Major Dundee (65, Sam Peckinpah)

Although obvious studio tampering can and should inspire depression and regret, calling what remains of Major Dundee anything but a masterpiece is a grave mistake. What's lost is tragic. What remains is fairly legendary. Really, how can we go wrong with Sam Peckinpah and Charlton Heston? Here, Peckinpah exercises nearly everything that goes on to complete perfection in his next major flick, The Wild Bunch. Sure, we end up with bizarre fadeouts to truncate action sequences, but everything else on in the movie seems to play out somewhere between Ride the High Country and The Wild Bunch for me. It propels itself forward with even more sophisticated character relations, extended mood moments (Heston laying out in Durango is a key, fantastic sequence and a preview of what's to come), but also with the same older motifs that Ride the High Country didn't totally escape from. With the romance scenes especially, it seems like the flick goes on snooze for a bit. Then again, these scenes end up in service of the relationship between Charlton Heston and Richard Harris. The conflict between these two characters and the web of insanity regarding loyalty, generation shift, and cultural moves in the film play out as the film's greatest driving force. Heston really owns the film though. He grabs onto that mania and the doubtful bravado and runs with it throughout. Supporting roles by James Coburn, Warren Oates, Mario Adorf, Ben Johnson, Slim Pickens, and a host of others surround the flick in familiar and reliable faces. The frame narrative of the young man's diary never ends up with as much impact as it could. It's a flawed idea because 50% of the film doesn't come from any kind of a subjective point of view but more often from Heston's focus. The aforementioned Durango hide out sequence is fantastic. The down and out attitude perfectly blends with the urban chaos in a very powerful way. The battles are almost up to Peckinpah's Wild Bunch level but lack a certain amount of punch that we've come to know and love. As mentioned, most of the scenes end up fading out, dissolving any kind of climax to come out of the scenes. The rumors about the opening massacre make me wish I could see the film with that as the head. Like the opening bombast in The Wild Bunch, that scene would hover over any action and strengthen the overall mood. Then again, like the other complaints, in the face of what's otherwise a masterpiece, I have to move on from what could have been. **** and 1/2 * out've *****