Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Movie, Book, and Music Review "The Wild Bunch" trivia

"According to editor Lou Lombardo the original release print contains some 3,643 editorial cuts, more than any other Technicolor film ever processed. Some of these cuts are near subliminal, consisting of three or four frames, making them almost imperceptible to the naked eye.

Following the film's production, it was severely edited by the studio and producer 'Phil Feldman' (QV) (in Sam Peckinpah's absence), cutting its length by about 20 minutes - remarkably, none of the excised film was violent. Due to its violence, the film was originally threatened with an "X" rating by the newly created MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), but an "R" rating was its final decision. The film was restored to its original "director's cut" length of 143 minutes and threatened with an NC-17 rating when submitted to the MPAA ratings board in 1993 prior to a re-release in 1994, holding up the film's re-release for many months. The reinstated scenes (including two important flashbacks from Pike's past, and a battle scene between Pancho Villa's rebels and Gen. Mapache at the telegraph station) depicted the underlying character and motivations of the leader of the Bunch. With numerous, elaborate montage sequences with staccato shifts, the film set a record for more edits (3,643 shot-to-shot edits at one count) than any other Technicolor film up to its time.

According to Sam Peckinpah biographer Marshall Fine, there was concern on the set over the bridge explosion. Bud Hulburd, the head of the special-effects crew, was not particularly experienced, having ascended the ranks after Peckinpah fired his predecessors. Stuntman Joe Canutt appealed to both Hulburd and Peckinpah to no avail, so finally, out of concern for the other stuntmen, Canutt enlisted the help of screenwriter Gordon T. Dawson, who was instructed to stand behind Hulburd with a club. If the stuntmen began to fall before the final charge was set off, something that would've resulted in death, Dawson was to club Hulburd unconscious before he detonated the last charge. Luckily, the stunt went off without a hitch.

Supposedly, more blank rounds were discharged during the production than live rounds were fired during the Mexican Revolution of 1914 around which the film is loosely based. In total 90,000 rounds were fired, all blanks.

Ernest Borgnine's limp wasn't acting. He broke his foot while filming The Split (1968) and had to wear a cast throughout the Mexican location shoot.

Before William Holden was cast, the role was turned down by Lee Marvin, Burt Lancaster, James Stewart, Charlton Heston, Gregory Peck, Sterling Hayden, Richard Boone and Robert Mitchum. Marvin actually accepted the role but pulled out after he was offered a larger pay deal to star in Paint Your Wagon (1969).

Seven identical costumes were made for each main actor. All of them were ruined during filming.

The shootout/massacre in the end took 12 days to film. When completed, about 10,000 squibs (simulated bullet hits) had been used.

The budget went from $3.5 to $6 million and from 70 to 81 shooting days.

The climatic gun battle sequence took 12 days to film. The crew nicknamed it the "Battle of Bloody Porch."

There were not enough uniforms for all of the stunt people and extras in the gun battle. If someone was filmed getting shot, the costume people would repair a uniform by washing off the fake blood, taping and painting over the bullet holes, drying the paint and sending either the same or a different performer out to get shot again.

The image of the scorpion being dropped in the ant hill was suggested by Emilio Fern�ndez because he and his friends used to do that as children. The image was not in the script.

The train robbery itself was not in the script. All scenes were improvised on the spot, the same day. Same thing with "the walk" for the bunch to help "Angel".

Last scene to be completed was the exploding bridge over Rio Nazas (substituting for Rio Bravo). Five stuntmen, each paid $2,000, one take, six cameras. One camera was lost into the water.

WILHELM SCREAM: During the post office escape in the beginning, when one of the horsemen is shot in the face.

This film was adapted from a short story written by Roy N. Sickner, an actor and stuntman. Writer Walon Green wrote the script, which was then rewritten by Sam Peckinpah. Green argued that Peckinpah's changes did not warrant his getting a screenplay credit. After this dispute the Writer's Guild changed the rules and now a finished script must have at least 60% of it written by the director before he or she can claim a writer credit. Green, Sickner and Peckinpah all shared Academy award nominations for best screenplay (the only Oscar nomination Peckinpah ever received in his entire career.) They didn't win.

The famous "Last Walk" was improvised by Sam Peckinpah during the shoot. Originally, the scene was to begin with the Bunch leaving the whorehouse and immediately cut to the confrontation with Mapache. Once the decision was made to lengthen the scene, many of the Mexican extras were choreographed by the assistant directors while the scene was filming.

The name "The Wild Bunch" originally came from real-life western outlaw Butch Cassidy. At age 30 he started his own gang of outlaws, who were quickly christened "The Wild Bunch" by the press.

