The Wild Bunch

My Robert Ryan film festival ends with the other iconic 1960s film of his, The Wild Bunch, a pivotal film in cinema history. Amazingly I had never seen it until yesterday. With the passing of over 40 years, it's impact has lessened quite a bit. I enjoyed it, but it certainly has dated.

Directed by Sam Peckinpah, The Wild Bunch was noted for its almost balletic violence. Peckinpah used advanced editing techniques and frequently mixed the speed of the film. It's most remembered today for showcasing mayhem in slow motion. Feeding off of the ending of Bonnie and Clyde, The Wild Bunch went even further, showing spurting blood that was unheard of in Westerns.

In addition to the violence, The Wild Bunch was a political allegory. Set on the Texas-Mexico border in 1913, the film is about the dying of the American West as romantics knew it. There are automobiles and airplanes, and the frontier was almost gone. The unstable Mexican political situation depicted in the film is easily paralleled to the war in Vietnam (Peckinpah came out and said that it what it was about).

A band of aging outlaws, led by William Holden, head into a Texas town to rob a railroad office. They are being ambushed, as a former member of the gang, Ryan, is working for the railroad, in order to get a pardon from a prison sentence. The gang manages to escape, but down several members (the shootout in the city streets lasts about 20 minutes). Holden, belying the phrase "there is no honor among thieves,"  preaches to his gang the importance of sticking together. His closes friend is Ernest Borgnine, and they have an old-timer played by Edmond O'Brien, two brothers (Ben Johnson and Warren Oates), and a young Mexican, Jaime Sanchez.

The bunch ends up in a Mexican town ruled by a general, who treats the people brutally. Holden agrees to do a job for the general, stealing a shipment of American guns. He figures the general will try to cheat him and works out a plan to get payment. Sanchez asks that one case of guns be given to rebels in his village, which causes him to be taken prisoner by the general. Holden, sticking to his code, goes back with Borgnine, Johnson, and Oates, the odds decidedly not in their favor.

The film was released in 1969, and shares interesting similarities to a film from the same year, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The latter film was much more comic in tone, but both were about the transition of the Wild West into the 20th century, and both end with the heroes being massacred. Of course, we don't see Cassidy and Sundance getting killed, but we do see the bunch go down, in gory detail.

The film has some clumsy moments. A flashback is introduced with wavy film, like something out of a parody. But for the most part it's a gritty, well-acted tale. In some ways, Ryan plays the most interesting character. He's forced, against his nature, to try to capture his old mates, and must use a motley crew of men (Strother Martin among them). He's clearly torn, and the pain of his task is etched on his face.