Leonard Maltin On THE WILD BUNCH
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- čas přidán 1. 10. 2009
- Leonard Maltin talks about the film THE WILD BUNCH during an interview for AFI's 10 Top 10 (2008).
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The greatest western ever made. A masterpiece.
It was Roger Ebert who rose to his feet at that press junket in the Bahamas and said "I'm sure you all get the feeling that many here hate this movie. Well many of us don't. In fact I think it's a masterpiece." Several other critics backed him up after his declaration. True story.
As a 19 year old the Roger Ebert review in praise of this great film made me a fan of his. Loved him and Gene Siskel together even when I did not agree. RIP Gene and Roger...
And Leonard Malton pissed his pants and called for his mommy. Gene Siskel slept through the whole thing. Roger Ebert was the only legit movie critic.
The Wild Bunch is just as jarring and hard-hitting as it was in '69. That's what makes it great.
Perfect cast in this movie. ....and one of the greatest closing lines in movie history from Edmund O'brien. .....What a great film .
I remember waiting in line at a theatre on Hollywood Blvd and watching the looks on the audience that had just seen 'The Wild Bunch'. It was a look of amazement. I saw that same look several years later when the audience was exiting 'The Godfather'.
"The Wild Bunch" is one of my favorite movies.
I have watched "The Wild Bunch" now about 22 times.
First I watched it because I am male and I was fascinated by the violence.
Now older and more thoughtful I still see the violence and recognize it's inherent part of the movie, I also see what I think Pecinpah wanted people to see.
It is a romance.
Where if you have a friend or partner, then by God you stick with him. Because if you don't you are worthless.
David Dalton I watched it for the first time about 2 years ago when I really started getting into the Western genre of films. I knew of Peckinpah and his violence, but to me, TWB was a balance between the violence these men carried out but the willingness to never break the bonds of friendship.
I like to think that this movie is a poem for those souls who know they don't belong in this times and any kind of morality code in their hearts is just a laugh in other people eyes
Not only the greatest of westerns, it changed movies forever. Every action movie ever made since is in debt to The Wild Bunch.
my favourite performance in the movie is Robert Ryan as Pike's former Partner now hunting them for the Railroad.
such an amazing actor.
Thomas Ball - And not so much when he speaks. He's so quiet throughout the movie yet his presence speaks volumes. That's the most difficult acting of all.
One of my favorite performances by Ryan was in the Robert Wise noir ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW, where he plays a racist ex-con three time loser who agrees to do a heist job, little knowing that one of his partners is going to be Harry Belafonte. Nobody registers barely suppressed rage, anguish and frustration better than Robert Ryan.
The whole cast was terrific, should've gotten a rare Oscar for ensemble acting.
Despite being on the other side, Deke is the most sympathetic character! (He even gets redeemed in the end.)
the wild bunch is a piece of hollywood history, hands down.
Film History
Perhaps, the best Western movie ever...
Up there with The Good The Bad And The Ugly.
A good contender. It's tough competition next to the likes of The Good The Bad And The Ugly, The Searchers and Unforgiven
I imagine that film audiences in 1969 were as shocked by the level of violence in The Wild Bunch as film audiences a generation later would be by Saving Private Ryan. Peckinpah was just a brilliant choreographer of the brutal and base. His juxtapositions of innocence and violence are unrivaled in film today.
PERFECTLY summarized! Spot-on, Leonard!
THE theme of this masterpiece, is this : LOYALTY, AMONG MEN. & The closing of the old west. ----------------period.
I believe it was Pauline Kael that said, after the screening: "Why was this film made?"
The Wild Bunch is the greatest Western ever made.
Incorrect. It was Virginia Kelly of Reader's Digest. This story is included in the biography "If They Move... Kill 'Em!" by David Weddle. Also, interestingly, Kael was a champion of Peckinpah's work. Google their names and you will see she had nothing but high praise for most of his career. (opposite of her feelings toward Kubrick, oddly enough).
And I agree... best western ever made.
she was just such a pretentious a-hole....not surprising
@@ronaldh8446I find it saddening that Pauline Kael was always dissing Stanley's work.
At no point did she ever give him any sense of commendation.
Instead, she treated as every film he did should be discarded and ignored permanently.
While I'm glad she stood by Bloody Sam's work (although she disliked 1972's The Getaway), I honestly wish she actually once give Stanley the praise he definitely deserved.
