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Lucien Ballard, A.S.C. (May 6, 1908 – October 1, 1988) was an American cinematographer and director of photography.

Life and work[link]

Ballard began working on films at Paramount Studios in 1929. He later joked in an interview that it was a three day party at the home of actress Clara Bow that convinced him "this is the business for me". He began his career loading trucks at Paramount, and became a camera assistant, often working for director Josef von Sternberg. Von Sternberg allowed him credit for his work on The Devil is a Woman (1935), and the two shared a Venice Film Festival award for "Best Cinematography" in 1935.

On the set of The Lodger (1944), Ballard met, and then married actress Merle Oberon (from 1945 until 1949). After she was involved in a near fatal car crash in London, he invented a light which was mounted by the side of the camera, to provide direct light onto a subject's face, with the aim of reducing blemishes and wrinkles. Named the "Obie", the device benefited Oberon who had sustained facial scarring in the car accident. The Obie would become widely used in the film industry.

One film of note is 1941's controversial Howard Hughes film The Outlaw. Hughes cast Jane Russell in the lead, and had numerous camera shots of her ample cleavage. This would get the attention of the Hollywood censors. The film was shot in 1940 and 1941 but would take five years to get to selected theaters. Ballard was the camera man for the screen tests and did some of the second unit work with both director Howard Hawks and assisted cinematographer Gregg Toland on the first unit crew.

In one of his first films, Morocco (1930), directed by Von Sternberg, Ballard would work with assistant director Henry Hathaway. This relationship with Hathaway would come back to benefit Ballard when Hathaway himself became a noted director. They would work together on several films, including: Diplomatic Courier (1952), O. Henry's Full House (1952), Prince Valiant (1954), The Sons of Katie Elder (1965), Nevada Smith (1966), and True Grit (1969). The last, because of the natural beauty of southwestern Colorado, would also garner Ballard acclaim among his peers.

After working with Budd Boetticher on The Magnificent Matador (1955), they would go on to work together several times, including: The Killer Is Loose (1956), the television show Maverick (1957), Buchanan Rides Alone (1958),The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond (1960), A Time for Dying (1969), Arruza (1972), and My Kingdom For... (1985).

Another relationship of importance is with Sam Peckinpah, they worked together on the following motion pictures: The Westerner (1960 television series), Ride the High Country (1962), The Wild Bunch (1969), The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970), The Getaway (1972), and Junior Bonner (1972).

Ballard was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography for The Caretakers (1963), and won the National Society of Film Critics award for "Best Cinematography" for The Wild Bunch. He worked on more than 130 films during his 50-year career.

Lucien Ballard died in a car accident at the age of eighty in 1988.

Partial filmography[link]

• The King Steps Out, 1936
• The Lone Wolf in Paris, 1938
• The Lodger, 1944
• Temptation, 1946
• Fixed Bayonets!, 1951
• The Desert Rats, 1953
• The Killing, 1956
• A Kiss Before Dying, 1956
• The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond, 1960
• Ride the High Country, 1962
• Hour of the Gun, 1967
• True Grit, 1969
• The Hawaiians, 1970
• The Getaway, 1972

External links[link]

• Ballard @ the Internet Encyclopedia of Cinematographers
• Lucien Ballard at the Internet Movie Database
• Ballard @ Allmovie

David Samuel "Sam" Peckinpah (February 21, 1925 – December 28, 1984) was an American film director and screenwriter who achieved prominence following the release of the Western epic The Wild Bunch (1969). He was known for the innovative and explicit depiction of action and violence, as well as his revisionist approach to the Western genre.

Peckinpah's films generally deal with the conflict between values and ideals, and the corruption of violence in human society. He was given the nickname "Bloody Sam" owing to the violence in his films. His characters are often loners or losers who desire to be honorable, but are forced to compromise in order to survive in a world of nihilism and brutality.

Peckinpah's combative personality, marked by years of alcohol and drug abuse, affected his professional legacy. Many of his films were noted for behind-the-scenes battles with producers and crew members, damaging his reputation and career during his lifetime. Many of his films, such as Straw Dogs (1971), Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973) and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974), remain controversial.

Family origins[link]

The Peckinpahs originated from the Frisian Islands in the northwest of Europe. Both sides of Peckinpah's family migrated to the American West by covered wagon in the mid-nineteenth century.^[1] Peckinpah and several relatives often claimed Native American ancestry, but this has been denied by surviving family members.^[2] Peckinpah's great-grandfather, Rice Peckinpaugh, a merchant and farmer in Indiana, moved to Humboldt County California in the 1850s working in the logging business,^[3] and changed the spelling of the family name to "Peckinpah".^[4] Peckinpah Meadow and Peckinpah Creek, where the family ran a lumber mill on a mountain in the High Sierra north of Coarsegold, California, have been officially named on U.S. geographical maps.^[2] Peckinpah's maternal grandfather was Denver Church, a cattle rancher, Superior Court judge and United States Congressman of a California district including Fresno County.^[5] Sam Peckinpah's nephew is David Peckinpah, who was a television producer and director, as well as a screenplay writer.^[6] Peckinpah's parents were David Edward Peckinpah and Fern Louise Church^[7], and he is a cousin of former New York Yankees shortstop Roger Peckinpaugh

Life[link]

David Samuel "Sam" Peckinpah was born February 21, 1925, in Fresno, California, where he attended both grammar school and high school.^[8] He spent much time skipping classes with his brother to engage in cowboy activities on their grandfather Denver Church's ranch, including trapping, branding, and shooting. During the 1930s and 1940s, Coarsegold and Bass Lake were still populated with descendants of the miners and ranchers of the 19th century. Many of these descendants worked on Church's ranch. At that time, it was a rural area undergoing extreme change, and this exposure is believed to have affected Peckinpah's Western films later in life.^[9]

He played on the junior varsity football team while at Fresno High School, but frequent fighting and discipline problems caused his parents to enroll him in the San Rafael Military Academy for his senior year.^[10] In 1943, he joined the United States Marine Corps. Within two years, his battalion was sent to China with the task of disarming Japanese soldiers and repatriating them following World War II. While his duty did not include combat, he claims to have witnessed acts of war between Chinese and Japanese soldiers. According to friends, these included several acts of torture and the murder of a laborer by sniper fire. The American Marines were not permitted to intervene. Peckinpah also claimed he was shot during an attack by Communist forces. Also during his final weeks as a Marine, he applied for discharge in Peking, so he could marry a local woman, but was refused. This reportedly deeply affected Peckinpah, and may have influenced his depictions of violence in his films.^[11]

