An extraordinarily well-made film about anachronistic outlaws in the early 20th century, Sam Peckinpah's THE WILD BUNCH feels like it should have been the final western. This harsh yet elegaic story proved controversial upon its release not only because, like BONNIE AND CLYDE two years
before, it upped the ante on American screen violence but also, in industry circles, because of the war it started between the producer, Feldman, and the director.
As with the majority of Peckinpah's work, the studios and producers mutilated the film to suit their needs (to cut its length, to eliminate controversy, to prove their power over the ever-difficult Peckinpah) and distributed a movie vastly different from the one the director had originally
envisioned. The cutting occurred while Peckinpah was vacationing in Hawaii, after his film had been shown uncut to reviewers on the East Coast. (New York Times critic Vincent Canby expressed dismay when he went to see the film again and discovered scenes missing.) Certainly it was not adverse
preview reaction that spurred Feldman to make the cuts (the trimmed scenes contained important motivational information vital to the portrayals of the main characters--none of the deletions was a particularly violent scene). These revisions were simply made to bring the film's running time down to
two hours, to enable theater owners to turn more of a profit from the feature. With the director's uncut version now readily available on video and laserdisc, there is no reason for anyone to subject themselves to the butchered version. leave a comment
