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CINEMA SEEN - "A 'Bunch' of 'Wild' Memories!" By William Margold Its title---THE WILD BUNCH---amused me. Its director---Sam Peckinpah---who seven years earlier had crafted a brilliant western call "Ride The High Country"---intrigued me. And on a Friday afternoon in the summer of 1969, I went into The Pix Theater in Hollywood...and five hours later...because I found myself compelled to sit through the film twice...I sprang from the movie house reborn from having seen, as I would proclaim to my roommates when I got home---"the best movie of all-time." (It should be noted here that up until the cinematic lava of "The Wild Bunch" seared my senses...I had clung preciously to 1952's "High Noon" as my all-time favorite film. And during the many years that have followed I have simply reconciled that situation by preserving "High Noon" as the pillar of my somewhat innocent childhood and by making "The Wild Bunch" the bastion of my far-less-innocent adulthood.) I was so overwhelmed by my first double dose of "The Wild Bunch" that I brought my roommates back with me to The Pix on Sunday afternoon, and reveled in watching them watching it two more times. And although I have long ago lost count of how many times I have had the privilege of seeing the movie---on TV and in each and every one of its VHS and DVD incarnations---perhaps it is appropriate that when I attend the 40th anniversary of THE WILD BUNCH on Thursday November 12 at The Million Dollar Theater---checkout the centerpiece of this page and www.julesverne.org for all of the details--- I may well be seeing the film in a movie theater for the 40th time. My title for this column is "A 'Bunch' of 'Wild' Memories"...and before I reflect on a few of them...I would like to humbly present some of the very first words I wrote about the film: "There is more cinematic class in many single scenes of director Sam Peckinpah's 'The Wild Bunch' than most films have in all of their reels. And of all of the scenes, the one that shall live forever in my mind is that of a quartet of noble souls walking proudly toward their inevitable deaths. Peckinpah's tale is a sinewy series of blood-and-guts battles meshed with the throbbing of men's hearts and brains as they sweat and swear away their existences. While the cast is excellent, the film belongs to Peckinpah, and to the violence that he sees in the world. Bodies twitch, blood runs freely, shrapnel chews up men's backs and faces, human beings cry out in hideous protests to pain and death as Peckinpah has made death a paradox: lovely to look at (much of it is in a slow motion/'bloody ballet'), but hell to feel. To flinch at 'The Wild Bunch' is human. To feel nothing is certainly not divine." Perhaps my most indelible memory is when---during the casting of an adult movie---legendary adult industry star John C. Holmes spotted a black-and-white shot of Warren Oates on the machine gun (complete with its soundtrack) from "The Wild Bunch" on my office wall in 1977, and grew so wistful that I took it down and handed it to him symbiotically understanding the endangered species bond that existed between a couple of bigger-than-life characters. Amusingly a couple of years before, I had attended a morning showing of "The Wild Bunch" at the Beverly Canon Theater, and found myself sitting in front of Oates and Sam Peckinpah. And damn if Warren didn't launch into his perversely gleeful death-rattling howl as he wielded that machine gun in the image that is displayed on this page. And tragically speaking of death, I attended a special screening of 'The Wild Bunch' at USC in the spring of 1982 the night after Warren Oates passed away. And there was Sam Peckinpah trying to choke back his tears as he spoke lovingly about his dear friend. Of course, everyone would have understood if Sam had decided not to attend...or if the screening itself had been cancelled. But that would have violated the "wouldn't have it any other way" code of "The Wild Bunch"...and that just wasn't acceptable. And finally...I will never forget the plaintive cry of a little boy behind me in the cool dankness of The Fairfax Theater many years ago who exclaimed "Mommy, all the good guys are dead" as the last member of "The Wild Bunch" let out his final sigh. My eyes started to glisten while at the same time I couldn't stop from smiling at the wisdom of the child's words. That's why I'll be at The Million Dollar Theater on Thursday evening November 12 to pay homage to "The Wild Bunch"...as "the good guys" come alive...by dying all over again. end NOTE: Originally published in LA Xpress, November 5, 2009 issue. |