After being discharged in Los Angeles, he attended Fresno State College, where he studied history. While a student, he met and married his first wife, Marie Selland, in 1947. A drama major, Selland introduced Peckinpah to the theater department and he became interested in directing for the first time. During his senior year, he adapted and directed a one-hour version of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie. After graduation in 1948, Peckinpah enrolled in graduate studies in drama at University of Southern California. He spent two seasons as the director in residence at Huntington Park Civic Theatre near Los Angeles before obtaining his master's degree. He was asked to stay on another year, but Peckinpah began working as a stagehand at KLAC-TV in the belief that television experience would eventually lead to work in films. Even during this early stage of his career, Peckinpah was developing a combative streak. Reportedly, he was kicked off the set of The Liberace Show for not wearing a tie, and he refused to cue a car salesman during a live feed because of his attitude towards stagehands.^[12]

In 1954, Peckinpah was hired as a dialogue coach for the film Riot in Cell Block 11. His job entailed acting as an assistant for the movie's director, Don Siegel. The film was shot on location at Folsom Prison. Reportedly, the warden was reluctant to allow the filmmakers to work at the prison until he was introduced to Peckinpah. The warden knew his family from Fresno and was immediately cooperative. Siegel's location work and his use of actual prisoners as extras in the film made a lasting impression on Peckinpah. He worked as a dialogue coach on four additional Siegel films: Private Hell 36 (1954), An Annapolis Story, (1955, and co-starring L. Q. Jones), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and Crime in the Streets (1956).^[13] Invasion of the Body Snatchers, in which Peckinpah appeared in a cameo as Charlie the meter reader, starred Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter. It became one of the most critically praised science fiction films of the 1950s. Peckinpah claimed to have done an extensive rewrite on the film's screenplay, a statement which remains controversial.^[14] Nevertheless, Peckinpah's association with Siegel established him as an emerging screenwriter and potential director.

Throughout much of his adult life, Peckinpah was affected by alcoholism, and, later, drug addiction. According to some accounts, he also suffered from mental illness, possibly manic depression or paranoia.^[15] It is believed his drinking problems began during his service in the military while stationed in China, when he would frequent the saloons of Tientsin and Peking.^[16] After divorcing Selland, the mother of his first four children, in 1960, he married the Mexican actress Begoña Palacios in 1965. A stormy relationship developed, and over the years they married on three separate occasions. They had one daughter together.^[17] His personality reportedly often swung between a sweet, soft-spoken, artistic disposition, and bouts of rage and violence during which he verbally and physically abused himself and others. An experienced hunter, Peckinpah was fascinated with firearms and was known to shoot the mirrors in his house while abusing alcohol, an image which occurs several times in his films.^[18] Peckinpah's reputation as a hard-living brute with a taste for violence, inspired by the content in his most popular films and in many ways perpetuated by himself, affected his artistic legacy.^[19] His friends and family have claimed this does a disservice to a man who was actually more complex than generally credited. Throughout his career, Peckinpah seems to have inspired extraordinary loyalty in certain friends and employees. He used the same actors (Warren Oates, L. Q. Jones, R. G. Armstrong, James Coburn, Ben Johnson, and Kris Kristofferson), and collaborators (Jerry Fielding, Lucien Ballard, Gordon Dawson, and Martin Baum) in many of his films, and several of his friends and assistants stuck by him to the end of his life.

Peckinpah spent a great deal of his life in Mexico after his marriage to Palacios, eventually buying property in the country. He was reportedly fascinated by the Mexican lifestyle and culture, and he often portrayed it with an unusual sentimentality and romanticism in his films. Four of his films, Major Dundee (1965), The Wild Bunch (1969), Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973) and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974), were filmed entirely on location within Mexico, while The Getaway (1972) concludes with a couple escaping to freedom there.^[20]

Death[link]

Peckinpah was seriously ill during his final years, as a lifetime of hard living caught up with him. Regardless, he continued to work until his last months. He died of heart failure on December 28, 1984.^[21] At the time, he was in preparation for shooting an original script by Stephen King entitled The Shotgunners, which later became a book called The Regulators.^[22] He lived at The Murray Hotel in Livingston, Montana from 1979 until his death in 1984.^[23]

Television career[link]

On the recommendation of Don Siegel, Peckinpah established himself during the late 1950s as a scriptwriter of Western series of the era, selling scripts to Gunsmoke, Have Gun – Will Travel, The Rifleman, Broken Arrow, Klondike, and Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater.^[20][24] He also wrote a screenplay from the novel The Authentic Death of Hendry Jones, a draft that evolved into the 1961 Marlon Brando film One-Eyed Jacks.^[25] His writing led to directing, and he directed a 1958 episode of Broken Arrow (generally credited as his first official directing job) and several 1960 episodes of Klondike, (co-starring James Coburn, L. Q. Jones, Ralph Taeger, Joi Lansing, and Mari Blanchard). He also directed the CBS sitcom Mr. Adams and Eve, starring Howard Duff and Ida Lupino.^[26][27]

In 1958, Peckinpah wrote a script for Gunsmoke that was rejected due to content. He reworked the screenplay, titled The Sharpshooter, and sold it to Zane Grey Theater. The episode received popular response and became the television series The Rifleman, starring Chuck Connors. Peckinpah directed four episodes of the series (with guest stars R. G. Armstrong and Warren Oates), but left after the first year. The Rifleman ran for five seasons and achieved enduring popularity in syndication.^[28][29]

During this time, he also created the television series The Westerner, starring Brian Keith and in some episodes John Dehner. Peckinpah wrote and directed a pilot called Trouble at Tres Cruzes, which was aired in March 1959 before the actual series was made in 1960. Peckinpah acted as producer of the series, having a hand in the writing of each episode and directing five of them. Critically praised, the show ran for only 13 episodes before cancellation mainly due to its gritty content detailing the drifting, laconic cowboy Dave Blassingame (Brian Keith). Especially the episodes Jeff and Hand on the Gun are in their depiction of violence and with their imaginative directing remarkable forerunners of his later feature films. Despite its short run, The Westerner and Peckinpah were nominated by the Producers Guild of America for Best Filmed Series. An episode of the series eventually served as the basis for Tom Gries' 1968 film Will Penny. The Westerner, which has since achieved cult status, further established Peckinpah as a talent to be reckoned with.^{[30][31][32][33]}

Early film career[link]

[edit] The Deadly Companions

After cancellation of The Westerner, Brian Keith was cast as the male lead in the 1961 Western film The Deadly Companions. He suggested Peckinpah as the director and producer Charles B. Fitzsimons accepted the idea. By most accounts, the low-budget film shot on location in Arizona was a learning process for Peckinpah, who feuded with Fitzsimons (brother of the film's star Maureen O'Hara) over the screenplay and staging of the scenes. Reportedly, Fitzsimons refused to allow Peckinpah to give direction to O'Hara. Unable to rewrite the screenplay or edit the picture, Peckinpah vowed to never again direct a film unless he had script control. The Deadly Companions passed largely without notice and is the least known of Peckinpah's films.^[34][35]

