie in which Boone is the too-tall Mutt to dwarf Michael Dunn's too-short Jeff. They're a couple of private eyes in 1940's LA. Its a little Chandleresque, but mainly Boone gets to do things deadpan to the max and own the movie. (It gave its writer-director, Peter Hyams, a feature career.)

1976: The Shootist. John Wayne again, in his final film, playing a gunfighter dying of cancer. As a favor to a buddy, Boone shows up and does only three scenes, as an old foe of Wayne's, but he owns all of them -- he looks terrible but his line delivery and finger pointing are still "the best": "John Bernard BOOKS -- now ain't I flattered that you(points at Wayne) would remember ME(points at himself.") I hear you are here for a very SHORT time..."

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

1978: The Big Sleep. Another cameo for Boone, this time in a REAL Raymond Chandler story. Robert Mitchum as Philip Marlowe(sequelling his 1975 Farewell My Lovely) but moved to ...London? Boone plays hitman "Lash Canino, the Brown Man." Boone and Mitchum have a face-off and you wonder which guy was more drunk(for real.)

Note: James Stewart, too, did cameos in both The Shootist and The Big Sleep, but you can figure that Boone and Stewart never met on these movies.

1979: Winter Kills. A political thriller with echoes of the JFK conspiracy. Jeff Bridges is a young stud in this movie(now he's Richard Boone), and Boone's cameo at least opens the movie; you don't have to wait for him. (He might show up later, too.) This is a mess of a movie -- shot over several years -- with an all-star cast of Golden Oldies: Boone, Anthony Perkins, Ralph Meeker, Sterling Hayden...Elizabeth Taylor(!) Choppy but good, and as LA Times critic Charles Champlin says of Boone's brief performance: "Every line he utters seems like God's own truth."

Boone died two years later, I haven't seen whatever he did after Winter Kills(The Bushido Blade was his last, I think.)

But that group from 1964 to 1979 is solid gold...the work of a true, charismatic star, even if he wasn't quite seen as one at the time.

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[–] db20db (17235) 5 years ago

I became a Richard Boone fan as a boy, regularly watching him on Have Gun-Will Travel, along with all of those other popular tv westerns of the 60s & 70s.

I think his performance in Hombre is probably my favorite. There's another great line he utters near the end of that: "Well now, what do you suppose hell is gonna look like? " And he delivers it in a very low-key, controlled yet seething manner. This is what I meant earlier by "subdued malevolence".

Another poster in this thread recommended Big Jake to me. When I discovered he co-stars with John Wayne in that, I became convinced I have to see it.

I don't think he looked terrible in The Shootist, just showing his age. From what you can see of him in this clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R63TtqiBxx0, his appearance in AACS was very similar to that of Sweeney, only his beard seemed heavier, I thought.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

I became a Richard Boone fan as a boy, regularly watching him on Have Gun-Will Travel, along with all of those other popular tv westerns of the 60s & 70s.

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I was AWARE of Boone on TV in Have Gun Will Travel, but too young to really watch the show when it was on first run.

I seem to have just slowly become aware of Boone's charismatic talent as I started seeing his MOVIES on TV and in theaters. I saw Hombre at the theater; I saw Rio Conchos on TV. I saw Big Jake and The Shootist at the theater. I saw Goodnight My Love on TV. And I just started "collecting" Boone films in my head as "that guy is ALWAYS good."

And here I am.

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I think his performance in Hombre is probably my favorite.

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Boone is billed third, over the title, behind Paul Newman and Fredric March. That's pretty good company. Hombre may well be the most "major" successful film in which Boone appeared. And he was a GREAT bad guy. As usual with Boone, you rather liked him even as you hated him.

---There's another great line he utters near the end of that: "Well now, what do you suppose hell is gonna look like? " And he delivers it in a very low-key, controlled yet seething manner. This is what I meant earlier by "subdued malevolence".

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Exactly. "Subdued malevolence" is a perfect description. And it entertains us.

Some of the lines before that:

Boone: "You got a lot of hard bark on you mister, coming down here like this."

Boone: I OWE you. You put two holes in me.
Newman: Two's usually enough.
Boone: Well I will oblige you not to do it again.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Another poster in this thread recommended Big Jake to me. When I discovered he co-stars with John Wayne in that, I became convinced I have to see it.

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I hope you get to. The movie came out the same year as Dirty Harry, and had some of the same scriptwriters AS Dirty Harry. And some of the same "speechifying."

