Rent Major Dundee (1965)

One of The Great Unsung Westerns of the 1960s - Major Dundee review by GI

Sam Peckinpah was a visionary director and is often misunderstood today or relegated to just a man who made violent films. But looked at closely Peckinpah's films reveal a genius at work. Major Dundee was a big budget almost epic western and Peckinpah had a unique vision for the film but like much of his work it was savagely interfered with by a misguided and panicked studio. Columbia Pictures was expecting a Fordian style Cavalry vs Indians action film but what they got was a serious study of two complex men, pitting themselves against each other and involving battles with French lancers, extended scenes of character angst and a narrative that required some real thought and understanding. As a result they ruthlessly cut the film and Peckinpah disowned it despite star Charlton Heston's personal backing. Luckily a restored Peckinpah cut has reached us and it's a flawed masterpiece. Heston is the titular Major Dundee, a cavalry officer who's stubbornness has earned him a lowly command of a fort cum prison camp in New Mexico in the closing months of the Civil War. A marauding Apache and his band massacre the troop Dundee sends to suppress them and so Dundee, against orders, gives chase into Mexico. To achieve this he has to bargain with the Confederate prisoners to help him and their leader is Ben Tyreen (Richard Harris). Dundee and Tyreen have history and their relationship is the centre of the narrative. It's a complex one, and despite a romance with Senta Berger thrown into the tale, it's the journey, that takes place over several months, that irons out the brotherly love/hate relationship that these two men have. Peckinpah had a cinematic love affair with Mexico, many of his finest films take place there, and he was also a great screenwriter managing to simplify language but add gritty realism to it at the sametime. In Major Dundee can be seen the seeds of his masterpiece The Wild Bunch (1969) and his unique (for the time) depictions of violence. Major Dundee is mostly restrained in that regard, we only see after the opening massacre is over for instance, but the final river crossing battle is brutal and exciting. But like all Peckinpah's films it's the flawed heroes that stand out, in all his films they are deeply contradictory in nature and drive and Heston's Dundee stands out as such a hero. A complex character driven by human frailty and emotional dysfunction; it's certainly rare for a film 'hero' to woo the beautiful woman only to turn to a lowly prostitute very soon after. Dundee does just this. He's one of Peckinpah's great anti-heroes and Heston is to be applauded for taking on such role. This is a film that is worth your time to seek out and to watch with care. Indeed, it's one of the great westerns of the 60s.

One of his best - Major Dundee review by sb

Pekinpah's excellent Western which works as standard Cavalry movie, a meditation of loyality and friendship and a study in a dangerous obbsesion.Heston is very good as the titular Major who will risk everything to catch the raiding Apache's and restore his good name - he is stiff necked and inflexible and plays nicely against Harris's dashing Southern Captain who only wants to get home. It has been compared to Moby Dick with Heston as Ahab and who will stop at nothing to achieve his goal.

It has fine support from the usual Pekinpah regular company with epic battle scenes offset by more thoughtful passages - this is the original restored version at 2h13m (on release the studio cut huge chunks out if it) and ranks up there with the very best films he made.

The Wilder Bunch - Major Dundee review by HW

This may lack the punch of Peckinpah’s later films but this action-adventure is worth watching for its tension and surprising amount of character study. In a stroke of genius, Peckinpah and the other screenwriters created a bunch of western characters with so many divisions it’s a wonder they didn’t kill each other off. 

Disgraced union cavalry officer Major Dundee (in a riveting role by Charlton Heston) is set on rescuing some white children captured by an Apache war band. At the height of the Civil war, he forcibly recruits Confederate prisoners from his own prison, led by an old friend (played beautifully by a young Richard Harris). He also recruits black prison guards to further escalate the Union-confederate tensions, as well as enraging the Apache and the French army occupying Mexico to boot. Will Dundee’s drive for ambition, glory and bloody retribution lead to the doom of his crew, like a western version of ‘Moby Dick’? It’s worth watching this tense character study to find out, driven by Heston and Harris’s strong sparring performances.