[edit] Ride the High Country

His second film, Ride the High Country (1962), was based on the screenplay Guns in the Afternoon written by N.B. Stone, Jr. Producer Richard Lyons admired Peckinpah's work on The Westerner and offered him the directing job. Peckinpah did an extensive rewrite of the screenplay, including personal references from his own childhood growing up on Denver Church's ranch, and even naming one of the mining towns "Coarsegold." He based the character of Steve Judd, a once-famous lawman fallen on hard times, on his own father David Peckinpah. In the screenplay, Judd and old friend Gil Westrum are hired to transport gold from a mining community through dangerous territory. Westrum hopes to talk Judd into taking the gold for themselves. Along the way, following the example of Judd, Westrum slowly realizes his own self respect is far more important than profit. During the final shootout, when Judd and Westrum stand up to a trio of men, Judd is fatally wounded and his death serves as Westrum's salvation - a Catholic tragedy weaved from the Western genre. It became a major theme in many Peckinpah films to come. Starring aging Western stars Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott in their final major screen roles, the film initially went unnoticed in the United States but was an enormous success in Europe. Beating Federico Fellini's 8½ for first prize at the Belgium Film Festival, the film was hailed by foreign critics as a brilliant reworking of the Western genre. New York critics also discovered Peckinpah's unusual Western, with Newsweek naming Ride the High Country the best film of the year and Time placing it on its best-ten list. By some critics, the film is admired as one of Peckinpah's greatest works.^[36][37]

[edit] Major Dundee

Peckinpah's next film, Major Dundee (1965), was the first of Peckinpah's many unfortunate experiences with the major studios that financed his productions. Based on a screenplay by Harry Julian Fink, the film was to star Charlton Heston. Peckinpah was hired as director after Heston viewed producer Jerry Bresler's private screening of Ride the High Country. Heston liked the film and called Peckinpah, saying, "I'd like to work with you."^[38] The sprawling screenplay told the story of Union cavalry officer Major Dundee who commands a New Mexico outpost of Confederate prisoners. When an Apache war chief wipes out a company and kidnaps several children, Dundee throws together a makeshift army, including unwilling Confederate veterans, black Federal soldiers, and traditional Western types, and takes off after the Indians. Dundee becomes obsessed with his quest and heads deep into the wilderness of Mexico with his exhausted men in tow. Peckinpah's first big-budget film had a large cast, including Heston, Richard Harris, James Coburn, Senta Berger, Jim Hutton, Ben Johnson, Warren Oates, R. G. Armstrong and L. Q. Jones. Filming began without a completed screenplay, and Peckinpah chose several remote locations in Mexico, causing the film to go heavily over budget. Intimidated by the size and scope of the project, Peckinpah reportedly drank heavily each night after shooting. He also fired at least 15 crew members. At one point, Peckinpah's mean streak and abusiveness towards the actors so enraged Heston that the normally even-tempered star threatened to run the director through with his cavalry saber if he did not show more courtesy to the cast. Shooting ended 15 days over schedule and $1.5 million more than budgeted with Peckinpah and producer Bresler no longer on speaking terms. The movie, detailing themes and sequences Peckinpah mastered later in his career, was taken away from him and substantially reedited. An incomplete mess which today exists in a variety of versions, Major Dundee performed poorly at the box office and was thrashed by critics (though its standing has improved over the years). Peckinpah held for the rest of his life that his original version of Major Dundee was among his best films, but his reputation was severely damaged.^[39][40][41]

Peckinpah was next signed to direct The Cincinnati Kid, a gambling drama about a young prodigy who takes on an old master during a big New Orleans poker match. Before filming started, producer Martin Ransohoff began to receive phone calls about the Major Dundee ordeal and was told Peckinpah was impossible to work with. In addition, Peckinpah decided to shoot in black and white and was hoping to transform the screenplay into a social realist saga about a kid surviving the tough streets of the Great Depression. After four days of filming, which reportedly included some nude scenes, Ransohoff disliked the rushes and immediately fired him.^[42] Eventually directed by Norman Jewison and starring Steve McQueen, the film went on to become a 1965 hit. Peckinpah found himself banished from the film industry for several years.^[43][44]

[edit] Noon Wine

He caught a lucky break in 1966 when producer Daniel Melnick needed a writer and director to adapt Katherine Anne Porter's short novel Noon Wine for television. Melnick was a big fan of The Westerner and Ride the High Country, and had heard Peckinpah had been unfairly fired from The Cincinnati Kid. Against the objections of many within the industry, Melnick hired Peckinpah and gave him free rein. Peckinpah completed the script, which Miss Porter enthusiastically endorsed, and the project became an hour-long presentation for ABC Stage 67. Taking place in turn of the century West Texas, Noon Wine was a dark tragedy about a farmer's act of futile murder which leads to suicide. Starring Jason Robards and Olivia de Havilland, the film was a critical hit, with Peckinpah nominated by the Writers Guild for Best Television Adaptation and the Directors Guild of America for Best Television Direction. Robards kept a personal copy of the film in his private collection for years as he considered the project to be one of his most satisfying professional experiences. A rare film which can only be viewed at the Library of Congress and the Museum of Broadcasting, Noon Wine is today considered one of Peckinpah's most intimate works, revealing his dramatic potential and artistic depth.^[45][46][47]

International fame[link]

[edit] The Wild Bunch

The surprising success of Noon Wine laid the groundwork for one of the most explosive comebacks in film history. In 1967, Warner Bros.-Seven Arts producers Kenneth Hyman and Phil Feldman were interested in having Peckinpah rewrite and direct an adventure film, The Diamond Story. An alternative screenplay written by Roy Sickner and Walon Green was the western The Wild Bunch. At the time, William Goldman's screenplay Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid had recently been purchased by 20th Century Fox.

It was quickly decided that The Wild Bunch, which had several similarities to Goldman's work, would be produced in order to beat Butch Cassidy to the theaters.^[48] By the fall of 1967, Peckinpah was rewriting the screenplay into what became The Wild Bunch. Filmed on location in Mexico, Peckinpah's epic work was inspired by his hunger to return to films, the violence seen in Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde, America's growing frustration with the Vietnam War, and what he perceived to be the utter lack of reality seen in Westerns up to that time. He set out to make a film which portrayed not only the vicious violence of the period, but the crude men attempting to survive the era. Starring William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Ben Johnson, Warren Oates, Jaime Sánchez and Edmond O'Brien, the film detailed a gang of veteran outlaws on the Texas/Mexico border in 1913 trying to exist within a rapidly approaching modern world. The Wild Bunch is framed by two ferocious and infamous gunfights, beginning with a failed robbery of the railway company office and concluding with the outlaws battling the Mexican army in suicidal vengeance due to the death of one of their members.^[49] Irreverent and unprecedented in its explicit detail, the 1969 film was an instant success. Multiple scenes attempted in Major Dundee, including slow motion action sequences, characters leaving a village as if in a funeral procession and the use of inexperienced locals as extras, were perfected in The Wild Bunch. Many critics denounced its violence as sadistic and exploitative. Other critics and filmmakers hailed the originality of its unique rapid editing style, created for the first time in this film and ultimately becoming a Peckinpah trademark, and praised the reworking of traditional Western themes. It was the beginning of Peckinpah's international fame, and he and his work remained controversial for the rest of his life.^[50] The film was ranked No. 80 on the American Film Institute's top 100 list of the greatest American films ever made and No. 69 as the most thrilling, but the controversy has not diminished.^[51] When The Wild Bunch was re-released for its 25th anniversary, it received an NC-17 rating from the MPAA, proving the film's continued impact after so many years.^[52] Peckinpah received his only Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay for this film.

