Boys Gone Wild

Monday night, Dustin and I went to San Francisco to catch a screening of Sam Peckinpah’s first breakthrough film: “The Wild Bunch”. Some of you may know that in my book, Peckinpah is second only to Sergio Leone in terms of visual style, directing, and editing, so I do my best not to miss seeing his movies up on the big screen, the way they were meant to be seen. In 2006, Dustin and I did a bonsai trip and drove to Santa Monica to see a double-feature of Peckinpah’s, “The Ballad of Cable Hogue” and “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid”. Monday night was a repeat performance, two dudes taking a trip to watch a “guy film” from the guy who invented the guy film.


After picking Dustin up from his work, we headed into SF to Castro Street, where the Castro Theater lives. We got to the theater a little early (280 > 101), so we were able to stop in at my favorite place to eat in SF: The Sausage Factory. If you haven’t been there, go check it out. Totally simple Italian food, and a decent price. In the past I’ve only ever had Pizza there, and it’s always good if you like thin/simple pizza with no frills, but last night since we didn’t have much time, I decided to check out the cheese ravioli’s, which were good enough to make me want to get some again next time. Stopping at the Sausage Factory before or after movies at the Castro has become somewhat of a ritual, so I was glad that we were able to stop by and get some good food on a work night.

After eating we headed a few blocks down to the theater. If you haven’t been to the Castro Theater, it is similar to the Stanford Theater, in that it is a classic Movie Palace, built in the early years of Hollywood. On the outside, other than the big marquee and the old school ticket box, it doesn’t look like much. On the inside however, it is a grand theater with huge artifices, paintings, and old world designs hanging from every corner of the room. The seats are much better at the Castro than they are at the Stanford Theater, thankfully, and they seem to be built for people that are taller than 4’ 2” and heavier than 112 lbs. They show primarily older films, and have interesting film series’ every few weeks, and it really makes me wish I lived closer. For instance, in August, they are presenting a film series of 80’s fantasy movies that were all done without CG, such as Labyrinth, The Dark Crystal, and The Neverending Story.

When we got to the theater, it was about 60-70% full, which is pretty rare for some of these old movies that time has forgotten. The last time I saw the theater that full was when I saw a double-bill of Taxi Driver and Citizen Kane. I’ll get my major gripe out of the way before I go any further…. The print of the movie that they used for The Wild Bunch was supposed to be a print from a 1995 Director’s Cut restoration, but the version we saw had a very annoying popping and crackling noise coming out of the left hand side of the screen, and there was a deep warbling coming out of the right hand side. Both of these sounds seem to have been amplified by the fact that they had the sound turned up well beyond the norm, which was strange to me, since the Castro is really big on giving an accurate presentation. The sound was mostly audible during the quieter scenes, so it wasn’t too distracting, but I would never want to see it presented like that again. I'm guessing they did not store this copy of the film very well for the past 13 years, because there was some severe damage.

Onto the movie. The Wild Bunch is important in the history of American Cinema, because it is considered the first “Ultra-Violent” movie. Before the Wild Bunch, American films followed a set of rules called “The Hays Code”, which was established in 1930 with a goal to control content in films. Films were not to show nudity, drug use, any form of sexual perversion or adultery, or even hint at homosexuality. How this affected action/adventure movies such as those that Peckinpah had made before The Wild Bunch, was in the way violence was depicted. According to the Code, a realistic death could never be shown in film. For example, you could not show a person pointing a gun at someone and firing, then show the victim grab their chest and fall to the ground. Cuts between footage were required when filming scenes like this, so for example, we would see a shot of someone firing the gun, then we would cut to a close-up of the victim’s face in pain, therefore separating the act of firing the gun from the bullet killing the victim. In 1968, the Hays code was forever to be discontinued, and films like The Wild Bunch (1969) began doing all that the production code prohibited. In fact, The Wild Bunch took things a step further by not only showing the shooter and the victim in the same scene, but also by having the victim’s death shown in agonizing slow motion as they fall to their death and writhe in pain. The amount of violence in the film also propelled it into history as beginning the “rise of violent films”. This was the first American film to portray violence in such a way, and it has left its mark permanently.


Despite being originally released with a Rating of “X”, the film was a critical and commercial smash hit, and it made Sam Peckinpah a star director, granting him bigger budgets and more freedom in the industry. Unfortunately, the film also pigeonholed Peckinpah as being a violent filmmaker, and as a result, when he made his next film, “The Ballad of Cable Hogue”, a light-hearted comedic Western, it was a failure because the audience was expecting violence.

The film itself carries a common theme in Westerns, that of old men past their prime trying to adjust and survive in the modern world. This is shown through the two main “heroes” of the film, Pike Bishop, and Deke Thornton. Pike is the leader of the Wild Bunch, and is trying to make one last big score before retiring. Deke, on the other hand is a former member of the Bunch, and has been offered a release from prison if he agrees to hunt down Pike, his best friend. Throughout the film we are reminded of just how old these men are, and how the modern world has no use for their type of outlaws and cowboys. In fact, a car is introduced about halfway through the film, letting the audience know this is in fact a 20th century world they are living in, no longer the Old West. The drive of the film becomes honor and a man’s “word”, and the past histories that put these men where they are today. Through Pike and Deke, we learn about these men, their commitment to each other, and their desires of living young and free the way they did in the past. These ideas are best summed up in a scene where the Bunch is seeking refuge in a Mexican village, and the town elder speaks of how age and life lessons can affect a person: “We all dream of being a child again. Even the worst of us. Perhaps the worst most of all.”

Peckinpah intelligently chose to use Hollywood actors that were past their prime, and losing ground in the newer, younger Hollywood of the 1960’s to star in the roles of outlaws past their prime. William Holden (who played Pike) had been a dignified and popular actor of serious dramas before he fell out of favor in the new Hollywood, and it was very fitting that he played the disgruntled leader of the Bunch, wishing for the return of the good old days. Peckinpah made films about men, and he made them well, raging with machismo, and bordering on misogyny, and he influenced some of the greatest filmmakers who followed him. Peckinpah style movies are long gone, but at least we can still view them at these old movie palaces.