And she was notorious for despising Clint Eastwood's work both as an actor and later when Clint started to work in front and behind the camera simultaneously.
I saw it when I graduated high school. It was awesome! Still is.
I know we were in for a ride when in the Bank robbery opening scene William Holden told his men if they move kill them..🤠
Maltin's off. This is a masterpiece that is about violence. The Bunch pass on but their legacy lives on at the end of the picture, which is the beautiful and twisted irony of it. This film is heads and tails better than the majority of its peers, which include Bonny and Clyde and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, because The Wild Bunch doesn't give you romantically fictitious outlaw heroes - like those films - but offers you brutal, violent, complex, and real human beings.
That's exactly what I though , the characters and their existential angst seem real and relatable, I find that very moving and very much drawn towards
The wild bunch is one of the Best Westerns I've ever seen I bought the Blu-ray director's cut
The one scene that has stuck in my mind and which I found incredible was when they blow up the bridge and those men and horses went into the water. Never have seen anything like that before.
One horse got injured during the fall and had to be put down and I believe another drowned.
@@chapiit08 That is a rumour that went around. I've just finished the book on the making of the movie (The Wild Bunch by WK Stratton). On page 280 he says that one stuntman was knacked out by the concussion, one was almost drowned and another was struck a number of times by horses trying to get out of the river. He also says "The wranglers nearly lost two horses but in the end all were safely hauled out of the river,. None drowned never mind later rumours to the contrary". There's a documentary on the making of the movie (The Wild Bunch: An Album in Montage). That doesn't mention any horses being lost.
@@petermortimer6303 Thank you for clarifying that!
The theme of this classic is all about men & loyalty among men ---------------Peckinpah wanted to destroy the Hollywood styled violence--------------summer of '69, I sat through it twice ----------and saw it 12 times in theaters, before VHS came out. ---------------MY all-time #1 film. THE best, ever made. ------------------Over 3000 cuts 7 jump-cuts ------------A classic. -------------------Wolfsky9, 73 y/o
I keep trying to find a quote by Alfred Hitchcock that says something like, Killing a person is not easy. The person doesn’t just die from one shot. Death is slow, writhing and painful. That’s a real death scene.
I consider this movie masterpiece the “Citizen Kane” of westerns and, unarguably, one of the greatest American films ever made.
This is MY all-time #1 film, & at now 75 y/o, and a lifetime lover of cinema, I still say, " The Wild Bunch " is a flat-out masterpiece, & hands-down, the best Western ever made. Only Leone's 3rd " Dollars" film, comes close. The themes of the closing of the west, & loyalty among men have never been explored on film so perfectly, so lovingly. And to have 6 Oscar winning or nominated actors in the same film, having key roles-------has never been equaled. -------------------------MJL
For decades I was crazy over Leone's work, but gradually - with every rewatching - the Bunch rose higher and higher in my scale of great action movies. Now it's there alone, because after all, Leone's use of humor and comedy diminish the stature of the Dollar trilogy. Once Upon a Time is a different matter. It's great, but to be excellent it should bit cut here and there.
It was a FRiday night in Denver------the summer of '69-------when I went by myself as i preferred to do, downtown to the old Paramount Theater on 16th street, to see the 7 Pm showing of " The Wild Bunch". I knew, from the opening credits & jerry Fieldings score, that i was in for something very different. This was to be something I'd never seen before. By then end, I was totally taken & I stayed to see it again. The 2nd time, was even better. I understood this film, & I loved every minute. it is my all-time #1 Western. ---------------MJL< 76 y/o
The best American made western....ever
Hands-Down, the best movie ever made. Ever. A Man's movie. Wolfsky9
It's the best film of all-time. --------ON any level, " The Wild Bunch" is all-time classic, & it's NOT about the violence ! -------It's about loyalty among men who are out of time----out of place----with nowhere to go. -------That men like these were real, is undoubtedly, true. -------and as Edmond O'Brien said : " if you have to rob, & god help us, kill, do it for a reason ---one that matters ! " -------The ending of this film, is precisely, that. ---------------------------WolfSky9, 72 y/o
Best Western ever made .
his shots through the entire movie showed his stance on violence on screen on kids. From the first shots of the movie where kids are laughing and enjoying burning a live scorpion to death.....or the fact that it's a young kid who shoots in the back and kills Pike at the end.