[edit] The Ballad of Cable Hogue

Defying audience expectations, as he often did, Peckinpah immediately followed The Wild Bunch with the elegiac, funny and mostly non-violent 1970 Western The Ballad of Cable Hogue. Utilizing many of the same cast (L. Q. Jones, Strother Martin) and crew members of The Wild Bunch, the film covered three years in the life of small-time entrepreneur Cable Hogue (Jason Robards) who decides to make a fortune after discovering water in the desert. He opens his business along a stagecoach line, only to see his dreams end with the appearance of the first automobile on the horizon. Shot on location in the Valley of Fire in Nevada, the film was plagued by poor weather, Peckinpah's renewed drinking and his brusque firing of 36 crew members. The chaotic filming wrapped 19 days over schedule and $3 million over budget, effectively terminating his tenure with Warner Bros.-Seven Arts. In retrospect, it was a damaging career move as Deliverance and Jeremiah Johnson, critical and enduring box office hits, were in development at the time and Peckinpah was considered the first choice to direct both films.^[53] Largely ignored upon its initial release, The Ballad of Cable Hogue has been rediscovered in recent years and is often held up by critics as exemplary of the breadth of Peckinpah's talents. They claim that the film proves Peckinpah's ability to make unconventional and original work without resorting to explicit violence. Over the years, Peckinpah cited the film as one of his favorites.^[54][55][56]

[edit] Straw Dogs

His alienation of Warner Brothers once again left him with a limited number of directing jobs. Peckinpah was forced to do a 180-degree turn and traveled to England to direct Straw Dogs (1971), one of his darkest and most psychologically disturbing films. Produced by Daniel Melnick, who had previously worked with Peckinpah on Noon Wine, the screenplay was based on the novel The Siege of Trencher's Farm by Gordon Williams. It starred Dustin Hoffman as David Sumner, a timid American mathematician (his wife at one point attempts to erase Einstein's field equations from his blackboard) who leaves the chaos of college anti-war protests to live with his young wife Amy (Susan George) in her native village in Cornwall, England. Resentment of David's presence by the locals slowly builds to a shocking climax when the mild-mannered academic is forced to defend his home. Peckinpah entirely rewrote the existing screenplay, inspired by the books African Genesis and The Territorial Imperative by Robert Ardrey, which argued that man was essentially a carnivore who instinctively battled over control of territory.^[57] The character of David Sumner, taunted and humiliated by the town locals, is eventually cornered within his home where he loses control and kills several of the men during the violent conclusion. Straw Dogs deeply divided critics, some of whom praised its artistry and its confrontation of human savagery, while others attacked it as a misogynistic and fascistic celebration of violence.^[58] Much of the criticism centered around Amy's complicated and lengthy rape scene, which Peckinpah reportedly attempted to base on his own personal fears rooted in past failed marriages. To this day, the scene is attacked by critics as an ugly male-chauvinist fantasy, claiming it serves as an example of Peckinpah's (and Hollywood's) debasing of women.^[59] The film was for many years banned on video in the UK, although some critics have come to hail it as one of Peckinpah's greatest films.^[60][61][62]

[edit] Junior Bonner

Despite his growing alcoholism and controversial reputation, Peckinpah was extremely prolific during this period of his life. In May 1971, weeks after completing Straw Dogs, he returned to the United States to begin work on Junior Bonner. The lyrical screenplay by Jeb Rosenbrook, depicting the changing times of society and binding family ties, appealed to Peckinpah's tastes. He accepted the project, at the time concerned with being typed as a director of violent action. The film was his final attempt to make a low-key, dramatic work in the vein of Noon Wine and The Ballad of Cable Hogue. Filmed on location in Prescott, Arizona, the story covered a week in the life of aging rodeo rider Junior "JR" Bonner (Steve McQueen) who returns to his hometown to compete in an annual rodeo competition. In addition to McQueen, the cast included Robert Preston, Ida Lupino, Joe Don Baker and Ben Johnson. Junior Bonner was marked by sharp character development, colorful location detail and unusually tender scenes between Preston and Lupino as Bonner's estranged parents. Promoted as a Steve McQueen action vehicle, reviews were mixed and the film performed poorly at the box office. Peckinpah remarked, "I made a film where nobody got shot and nobody went to see it." The film's reputation has grown over the years as many critics consider Junior Bonner to be one of Peckinpah's most sympathetic works, while also noting McQueen's earnest performance.^[63][64]

[edit] The Getaway

Eager to work with Peckinpah again, Steve McQueen presented him Walter Hill's screenplay to The Getaway. Based on the Jim Thompson novel, the gritty crime thriller detailed lovers on the run following a dangerous robbery. Both Peckinpah and McQueen needed a hit, and they immediately began working on the film in February 1972.^[65] Peckinpah had no pretensions about making The Getaway, as his only goal was to create a highly-polished thriller to boost his market value.^[66] McQueen played Doc McCoy, an imprisoned mastermind robber whose wife Carol (Ali MacGraw) conspires for his release on the condition they rob a bank in Texas. A doublecross follows the crime, and the McCoys are forced to flee for Mexico with both the police and criminals in hot pursuit. Replete with explosions, car chases and intense shootouts, the film became Peckinpah's biggest financial success to date earning more than $25 million at the box office.^[67] Though strictly a commercial product, Peckinpah's creative touches abound throughout, most notably during the intricately-edited opening sequence when McQueen's character is suffering from the pressures of prison life.^[68] The film remains popular and was remade in 1994 (The Getaway).^[69][70][71]

Later career[link]

The year 1973 marked the beginning of the most difficult period of Peckinpah's life and career. While still filming The Getaway in El Paso, Texas, Peckinpah sneaked across the border into Juarez in April 1972 and married Joie Gould. He had met Gould in England while filming Straw Dogs, and she had since been his companion and a part-time crew member. Peckinpah's intake of alcohol had increased dramatically while making The Getaway, and he became fond of saying, "I can't direct when I'm sober." He began to have violent mood swings and explosions of rage, at one point assaulting Gould. After four months, she returned to England and filed for divorce. Devastated by the breakup, Peckinpah fell into a self destructive pattern of almost continuous alcohol consumption, and his health was unstable for the remainder of his life.^[72]

