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Tarfumes.com - The Wild Bunch - 30th Anniversary Edition
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List Price: $12.98
Our Price: $1.22
Your Save: $ 11.76 ( 91% )
Availability: N/A
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Starring: William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Edmond O'Brien, Warren Oates
Directed By: Sam Peckinpah
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9786305237082
Format: Closed-captioned
ISBN: 6305237085
Label: Warner Home Video
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Release Date: 1999-05-11
Running Time: 134
Studio: Warner Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: 1969
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Editorial Reviews:
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Here's how director Sam Peckinpah described his motivation behind The Wild Bunch at the time of the film's 1969 release: "I was trying to tell a simple story about bad men in changing times. The Wild Bunch is simply what happens when killers go to Mexico. The strange thing is you feel a great sense of loss when these killers reach the end of the line." All of these statements are true, but they don't begin to cover the impact that Peckinpah's film had on the evolution of American movies. Now the film is most widely recognized as a milestone event in the escalation of screen violence, but that's a label of limited perspective. Of course, Peckinpah's bloody climactic gunfight became a masterfully directed, photographed, and edited ballet of graphic violence that transcended the conventional Western and moved into a slow-motion realm of pure cinematic intensity. But the film--surely one of the greatest Westerns ever made--is also a richly thematic tale of, as Peckinpah said, "bad men in changing times." The year is 1913 and the fading band of thieves known as the Wild Bunch (led by William Holden as Pike) decide to pull one last job before retirement. But an ambush foils their plans, and Peckinpah's film becomes an epic yet intimate tale of betrayed loyalties, tenacious rivalry, and the bunch's dogged determination to maintain their fading code of honor among thieves. The 144-minute director's cut enhances the theme of male bonding that recurs in many of Peckinpah's films, restoring deleted scenes to deepen the viewer's understanding of the friendship turned rivalry between Pike and his former friend Deke Thornton (Robert Ryan), who now leads a posse in pursuit of the bunch, a dimension that adds resonance to an already classic American film. The Wild Bunch is a masterpiece that should not be defined strictly in terms of its violence, but as a story of mythic proportion, brimming with rich characters and dialogue and the bittersweet irony of outlaw traditions on the wane. --Jeff Shannon
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Exactly what I needed!
Comment: This was exactly what I needed as a gift for my father...it arrived with plenty of time before Christmas, too!
Customer Rating:
Summary: ONE OF THE GREATEST WESTERN'S EVER MADE!!!!
Comment: ONE OF THE GREATEST WESTERNS EVER MADE!!! BOTTOM LINE....UNFORGIVEN COMES CLOSE TO IT ON THAT SCALE BUT "THE WILD BUNCH" SET THE STANDARD IN THIS MOVIE GENRE AND NO OTHER WESTERN HAS SINCE EQUALED IT'S MAGNIFICENCE AND EXCELLENCE IN MOVIE PRODUCTION. TRULY EPIC!!!!
Customer Rating: 
Summary: The Wild Bunch
Comment: I RETURNED THIS ITEM ON NOVEMBER 19TH AND I'M STILL WAITING TO RECEIVE THEIR RECEIPT CONFIRMATION!!!!!!!!!!!
Customer Rating:
Summary: scorpion on fire
Comment: The mood of this great film is set during one of the first scenes. Children who are supposedly not the focus of the action, pit a war between red ants and a scorpion. Then, as the scorpion is being thorougly tortured by the ants, the children heap straw on the battle, ignite it and burn the scorpion and ants alive. This one scene gives Peckinpah's personal social philosophy full issue. Peckinpah reckoned [correctly, in my opinion] that violence and cruelty are products of our basic genetics. Civilization therefore requires the civilizing of children.
'The Wild Bunch', however, is a testimony to the fact that some people never achieve full civilization. His characters rob and murder as if they were virtues. The 'hero', William Holden, is made of somewhat better stuff in that he understands some of the 'inadequacies' of his men. Still, like all good Peckinpah films, the film ultimately succombs to total chaos and violence as Holden's men--who don't stand a chance--decide to shoot it out with Mexican Irregulares.
I first saw this film, years ago, when taking State Licensure Boards for my Medical License. Other students stayed up all night studying. I was just as uptight as anyone else but reckoned that, after 4 years of study, another night wouldn't make any real difference but relaxation might. Peckinpah's violence--in a way that Peckinpah would have predicted--was just the relaxation I required. I did just fine with my exams.
Ron Braithwaite, author of novels--"Skull Rack" and "Hummingbird God"--on the Spanish Conquest of Mexico
Customer Rating:
Summary: Good violent western
Comment: I put this in my top 25 greatest westerns. Lots of good actors. Lots of shoot em up. Vengeance is the driving force of the story. Good sub plots. Will be or is a western classic. I bought the box set of Sam Peckinpah's western. Was worth the price for 4 movies and free delivery.
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