BY TODD GARBARINI
Film historian Douglas Dunning has informed Cinema Retro that Laemmle’s
Playhouse 7 and Ahrya Fine Arts will be presenting the 50th
anniversary screening of Sam Peckinpah’s influential 1969 film The Wild Bunch and special guests are
scheduled to appear at both locations. The film stars William Holden, Ernest
Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Edmund O’Brien, Warren Oates, L.Q. Jones, Jaime Sanchez,
Bo Hopkins, Strother Martin, Albert Decker, Emilio Fernandez, and Alfonso Arau
and runs 145 minutes.
PLEASE NOTE:
Screening #1 is on February 26th at the
Playhouse 7 at 7:00 pm, and at press time W.K.
Stratton, the author of a new book, The
Wild Bunch: Sam Peckinpah, a Revolution in Hollywood, and the Making of a Legendary Film, will participate in a discussion after
the screening. He will also sign copies of his book at the theater.
Screening #2 is at
the Ahrya Fine Arts on March 2nd at 7:30 pm. Mr. Stratton is also
scheduled to be on hand. In addition, screenwriter Walon Green is scheduled to
appear. He won an Academy Award in 1971 for directing the documentary, The Hellstrom Chronicle. He went on to
write such films as Sorcerer and The Brinks Job for director William
Friedkin and The Border for Tony
Richardson.
Actor L.Q. Jones is
on the list, too. He worked on several other Peckinpah movies, beginning with Ride the High Country, along with Major Dundee, The Ballad of Cable Hogue, and Pat
Garrett and Billy the Kid. He co-starred in Hang ‘Em High, Hell Is For Heroes, and Martin Scorsese’s Casino.
Actor Bo Hopkins is
also scheduled to appear. He co-starred in Peckinpah’s The Getaway and The Killer
Elite, and he also appeared in such films as The Day of the Locust, American
Graffiti, Midnight Express, and The Newton Boys.
From the press
release:
The Wild Bunch
Part
of our Anniversary Classics series. For details, visit: laemmle.com/ac.
THE WILD BUNCH (1969)
Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary
Classics Series celebrate the 50th anniversary of one of the iconic and groundbreaking
movies of the '60s, Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch. This graphically violent
and poetic film exploded the very concept of the traditional Western by
focusing on a brutal group of outlaws trying to survive at the dawn of the 20th
century. Featuring four Oscar-winning actors—William Holden, Ernest Borgnine,
Ben Johnson, and Edmond O’Brien—along with a startling supporting cast, the
film clearly established Peckinpah as one of the top directors of the era.
The director’s classic 1962 Western Ride
the High Country had demonstrated his talent, but he ran into conflicts with
producers on subsequent projects in the '60s. The Wild Bunch marked his
triumphant return to filmmaking. He wrote the Oscar-nominated screenplay with
Walon Green, from a story by Green and Roy N. Sickner. It is set in 1913, on
the eve of World War I and in the midst of the Mexican Revolution. A botched
robbery in the opening sequence leads the outlaws to seek refuge in Mexico,
where they continue to be pursued by a group of bounty hunters hired by the
railroad company they have robbed. Robert Ryan, cast as a former friend of
Holden’s character, leads the pursuers.
The supporting cast includes Warren Oates, L.Q. Jones, Jaime Sanchez, Bo
Hopkins, Strother Martin, Albert Decker, Emilio Fernandez, and Alfonso Arau.
Lucien Ballard provided the rich cinematography, and Jerry Fielding wrote the
Oscar-nominated score. But perhaps the most crucial creative collaborator was
editor Lou Lombardo, who worked closely with the director to perfect an
innovative editing style that incorporated quick, almost subliminal cuts
masterfully interspersed with slow motion shots.
The film’s violence was shocking to
many viewers at the time, and some critics denounced the film. Others, however,
saw the violence as reflecting the disruptions in American society, along with
the chaos of the Vietnam War. Life magazine’s Richard Schickel called the film
“one of the most important records of the mood of our times and one of the most
important American films of the era.†The New York Times’ Vincent Canby hailed
the film as “very beautiful and the first truly interesting American-made Westerns
in years.†When cuts that had been made shortly after the film’s release were
finally restored for a 1995 reissue, critics were even more ecstatic. Writing
in The Baltimore Sun, Michael Sragow declared, “What Citizen Kane was to movie
lovers in 1941, The Wild Bunch was to cineastes in 1969.†The film was added to
the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 1999.
The
Playhouse 7 is at 673 E Colorado Blvd, Pasadena, CA 91101.l
The phone number is (310) 478 – 3836.
The
Ahrya Fine Arts Theatre is located at 8556 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, CA
90211. The phone number is (310) 478 – 3836.
Click
here
for tickets.