[edit] Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid

It was in this state of mind that Peckinpah agreed to make Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973) for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Based on the screenplay by Rudolph Wurlitzer (who had previously penned Two-Lane Blacktop, a film admired by Peckinpah), the director was convinced that he was about to make his definitive statement on the Western genre.^[73] The script offered Peckinpah the opportunity to explore themes that appealed to him: two former partners forced by changing times onto opposite sides of the law, manipulated by corrupt economic interests. Peckinpah rewrote the screenplay, establishing Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid as friends, and attempted to weave an epic tragedy from the historical legend. Filmed on location in the Mexican state of Durango, the film starred James Coburn and Kris Kristofferson in the title roles, with a huge supporting cast including Bob Dylan (who composed the film's music), Jason Robards, R. G. Armstrong, Richard Jaeckel, Jack Elam, Chill Wills, Katy Jurado, L. Q. Jones, Slim Pickens and Harry Dean Stanton.^[74] From the beginning, Peckinpah began to have clashes with MGM and its president James Aubrey, known for his stifling of creative interests and eventual dismantling of the historic movie company.^[75] Numerous production difficulties, including an outbreak of influenza and malfunctioning cameras, combined with Peckinpah's growing problems with alcohol, resulted in one of the most troubled productions of his career. The film finished 21 days behind schedule and $1.6 million over budget. Enraged, Aubrey severely cut Peckinpah's film from 124 to 106 minutes, resulting in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid being released in a truncated version largely disowned by cast and crew members. Critics complained that the film was incoherent, and the experience soured Peckinpah forever on Hollywood. In 1988, however, Peckinpah's director's cut was released on video and led to a reevaluation, with many critics hailing it as a mistreated classic and one of the era's best films. Filmmakers, including Martin Scorsese, have praised the film as one of the greatest modern Westerns.^[76][77]

[edit] Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

In the eyes of his admirers, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974) was the last true "Peckinpah film." The director himself claimed that it was the only one of his films to be released exactly as he intended it. A project in development for many years and based on an idea by Frank Kowalski, Peckinpah wrote the screenplay with the assistance of Kowalski, Walter Kelley and Gordon Dawson. An alcohol-soaked fever dream involving revenge, greed and murder in the Mexican countryside, the film featured Warren Oates as a thinly disguised self-portrait of Peckinpah, and co-starred a leather bag containing the severed head of a gigolo being sought by a Mexican patrone for one million dollars. The macabre drama was part black comedy, action film and tragedy, with a warped edge rarely seen in Peckinpah's works. Most critics were repulsed, and it was listed in the book The 50 Worst Films of All Time by Harry Medved and Randy Dreyfuss.^[78] One of the few critics to praise the film was Roger Ebert, and in fact, the film's reputation has grown in recent years, with many noting its uncompromising vision as well as its anticipation of the violent black comedy which became famous in the works of such directors as David Lynch and Quentin Tarantino.^[79] While a failure at the box office, the film today has a devoted cult following. In 1991, UCLA's film school organized a festival of great but forgotten American films, and included Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia in the program.^[80][81] It is reportedly Takeshi Kitano's favorite film. It also led a film critic to paraphrase the film's title in an attack on the director, saying, "Bring me the head of Sam Peckinpah".

[edit] The Killer Elite

His career now suffering from back-to-back box office failures, Peckinpah once again was in need of a hit on the level of The Getaway. For his next film, he chose The Killer Elite (1975), an action-filled espionage thriller starring James Caan and Robert Duvall as rival American agents. Filmed on location in San Francisco, Peckinpah allegedly discovered cocaine for the first time thanks to Caan and his entourage.^[82] This led to increased paranoia and his once legendary dedication to detail deteriorated. Producers also refused to allow Peckinpah to rewrite the screenplay (for the first time since his debut film The Deadly Companions). Frustrated, the director spent large amounts of time in his on-location trailer, allowing assistants to direct many scenes. At one point he overdosed on cocaine, landing himself in a hospital and receiving a second pacemaker. Through it all, the film was completed and did decent box office business, though critics panned it. Today, the film is considered one of Peckinpah's weakest films, and an example of his decline as a major director.^[83][84]

[edit] Cross of Iron

Still renowned in 1975, Peckinpah was offered the opportunity to direct the eventual blockbusters King Kong (1976) and Superman (1978). ^[85] Interestingly, he turned down both offers and chose instead the bleak and vivid World War II drama Cross of Iron (1977). The screenplay was based on a novel about a platoon of German soldiers in 1943 on the verge of utter collapse on the Crimean Peninsula. The German production was filmed on location in Yugoslavia. Working with James Hamilton and Walter Kelley, Peckinpah rewrote the screenplay and screened numerous Nazi documentaries in preparation. Almost immediately, Peckinpah realized he was working on a low-budget production, as he had to sink $90,000 of his own money to hire experienced crew members. While not suffering from the cocaine abuse which marked The Killer Elite, Peckinpah continued to drink heavily causing his direction to become confused and erratic. The production abruptly ran out of funds, and Peckinpah was forced to completely improvise the concluding sequence, filming the scene in one day. Despite these obstacles, the film's war footage was stunning and James Coburn, in the lead role of Rolf Steiner, gave one of the finest performances of his career. Co-starring James Mason, Maximilian Schell, David Warner and Senta Berger, Cross of Iron was noted for its opening montage utilizing documentary footage as well as the visceral impact of the unusually intense battle sequences. The film was a huge box office success in Europe, inspiring the sequel Breakthrough starring Richard Burton.^[86] Cross of Iron was reportedly a favorite of Orson Welles who said that after All Quiet on the Western Front it was the finest anti-war film he had ever seen.^[87] The film performed poorly in the U.S., eclipsed ultimately by the space adventure Star Wars, though today it is highly regarded and considered the last gasp of Peckinpah's once-great talent.^[88][89]

[edit] Convoy

Hoping to create the elusive blockbuster, Peckinpah decided to take on Convoy (1978). His associates were perplexed, as they felt his choice to direct such substandard material was a result of his renewed cocaine use and continued alcoholism. Based on the hit song by C. W. McCall, the film was an attempt to capitalize on the huge success of Smokey and the Bandit (1977). Addictions or not, Peckinpah still felt compelled to turn the genre exercise into something more significant. Unhappy with the screenplay written by B.W.L. Norton, Peckinpah tried to encourage the actors to re-write, improvise and ad-lib their dialogue. In another departure from the script, Peckinpah attempted to add a new dimension by casting a pair of black actors as members of the convoy including Madge Sinclair as Widow Woman and Franklyn Ajaye as Spider Mike. Filmed on location in New Mexico and starring Kris Kristofferson, Ali MacGraw and Ernest Borgnine, Convoy turned out to be yet another troubled Peckinpah production. The director's health became a continuing problem, so friend and actor James Coburn was brought in to serve as second unit director, and he filmed many of the scenes while Peckinpah remained in his on-location trailer. The film wrapped in September 1977, 11 days behind schedule and $5 million over budget. Surprisingly, Convoy was the highest-grossing picture of Peckinpah's career, notching $46.5 million at the box office. But his reputation was seriously damaged. For the first time in almost a decade, Peckinpah finished a picture and found himself unemployed.^[90][91]

[edit] 2nd unit work on Jinxed!

