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The Wild Bunch
An aging group of outlaws look for one last big score as the "traditional" American West is disappearing around them.
1969 · Directed by Sam Peckinpah · 145 min · Western · Screenplay in the scene database · 29 frames
Tagline
Unchanged men in a changing land
Plot
In 1913 South Texas, Pike Bishop is the leader of a gang of aging outlaws – most of them disguised as a U.S. Cavalry troop – who hope to retire after a final robbery of silver from a railroad payroll office. But corrupt railroad agent Pat Harrigan has been tipped off about the heist. Subsequently, he hired a posse of bounty hunters and paroled Pike's former partner Deke Thornton to reluctantly lead them. Spotting the bounty hunters, Pike attempts to utilize a temperance union parade to shield their getaway, which escalates into a bloody, confusing shootout that claims numerous innocent bystanders and more than half of Pike's gang.
Pike escapes with his close friend Dutch Engstrom, brothers Lyle and Tector Gorch, the inexperienced Angel, and a fifth man blinded by buckshot, whom Pike mercy-kills. The loot from the robbery turns out to be worthless steel washers planted by Harrigan. Needing money, they head for Mexico accompanied by the cantankerous Freddie Sykes and cross the Rio Grande to the rural village where Angel was born. The village elder, Don José, warns them about Mapache, a vicious Huertista officer in the Mexican Federal Army. Mapache, a Brigadier general (judging by his rank insignia) who nevertheless styles himself ‘Generalissimo’, has been raiding local villages to supply his campaign against the forces of Pancho Villa. He had hanged Angel's father for supporting the revolutionaries.
The gang goes to the town of Agua Verde, where Mapache has set up his headquarters. Angel spots his former lover Teresa in Mapache's arms and shoots her dead, forcing Pike and Dutch to defuse the ensuing standoff. Mapache offers them $10,000 in gold to rob a U.S. Army train carrying 16 crates of rifles, to resupply his army and provide samples of modern American weapons to his German military adviser Commander Mohr (for historical background see Mexico in World War I and Zimmermann telegram).
Plot summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
Crew
- Screenplay: Sam Peckinpah, Walon Green
- Cinematography: Lucien Ballard
- Edited by: Lou Lombardo
- Music: Jerry Fielding
- Produced by: Phil Feldman
Cast
- William Holden as Pike Bishop
- Ernest Borgnine as Dutch Engstrom
- Robert Ryan as Deke Thornton
- Jaime Sánchez as Angel
- Warren Oates as Lyle Gorch
- Edmond O'Brien as Freddie Sykes
- Ben Johnson as Tector Gorch
- Albert Dekker as Pat Harrigan
- Strother Martin as Coffer
- Emilio Fernández as Gen. Mapache
Production
- Country: United States of America
- Language: English, German, Spanish
- Studios: Warner Bros.-Seven Arts
- Budget: $6,244,087
- Box office: $638,641
- Themes: underdog, friendship, bounty hunter, robbery, texas, mexican revolution, honor, gang, shootout, soldier
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