30° TORINO FILM FESTIVAL
SONS AND LOVERS

THE WILD BUNCH

by Sam Peckinpah
Country: USA
Year: 1969
Duration: 143'


In 1914, Pike Bishop and his gang raid the office of the railway company to steal a cache of silver that is hidden there. This is the elderly bandit’s last heist, but it turns into a massacre. It’s obvious that the company itself has plotted the ambush: outlaws and innocent civilians alike are decimated but there is no trace of the silver. Pursued by bounty hunters, Pike and five surviving bandits flee to Mexico, where the revolution is raging. They go into business with the counter-revolutionary army but soon side with the peones, supplying a rebel village with weapons and joining them in a last, fatal battle.

Biography

film director

Sam Peckinpah

Sam Peckinpah (Fresno, CA, USA, 1925 - Inglewood, Los Angeles, CA, USA, 1984) was a marine during WWII and graduated in theater from the University of Southern California, before producing numerous theatrical plays and later working in television. He debuted in feature films with The Deadly Companions, which was followed by movies such as The Wild Bunch, The Ballad of Cable Hogue, Straw Dogs, Getaway!, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia and Cross of Iron, making him one of the most important and innovative American directors of the 1960s and the 1970s.

FILMOGRAFIA

The Deadly Companions (La morte cavalca a Rio Bravo,1961), Ride the High Country (Sfida nell’alta Sierra, 1962), Major Dundee (Sierra Charriba, 1965), The Wild Bunch (Il mucchio selvaggio, 1969), The Ballad of Cable Hogue (La ballata di Cable Hogue, 1970), Straw Dogs (Cane di paglia, 1971), Junior Bonner (L'ultimo buscadero, 1972), The Getaway (Getaway!, 1972), Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (Pat Garret e Billy the Kid, 1973), Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (Voglio la testa di Garcia, 1974), The Killer Elite (Killer Elite, 1975), Cross of Iron (La croce di ferro, 1977), Convoy (Convoy - Trincea d’asfalto, 1978), The Osterman Weekend (Osterman Weekend, 1983).

Declaration

film director

“The point of the film is to take this façade of movie violence and open it up, get people involved in it. [...] It’s ugly, brutalizing, and bloody awful; it’s not fun and games and cowboys and Indians. It’s a terrible, ugly thing, and yet there’s a certain response that you get from it, an excitement, because we’re all violent people.”

Cast

& Credits

regia/director Sam Peckinpah
soggetto/story Walon Green, Roy N. Sickner
sceneggiatura/screenplay Walon Green, Sam Peckinpah
fotografia/cinematography Lucien Ballard
montaggio/film editing Louis Lombardo
scenografia/production design Edward Carrere
costumi/costume design James R. Silke
musica/music Sonny Burke
suono/sound Robert J. Miller
interpreti e personaggi/cast and characters William Holden (Pike Bishop), Ernest Borgnine (Dutch Engstrom), Robert Ryan (Deke Thornton), Edmond O’Brien (Freddy Sykes), Warren Oates (Lyle Gorch), Jaime Sánchez (Angel), Ben Johnson (Tector Gorch), Emilio Fernández (generale/general Mapache) produttore/producer Phil Feldman
produzione/production Warner Brothers/Seven Arts
Menu