For the next three years, Peckinpah remained a professional outcast. But during the summer of 1981, his original mentor Don Siegel gave him a chance to return to filmmaking. While shooting Jinxed!, a comedy drama starring Bette Midler and Rip Torn, Siegel asked Peckinpah if he would be interested in directing 12 days of second unit work. Peckinpah immediately accepted, and his earnest collaboration, while uncredited, was noted within the industry. For the final time, Peckinpah found himself back in the directing business.^[92][93][94]

[edit] The Osterman Weekend

By 1982, however, Peckinpah's health was in poor shape. Producers Peter S. Davis and William N. Panzer were undaunted, as they felt that having Peckinpah's name attached to The Osterman Weekend (1983) would lend the suspense thriller an air of respectability. Peckinpah accepted the job but reportedly hated the convoluted screenplay based upon Robert Ludlum's novel (which he also disliked). Multiple actors in Hollywood auditioned for the film, intrigued by the opportunity. Many of those who signed on, including John Hurt, Burt Lancaster and Dennis Hopper, did so for less than their usual salaries for a chance to work with the legendary director. By the time shooting wrapped in January 1983 in Los Angeles, Peckinpah and the producers were hardly speaking. Nevertheless, Peckinpah brought in the film on time and on budget, delivering his director's cut to the producers. Davis and Panzer were unhappy with Peckinpah's version, which included a grossly distorted opening sequence of two characters making love. The producers changed the opening and also deleted other scenes they deemed unnecessary. The Osterman Weekend had some effective action sequences and some strong supporting performances, but Peckinpah's final film was critically panned. It grossed $6 million domestically and did extremely well in Europe and on the new home-video market.^[94][95]

Julian Lennon music videos[link]

Peckinpah's last work as a filmmaker was undertaken just two months before his death. He was hired by producer Martin Lewis to shoot two music videos featuring Julian Lennon - "Valotte" and "Too Late For Goodbyes". The critically acclaimed videos led to Lennon's nomination for Best New Video Artist at the 1985 MTV Video Music Awards.^[96][97]

Themes[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

Peckinpah's films generally deal with the conflict between values and ideals and the corruption and violence of human society. His characters are often loners or losers who harbor the desire to be honorable and idealistic but are forced to compromise themselves in order to survive in a world of nihilism and brutality.

The conflicts of masculinity are also a major theme of his work, leading some critics^[who?] to compare him to Ernest Hemingway. Peckinpah's world is a man's world, and feminists^[who?] have castigated his films as misogynistic and sexist, especially concerning the shooting of a woman during the final moments of The Wild Bunch, the rape sequence in Straw Dogs and Doc McCoy's physical assault of his wife in The Getaway.

Many critics^[who?] see his worldview as a misanthropic, Hobbesian view of nature as essentially evil and savage. Peckinpah himself stated the opposite.^{[citation needed]} He saw violence as the product of human society, and not of nature. It is the result of men's competition with each other over power and domination, and their inability to negotiate this competition without resorting to brutality. Peckinpah also used violence as a means to achieve catharsis, believing his audience would be purged of violence by witnessing it explicitly on screen (one of the major inspirations for his violent sequences in The Wild Bunch). Peckinpah later admitted that this idea was mistaken, and that audiences had come to enjoy the violence in his films rather than be horrified by it, something that deeply troubled him later in his career.

Peckinpah, who was born to a ranching family that included judges and lawyers, was also deeply concerned by the conflict between "old-fashioned" values and the corruption and materialism of the modern world. Many of his characters are attempting to live up to their expectations of themselves even as the world they live in demands that they compromise their values.

This theme is most evident in Peckinpah's Westerns. Unlike most Western directors, Peckinpah tended to concentrate on the early 20th century rather than the 19th, and his films portray characters who still believe in the values of the Old West being swept away by the new, industrial America.

This persistent theme has led many critics to view Peckinpah's films as essentially tragic. That is, his characters are portrayed as being prisoners of their fates and their own failings who nonetheless seek redemption and meaning in an absurd and violent world. The theme of longing for redemption, justification, and honor in a dishonorable existence permeates almost all of Peckinpah's work.

Influence[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

Peckinpah's influence on modern cinema is enormous and pervasive, perhaps greater than any of his contemporaries. However, this influence is also often shallow and purely aesthetic in nature, ignoring some of Peckinpah's greatest strengths in favor of pure imitation of his stylish approach to cinematic violence.

Peckinpah's greatest influence is upon the modern action film and the modern approach to action sequences. His signature combination of slow-motion, fast editing, and the deliberate distension of time has become the standard depiction of violence and action in post-Peckinpavian cinema. The approach to action in movies can be divided between before Peckinpah and after Peckinpah. While films before The Wild Bunch had used similar techniques, especially Bonnie and Clyde and Seven Samurai, Peckinpah was the first to use them as a distinct style rather than as specific set pieces. Directors such as Martin Scorsese have acknowledged Peckinpah's direct influence on their approach to film violence. John Woo derived his techniques extensively from Peckinpah, adding his own touch of choreography and action concepts. Additional filmmakers who have noted Peckinpah's influence have included Paul Schrader, Walter Hill, John Milius, Quentin Tarantino, Kathryn Bigelow, Michael Mann, Takeshi Kitano and Park Chan-wook.

Peckinpah's themes have also been influential on other filmmakers and other Western films. Clint Eastwood's High Plains Drifter, The Outlaw Josey Wales and Unforgiven also take up Peckinpah's themes of the dangers of revenge, the nature of human violence, and men seeking to be honorable in dishonorable surroundings. The theme of the passing of the West into history and the destruction of the Western way of life by modern industrialism has also been explored by many post-Peckinpah Westerns.

In many ways, Peckinpah's greatest legacy lies in his aggressive breaking of taboos. He allowed a new freedom to emerge in cinema, not only in the depiction of violence, but also in editing styles, narrative choices, and the willingness to portray unsympathetic or tragic characters and stories. His notorious reputation has often overshadowed the depth of his influence on modern film.

Documentaries[link]

• Sam Peckinpah has been the subject of two documentaries including the BBC production Sam Peckinpah: Man of Iron (1992), directed by Paul Joyce, and The Wild Bunch: An Album in Montage (1996) directed by Paul Seydor. The latter was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Documentary Short Subject.^[98][99]
• Over a 4-year period German film maker Mike Siegel produced and directed Passion & Poetry - The Ballad Of Sam Peckinpah a two-hour long film about Sam Peckinpah which includes rare Peckinpah - interviews and statements. In 2009 the 2 - disc special edition with a running time of 270 minutes was released on DVD.