Eastwood's long "Did I fire six shots, or only five?" speech(that leads up to the famous "Do I feel lucky") is mirrored by a dialogue spoken FIRST by Boone, THEN by Wayne:

"Remember this. Anything goes wrong -- your fault, my fault , NOBODY's fault ...I'm gonna blow that kid's head off."

Except Wayne changes it to: "Remember this: Anything goes wrong -- your fault, my fault, NOBODY's fault...I'm gonna blow YOUR head off."

Boone and Wayne saying that is ..pure macho entertainment.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

I don't think he looked terrible in The Shootist, just showing his age. From what you can see of him in this clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R63TtqiBxx0, his appearance in AACS was very similar to that of Sweeney, only his beard seemed heavier, I thought.

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Boone seems to have been favoring a "Captain Ahab beard" in both films: just on the chin, no moustache. An interesting look.

In this period, Boone looked to deal with his looks in various ways. The beard. A poncho that he wore in Big Jake and other movies(to cover his gut area.) But he always had that great voice, that great cadence, that great smile, that great laugh. And charisma. And that great "finger-pointing" style.

And I'll concede it: he didn't look THAT terrible in The Shootist, after all.

I do however, remember Boone's self-deprecating statement about his 1972 Western TV character, Hec Ramsey:

"Hec Ramsey is just like Paladin...except older and fatter."

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[–] db20db (17235) 5 years ago

I had the pleasure of seeing him in Rio Conchos since our last discussion. His character of Lassiter in that is how I imagined he might have portrayed Pike in this, a perfect blend of a maverick still instilled with military discipline.

I remember Hec Ramsey but find it inexplicable I never saw any of those episodes since I was a fan of the NBC Mystery Theater and the character definitely intrigues me.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

I had the pleasure of seeing him in Rio Conchos since our last discussion.

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I think its a pretty great movie -- very tough and cynical for 1964. Boone and Franciosa are great together.

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His character of Lassiter in that is how I imagined he might have portrayed Pike in this, a perfect blend of a maverick still instilled with military discipline.

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Yes, I can see Boone's Pike Bishop here.

Speaking of that military discipline(Boone is an ex-Rebel officer yoked to ex-Union officer Stuart Whitman's team), I love this line from Boone to Whitman deep into the mission:

"You know, I think the reasons for staying on this detail are getting less and LESS."

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I remember Hec Ramsey but find it inexplicable I never saw any of those episodes since I was a fan of the NBC Mystery Theater and the character definitely intrigues me.

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Yes, Hec Ramsey was meant to be a "frontier detective" who used new scientific devices and techniques to solve crimes -- while still engaging in shoot-outs.

I tell ya, as big a Boone fan as I was, I had trouble watching those episodes all the way through. Or even tuning in most nights(it was only on once a month, like Columbo.) It was hard to keep me sitting at home watching TV in those young years. I felt responsible when Hec Ramsey went off the air(could my viewing have helped? Ha.) But I think Boone clashed with producer Jack Webb(Dragnet) over the content of the show and Webb requested cancellation.

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[–] huwdj (4566) 5 years ago

It's the ending. Everything build towards that. Without that it would be a well cast and acted elegiac Western - good but one of several.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

It's the ending. Everything build towards that. Without that it would be a well cast and acted elegiac Western - good but one of several.

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That's very true. The Wild Bunch is my favorite movie of 1969 and one of my favorite movies of all time but sometimes I think: that "love" on my part my well be entirely towards ONLY the ending. It all happens, on a huge scale, THERE. We spend the whole movie on the journey there. Any number of filmmakers and stars(including Paul Newman) have said: "The ending is the most important part of the movie" -- its what you take home with you in terms of liking or not liking the film.

Now, when we say "the ending," I think we need to back up BEFORE the final gunbattle slaughter(historic) to the quiet dramatic moments in which William Holden silently makes the decision to give up his life in that gunbattle and then uses his authority to convince the other three men to join him:

Holden: Let's go.
Oates: Why not?

Its powerful, moving stuff, and everybody could relate to the suicidal grandeur of it.

Then the long walk.

Then the stand-off:

"What do you want?
"We want Angel."
"You want Angel? I give it to you."

Then the throat slash.

Then the shooting of Malpache.

Then all the faces -- deciding. Borgnine laughing and practically goading Holden to take action.

Then the German getting shot first.

Then...the greatest gunbattle(sight, slo mo AND sound) in movie history.

Yep, its the ending.

Except the opening slaughter in the small town, and the mid-film train robbery and bridge explosion ...are pretty damn good lead-ups.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

bump

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[–] bek (727) 4 years ago

It didn't do much for me, and I love westerns. With so much praise, I decided a while back to watch it again. I will someday. lol

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