It has been on my best 10 list for 40 years.
No one had ever done what Peckinpah did in The Wild Bunch. What he did was to take very small episodes in extended shootouts, break them apart, and put them back together from different angles, and different film speeds, never losing track of narrative structure. Notice the kid who shoots Holden in the back was the messenger to Mapache , the first guy the Bunch kills to start if off. IMO, that final shootout is the greatest violent sequence since the Odessa Steps.
@chopperpilot5 i miss his directing so much, the only other director who seems to have a hint of his talent is brian depalma
if midnight cowboy,butch Cassidy,and true grit were not made in 1969 I think the wild bunch would have got a nomination for film and William holdens beautiful performance and peckinpahs masterful direction and don't forget louis lombardos great film editing!
Yes .... no way anyone but The Dook was gonna get Best Actor that year. Sentimentality won out over truth yet again.
I think the movie also highlights the regrets of things that they could have had, like a family. At least with the Bishop character as he prepares to say "Let's go.".
@ftlshome1
I miss BillyWilder, Huston,Marvin, ( I did a small role in his penultimate movie) Mitchum
Funny enough Lee Marvin and Robert Mitchum were nearly in the Wild Bunch both as Pike Bishop
Maybe the greatest Western ever made.
I disagree, the violence is a huge part of the film. And the way is done is varied in the three great action scenes in the film: the opening, the train robbery, and the final shootout. No one ever managed to make the audience feel the incredible excitement and adrenalin rush those guys got my fighting. ANd with very little blood and gore.
+garrison968 Great movie! But yeah it was full of violence!
The film takes place at the same time as the start of World War I. One of the themes of the film is that the violence you see is nothing compared to what is going on in Europe at the time
um , not sure about that ?
I think it's pre - war because they are talking about Pancho Villa so it's more like 1910.
This takes place in 1913
RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY is Peckinpahs best movie.
i loooooove sam peckinpah
Simply brilliant film
Red Dead Redemption fans just know that game would be nothing without that movie
The theme of this film : " When you side with a man, you stay with him. If you can't do that, you're like some animal--you're finished--we're all finished! " -----and : " Let's go.---Why Not? " ------And : " What do you want?? ---We want Angel! " ---------FINALLY : " Me & the boys here, we've got some work to do. Wanna come along ? It ain't like it used to be, but it'll do. " ------A film about men. For men. Only men. Women will never understand or appreciate this film. ------------------------Wolfsky9, 69 y/o
Man, shut up...
I second every word of it.....
Not every man can grasp that either... only those who's got the innate desire for adrelainne, those who want to break the arbitrary barriers imposed by the society, those who feel an irresistible urge to break the shackles
sam f'in peckinpah nothing more needs to be said many attempts to copy none even remotely close . so many b.s. directors now a days that couldn't even be one of his grips . too bad this film in all it's greatness was his downfall after this Hollywood only want him to make this type of pic when he wanted to do other types of films.
bill gahen Walter Hill comes close to bringing style like Sam could do, just watch "The Long Riders" or " Extreme Prejudice" and you can see Walter Hill was definitely inspired by Sam Peckinpah!
Check out Pekinpah's: "Straw Dogs". It's not a western. It's every bit as jarring as the "Wild Bunch". I can watch the Wild Bunch many times. I could only stomach "Straw Dogs" once.....................
Oh man Straw Dogs was freaking insane - Dustin Hoffman character haunts you even after the movie - so hollow, naive at times, unlikable..... yet he had this monster underneath.....
Question: The cat that got strangled and hung up in the closet, who did that? I wasn't able to figure that.
Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia is more disturbing still for me. It's so relentlessly grim.
To me the best western movie made until the good the bad and ugly came ou
Maltin... are you crazy? I just watched this film for the first time. Warmth? Again, are you crazy? Perhaps sadistic? It's a great movie yes, but not sure how you can call such a violent and bloody movie "warm"?
brigham2250 - He is speaking about the kinship of the men. How through any animosity they have against each other they stick together. There are definitely moments of warmth - when they share the bottle to drink from, the playfulness with the women at Angel's town. It allows you to feel that sense of loss for these men at the end.
It also shows their loyalty to Angel by coming back for him! When Angel was killed, they all could have gotten away but chose to sacrifice their own lives, their way of life was over and they knew it!
They lived hard and laughed hard.