Parodies[link]

• John Belushi portrayed Peckinpah as a deranged lunatic who directs his first romantic comedy by beating up his leading lady in the first season, fifth episode of Saturday Night Live.^[100] Many in Hollywood said the SNL sketch inadvertently gave a portrayal of the real Sam Peckinpah.^[who?]
• Peckinpah's use of violence was parodied by Monty Python in Sam Peckinpah's "Salad Days", one of the more controversial episodes of Monty Python's Flying Circus, in which a lovely day out for an upper class English family turns into a blood-soaked orgy of severed limbs and gushing wounds.^[101] Peckinpah reportedly loved this sketch and enjoyed showing it to friends and family.
• Peckinpah's penchant for filming action scenes in slow motion was satirized by Benny Hill in a Western skit called "The Deputy" that first aired on his March 29, 1973 special. In one scene, Hill's titular character shoots one of the villains (Bob Todd), who then proceeds to pirouette in extremely slow motion before collapsing.
• In the film Fletch (1985), the main character, imitating a doctor in order to examine medical records, calls out, "And bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia!"^[102]
• In the 1973 Sergio Leone/Tonino Valerii spaghetti western, My Name is Nobody, the characters Jack Beauregard (Henry Fonda) and "Nobody" (Terence Hill) meet at a cemetery. Nobody walks past the tombstones reading the names and comes across one labeled "Sam Peckimpah." He says "Sam Peckimpah. That's a beautiful name in Navajo." Leone named the gang in the film "The Wild Bunch." Nobody has Beauregard face The Wild Bunch in order to be known in history books.
• Various Peckinpah films are parodied in Jim Reardon's student film Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown.
• In the film Deadfall (1993), when the character Eddie (Nicolas Cage) mortally wounds a would-be assassin, he asks the man "Who sent you?" The killer responds, "Sam fuckin' Peckinpah." This film was later adapted into a song of the same name by Snot.
• In the John Waters film Cecil B. DeMented (2000), several characters have the name of a legendary film director tattooed on their body. One of the characters has "Sam Peckinpah" tattooed on their arm.^[103]
• In the 1986 horror film Chopping Mall, a store in the mall that survivors use to supply themselves with assault rifles, ammunition and grenades is named Peckinpah's Sporting Goods, a wry reference to the director's film violence.^[104]
• In the 2006 film Hot Fuzz, one of the characters is mentioned to be an extra in Straw Dogs, and a farm is owned by the Treachers, making it Treacher Farm.
• In the 1993 Denis Leary song "Asshole", Leary states he is "going to get the Duke (John Wayne), John Cassavetes, Lee Marvin, Sam Peckinpah and a case of whiskey then drive down to Texas" before being cutoff by a bandmate and getting called an asshole.
• In the BBC Radio 4 panel show I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, the Film Club round usually includes a film name based on Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia.
• Kris Kristofferson recorded "Sam's Song (Ask Any Working Girl)", a brief tribute to the director, for his 1995 release "A Moment of Forever".

Filmography[link]

Television credits[link]

See also[link]

	Biography portal
	United States Marine Corps portal

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Simmons, Garner (1982). Peckinpah, A Portrait in Montage. University of Texas Press. ISBN 0-292-76493-6. 
• Weddle, David (1994). If They Move . . . Kill 'Em! The Life and Times of Sam Peckipah. Grove Press. ISBN 0-8021-1546-2. 
• Current Biography. H. W. Wilson. 1973. ISBN 0-8242-0543-X. 
• "David E. Peckinpah". Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0669757/. Retrieved 2007-07-23. 
• "(David) Sam Peckinpah Biography (1925-)". FilmReference.com. http://www.filmreference.com/film/16/David-Sam-Peckinpah.html. Retrieved September 3, 2011. 
• "Sam Peckinpah". Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001603/. Retrieved 2007-09-27. 
• "Biography: Sam Peckinpah". Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001603/bio. Retrieved 2007-07-28. 
• Cohen, Stan (2004). "The Murray Hotel". Montana's Grandest-Historic Hotels and Resorts of the Treasure State. Missoula, Montana: Pictorial Histories Publishing Company. ISBN 1-57510-111-4. 
• "Full cast and crew for Klondike". Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053516/fullcredits#cast. Retrieved 2007-09-27. 
• "Episode list for The Rifleman". Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051308/episodes#season-1. Retrieved 2007-09-27. 
• "The Westerner". Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053551/. Retrieved 2007-09-27. 
• "Trivia for The Westerner". Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053551/trivia. Retrieved 2007-09-27. 
• "Trivia for Major Dundee". Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059418/trivia. Retrieved 2007-09-27. 
• Carroll, E. Jean (March 1982). "Last of the Desperadoes: Dueling with Sam Peckinpah". Rocky Mountain Magazine. 
• Fine, Marshall. Bloody Sam. Donald I. Fine Books. ISBN 978-1-55611-236-2. 
• "Noon Wine". Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0209186/. Retrieved 2007-09-27. 
• "American Film Institute". afi.com. http://connect.afi.com/site/PageServer?pagename=100YearsList. Retrieved 2007-09-27. 
• "Trivia for The Wild Bunch". Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065214/trivia. Retrieved 2007-09-27. 
• "Trivia for The Ballad of Cable Hogue". Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065446/trivia. Retrieved 2007-09-27. 
• "Trivia for Straw Dogs". Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067800/trivia. Retrieved 2007-09-27. 
• "Box office/business for The Getaway". Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068638/business. Retrieved 2007-09-27. 
• "The Getaway". Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109890/. Retrieved 2007-09-27. 
• "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid". Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070518/. Retrieved 2007-09-27. 
• Medved, Harry (1978). The 50 Worst Films of All Time. Warner Books. ISBN 0-446-38119-5. 
• "Roger Ebert, Film Review for Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia". suntimes.com. October 28, 2001. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F20011028%2FREVIEWS08%2F110280301%2F1023. Retrieved 2007-10-06. 
• "Breakthrough". Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078320/. Retrieved 2007-11-09. 
• "Rock on the Net: 1985 MTV Video Music Awards". rockonthenet.com. http://www.rockonthenet.com/archive/1985/mtvvmas.htm. Retrieved 2007-11-09. 
• "Sam Peckinpah: Man of Iron". Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0300444/. Retrieved 2007-11-09. 
• "The Wild Bunch: An Album in Montage". Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118167/. Retrieved 2007-11-09. 
• "Episode list for Saturday Night Live". Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072562/. Retrieved 2007-11-09. 
• "Memorable quotes for Fletch". Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089155/quotes. Retrieved 2007-11-09. 
• "Trivia for Cecil B. DeMented". Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0173716/trivia. Retrieved 2007-11-09. 
• "Movie connections for Chopping Mall". Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090837/movieconnections. Retrieved 2007-11-20. 
• "Combined credits for Jinxed!". Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084173/combined. Retrieved 2012-03-06. 

