Major Dundee (1965)

Directed by: Sam Peckinpah | 130 minutes | adventure, war | Actors: Charlton Heston, Richard Harris, Jim Hutton, James Coburn, Michael Anderson Jr., Senta Berger, Mario Adorf, Brock Peters, Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, RG Armstrong, LQ Jones, Slim Pickens, Karl Swenson, Michael Pate, John Davis Chandler

Before his breakthrough with the Hollywood classic ‘The Wild Bunch’, director Sam Peckinpah first made ‘Major Dundee’. Initially, Peckinpah was given a free hand and a (for that time) hefty budget, but due to disagreements at the studio (Colombia Pictures) he was ultimately unable to make the film he had in mind. The version that was re-released in 2005 is 12 minutes longer than the original and is said to be a lot closer to what the director intended to make.

In ‘Major Dundee’ we follow Major Amos Charles Dundee, played by the charming Charlton Heston (known for his Oscar-winning role in ‘Ben Hur’). After going out of his way at the Gettysburg battle, Dundee is sent to New Mexico for punishment, where he is in charge of a prison. He soon gets tired of this task, but then a nearby village is massacred by a group of Apache Indians. When he learns that the Apache leader has kidnapped a number of children, Major Dundee decides to recoup his stripes by retrieving the children alive. With a battalion composed of free-spirited slaves, prisoners and local scum, Dundee gives chase.

What follows is a wild manhunt with bloody fight scenes. The liberation of the children is only the beginning of the battle for Dundee’s army. A civil war is raging in the country, they are fighting against French occupiers and meanwhile they keep on chasing the Indians. Between the battles we see the tensions between the soldiers in the camp. Especially when they liberate a village from their French occupation and they seek refuge with the village women, unrest arises between the men themselves. These moments are a welcome change from the brutal war scenes and manage to maintain the right balance between action and drama.

‘Major Dundee’ has a somewhat messy sequence of (here and there) fantastic scenes that makes you wonder if it could have been a masterpiece if Peckinpah had been given the space to execute his vision. The fights and chases are, certainly for its time, progressive and the mutual tensions in the camp provide the necessary drama. Even though the one-liners are occasionally a bit too much of a good thing, the action western knows how to entertain.