After filming the scene where Ernest Borgnine and William Holden sit by a campfire and their characters vow they "wouldn't have it any other way", it was hard for director Sam Peckinpah to yell, "Cut!" because he was crying.

During the opening robbery sequence, two children are seen holding each other, and watching as one of the robbers rides by on horseback and scoops up a bag of money laying on the ground. The boy in that scene is Matthew Peckinpah, director Sam Peckinpah's son.

Sam Peckinpah's first two choices for the role of Deke Thornton were Richard Harris (who had co-starred in Major Dundee (1965)) and Brian Keith (who had worked with Peckinpah on "The Westerner" (1960) and The Deadly Companions (1961)). Harris was never formally approached, but Keith was, and turned the part down. Robert Ryan was ultimately cast in the part after Peckinpah saw him in The Dirty Dozen (1967).

Excluding the start and end credits, this film contains about 2,721 edits in about 138 minutes of action. This equates to an average shot length of three seconds. The "Shootout at Bloody Porch" contains about 325 edits in five minutes of action, for an average shot length slightly under one second.

The role of Gen. Mapache was first offered to the German-Italian actor Mario Adorf. Adorf declined the offer when he learned that his character would cut a boy's throat, but regretted his decision three years later when he saw the movie.

The "modern" sidearms (the film setting is 1913) that the Bishop gang carries in the film are Colt M1911 automatic pistols and Winchester M1897 pump-action shotguns. The water cooled heavy machine gun is the Browning M1917. US and Mexican soldiers use M1903 Springfield rifles. All of the aforementioned weapons were used in World War 1 by the U.S. Army.

According to L.Q. Jones, he and Strother Martin approached director Sam Peckinpah with an idea to add more depth to their characters (T.C. and Coffer). The idea was to add a hint of a homosexual relationship between their characters. Peckinpah liked the idea and the footage made it into the final release version.

This was Albert Dekker's last film role.

John Wayne complained that the film destroyed the myth of the Old West.

At least three names from this film have been used in the television series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". In addition to starring a vampire character named Angel, the series also had an episode that featured two vampire cowboys named Lyle and Tector Gorch.

The movie's line "If they move, kill 'em." was voted as the #72 of "The 100 Greatest Movie Lines" by Premiere in 2007.

In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked this as the #79 Greatest Movie of All Time."

The only movie that is better than this one is The Searchers.

An interesting read about the making of THE WILD BUNCH, but I kinda question a couple or three things that were related in the article. Especially....

The part about Dawson standing ready to club a man into "unconsciousness," if he started to blow the explosions at the wrong time. Huh uh. If Canutt were that worried about some incompetent killing the stunt actors, the incompetent would never have been in that position. I seriously doubt that Peckinpah would have ordered the staging of a scene in which he was advised that people might well be killed because the man "pulling the trigger" didn't know what he was doing.

And asking a man to merely "club unconscious" another man.... well, "to club a man unconscicous" might very well lead to his death. And then, the guy doing the clubbing is gonna end up in the slam.

Might be some tiny grain of truth from which an elaborate story could be concocted, as there were some dangerous stunts performed, but I doubt that one.

There are some other things that are questionable to me, but that is neither here nor there.

I know two of the actors, Bo Hopkins and Paul Harper, and knew Strother Martin, before he died. I have talked with them about "T.W.B." and never heard those stories. Even if they were not on the set that day, stories like that permeate the cast and crew, and would be common knowledge. Nevertheless, strange things happen when movies are being made in which there is a ton of action coupled with many stunts.

I just don't believe the "clubbing" story as it was written in the article.

Still, an interesting article.

FWIW.

L.W.

Leanwolf,

That story about clubbing sounded pretty strange to me too.

Only Marvin, Boone, or Mitchum could have equalled or surpassed William Holden in the lead role. The others don't have the cold, mean demeanor required. Brian Keith would have been great as Deke Thornton.

Expat

'ts been a long time since I've seen this movie. It looks like I'll have to check it out from the library or rent it.

Mitchum would have been really interesting in that role. I like Holden, but Mitchum is my favorite tough-guy actor of old, mainly because, from what I understand, he really WAS a tough guy off screen, and that bled through on the screen. I still have a hard time figuring out if Mitchum was acting or not in "Night of the Hunter."

As far as John Wayne's comments, good! The Old West can stand on its own merits. It doesn't need Hollywood screwing it up. Besides, Hollywood has its hands full teaching the mis-handling of firearms to each new generation of kids, which helps cause untold suffering and needless deaths, and then pointing their blood-drenched fingers at the NRA, et. al. [Expletive deleted] Hollywood.
DAL357

I thought Holden was about perfect.....he had that jaded, seen it all, don't much give a sh*t look. One of my all-time favorite movies.