Major Dundee

Major Dundee was a 1965 Western film starring Charlton Heston and Richard Harris, and directed by Sam Peckinpah. It has become notorious for the feud between Peckinpah and the producing studio, Columbia Tristar, during its production and editing.

Production

Peckinpah found the script in late 1963, and began making the movie into a complex character study about Dundee, making him a glory-hungry officer who would do anything to gain fame and recognition. Actor R.G. Armstrong, who had a small part as a Reverend who tags along with the expedition, referred to the uncut (156 minutes) version of the film as "Moby Dick on horseback". However, the production of the movie was very troubled: Peckinpah was often drunk on the set, and was supposedly so abusive towards the cast that Heston had to threaten him with a cavalry saber in order to calm him down. He also fired a large number of crew members for very trivial reasons throughout the shoot. Columbia studio executes feared that the project was out of control, and that Peckinpah was too unstable to finish the picture, so they cut the shooting schedule of the film by several weeks. Heston, however, gave up his entire salary for the film in order to keep Peckinpah on the project - a gesture rarely equalled in Hollywood history. However, the studio forced Peckinpah to wrap up shooting very abruptly; Heston alleged that Peckinpah, towards the end of the shoot, simply became drunk and wandered off the set, and that he (Heston) had to finish directing many portions of the movie.

Related Topics:
R.G. Armstrong - Moby Dick

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Peckinpah's qualms with the movie continued into the post-production. Peckinpah's original director's cut was 156 minutes long and included several slow-motion battle scenes which were inspired by Akira Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai. The movie was also fairly gory for the standards of 1965, and a lot of the more bloody and violent scenes were cut out. A musical score by Daniele Amfitheatrof was added to the film despite Peckinpah's protests, as was the title song, the Major Dundee March, sung by Mitch Miller and his Sing-Along Gang. At the film's initial release, it was 136 minutes long; after a disastrous premiere - the movie was almost universally panned by critics - an additional thirteen minutes cut out. Many viewers of the original movie feel that these cuts ruined the movie's scope and created significant plot holes.

Related Topics:
Akira Kurosawa - The Seven Samurai - Daniele Amfitheatrof - Mitch Miller

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