Major Dundee

Studio inteference yada yada. Would it have been a masterpiece if Peckinpah cut it? Based on the evidence presented this viewer would say no. Heston is fine as Dundee, and the production values are first rate, but there is nothing extraordinary about any of the performances, or even the action scenes, that suggests a mutilated masterwork. The avoidance of cloying sentiment is commendable, but it merely hints at what Peckinpah would achieve later when he rewrote the rules with The Wild Bunch.

Major Dundee can be understood on an extraordinary number of levels. It's the Westerns' nod to Moby Dick, it may be an insightful ahead-of-its-time comment on Vietnam, and ironically, it mirrors Peckinpah's own losing battle with the studios regarding the film's final cut. This is a work of genius which strips away any semblance of the glorification and sentimentality always found in Western and War movies, and introduces instead a harsh, bitter realism where men die for nothing at all.

Extended cut. "Moby Dick on horseback." Nice setup getting the gang together but the film lacks personality. There's an epic scale but the men don't come together after a month. Distinctive characters and Heston/Harris play well off each other, but no answers to the questions posed. 2/3 through a glamorous Senta Berger appears to prolong the conflict, but leaves just as abruptly though she ably names Heston's problem. Fav scene: deciding what to do with the deserter who realizes his own fate.

No more pussy westerns: Peckinpah, Leone and the spaghettis are coming around the corner, Shane!

Begins like a masterpiece, but deteriorates toward the end--possibly because of studio interference. Still, what's left on screen is a clear-eyed vision of warfare and personal obssession. I love Heston's Major Dundee--the best preening, posturing piece of machismo he ever put on screen.

The 2005 DVD version of Major Dundee brings out the best in the film: the narrative is more coherent, the cinematography is so sharp and clear the film could have been made yesterday, and a badly needed new score has been added. Whatever aspirations to greatness the film has still are lost in a muddled "third half".

Chaotic but entertaining.

"...it would have this delirious quality to it when it was done." http://illusionpodcast.blogspot.com/2014/09/episode-31-rise-fall-and-rise-of-sam.html

Best western. But, dark scenes. Also, Peckinpah stil. and perfect starring.

Someone should remake this.

Peckinpah attacks this story with the same megalomania as his title character. The revenge on the Apache can be read just as clearly as a proud dierctor's kiss-off of the studio system or as the blind crusade of American anti-communism in the cold war. Where other reviewers might find fault in the over-extended scenes and plot twists, I see King Lear in the storm of madness.

Typical raciest crap of the era. A good film ruined by the political messages. Common of the period.

One of the few Heston westerns but doesn't quite feel like the sum of its parts - possibly because the latest release is still 20 minutes shy of the director's cut that will probably never be produced.

The existing footage doesn't suggest an artistic triumph, but you can't rate a movie based on how good it probably would've been.