Further reading[link]

• Bliss, Michael (2012 (not yet published)). Peckinpah Today: New Essays on the Films of Sam Peckinpah. Southern Illinois University Press. ISBN 0-8093-3106-3. 
• Simons, John L. (2011). Peckinpah's Tragic Westerns: A Critical Study. McFarland. ISBN 0-7864-6133-0. 
• Hayes, Kevin J. (2008). Sam Peckinpah: Interviews. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 1-934110-64-7. 
• Engel, Leonard (2003). Sam Peckinpah's West: New Perspectives. University of Utah Press. ISBN 0-87480-772-7. 
• Mesce, Bill, Jr. (2001). Peckinpah's Women: A Reappraisal of the Portrayal of Women in the Period Westerns of Sam Peckinpah. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 0-8108-4066-9. 
• Seydor, Paul (1999). Peckinpah: The Western Films, A Reconsideration. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0-252-06835-1. 
• Dukore, Bernard F. (1999). Sam Peckinpah's Feature Films. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0-252-06802-5. 
• Bliss, Michael (1993). Justified Lives: Morality and Narrative in the Films of Sam Peckinpah. Southern Illinois University Press. ISBN 0-8093-1823-7. 
• Evans, Max (1972). Sam Peckinpah: Master of Violence. Dakota Press. ISBN 0-88249-011-7. 

External links[link]

• Sam Peckinpah at the Internet Movie Database
• SamPeckinpah.com A discussion forum for fans of Sam Peckinpah
• Senses of Cinema: Sam Peckinpah
• Essays about Sam Peckinpah's films
• Roger Ebert review of The Wild Bunch
• Sam Peckinpah versus Michael Mann
• A Tribute to Sam Peckinpah by ConvoyTM.com
• "A Glorious High" by Pauline Kael at austinchronicle.com
• Best Sam Peckinpah Westerns from American Movie Classics

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2008)

Jerry Fielding (June 17, 1922 – February 17, 1980^[1]) was an American radio, record, film and television composer, conductor, and musical director.

Biography[link]

Childhood and education[link]

Jerry Fielding was born as Joshua Itzhak Feldman in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,^[1] to Hiram Harris Feldman and Esther Feldman. After trying the trombone, he took up the clarinet and joined the school band. He was offered a scholarship to the Carnegie Institute for Instrumentalists. After a short attendance, because of ill health he was bedridden for two years with an undiagnosed ailment. While housebound, he listened to the radio, and became a fan of the big band sound and Bernard Herrmann’s music for Orson Welles’s radio dramas.

Arranger and Band Leader[link]

Somewhat recuperated, he worked at Pittsburgh’s Stanley Theater. He worked with Max Atkins (the pit orchestra conductor at the Stanley) who taught him composition and arranging. At the age of seventeen, he left Pittsburgh to work for Alvino Rey’s swing band. His arrangement of Picnic in Purgatory in 1940 became highly popular.

This job ended when most of the band was drafted. He was too frail for service. He became vocal arranger for Lucy Ann Polk’s Town Criers and then joined Kay Kyser’s band. He became their chief arranger in 1945. He also arranged for the big bands of Claude Thornhill, Jimmie Lunceford, Tommy Dorsey, Charlie Barnet, and Les Brown.

Fieding's first chance at backing a vocalist came in 1958 for Ruth Olay's Easy Living LP on Mercury Records.^[2] In 1959, Fielding signed on with Signature Records for a series of albums, starting with a Christmas disk.^[3]

Radio work[link]

Fielding arranged for Kyser’s Kollege of Musical Knowledge radio program, and then became the band leader for several radio programs: The Jack Paar Program (1947–1949), The Hardy Family 1952-1953, as well as work on The Life of Riley, and the Sweeney and March Show. He led the band for several years of Groucho Marx’s You Bet Your Life and was also with the television version of You Bet Your Life from 1949-1952. For radio and recording purposes, he formed the Jerry Fielding Orchestra.

Blacklisted in Hollywood[link]

Due to his membership with the Hollywood Writers Mobilization (later the Independent Progressive party, groups considered by some to be communist fronts) he was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in December 1953. He took the Fifth Amendment, refusing to divulge the names of fellow members, and was then blacklisted by the Hollywood film and television studios. In Las Vegas, Nevada he led a band at the Royal Las Vegas Hotel, and he also toured for the only time with his name orchestra. He also recorded albums for Decca Records including Sweet with a Beat (released 1955) and Fielding’s Formula (1957).

Return to Hollywood[link]

Fielding's Hollywood lockout continued until 1961. In 1962, Otto Preminger selected him for the score of Advise and Consent, his first major film composition.

Television work[link]

In 1959, Fielding was assigned to direct a short-lived Betty Hutton TV series, building on his previous musical arranging and conducting work with Hutton.^[3] Fielding is well known for scoring two episodes of the first Star Trek television series: The Trouble with Tribbles and Spectre of the Gun. He also wrote the title themes for such classic TV shows as McHale's Navy, Hogan's Heroes, Run, Buddy, Run, He & She and The Bionic Woman.

Film composition[link]

While well-known for his scores for such filmmakers as Clint Eastwood, Michael Winner, and Sam Peckinpah, most of which were collaborations in traditionally masculine-themed genres like westerns and action films, Fielding's background in jazz gave him the versatility to produce such diverse works as The Nightcomers (1972), a neo-romantic musical score for acoustic orchestra (reputed to be the work of which he was most proud), to Demon Seed (1977), a startling musical work that included electronic instruments and non-tonal passages. He also did notable work with Kolchak: The Night Stalker(1974) and also The Bad News Bears (1976) of which the score is an adaptation of the principal themes of Carmen.

Personal life[link]

Fielding married twice, first to Kay Kyser band production assistant, Ann Parks, in December 1946 in Tijuana. They raised two children, Georgia (d) and Hillary who carries on the Fielding musical tradition. This marriage ended in the spring of 1963. His second marriage took place on August 6, 1963, to Camille J. Williams, a Las Vegas dancer. They had two children.

He died, at the age of 57, from a heart attack followed by congestive heart failure, while in Toronto where he was scoring the motion picture Funeral Home. He was survived by wife Camille and two daughters: Claudia and Elizabeth. He is interred in Crypt 30 at Glen Haven Memorial Park in Los Angeles.^[4]

Awards and nominations[link]

On Thursday November 12, 2009, Jerry Fielding was awarded a lifetime achievement award for his composition in "The Wild Bunch" which celebrated its 40th anniversary. It was received by his daughter Claudia Fielding.

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Gelfand, Steve. Television Theme Recordings: An Illustrated Discography, 1951-1994. Ann Arbor, MI: Popular Culture, Ink., 1994
• "Jerry Fielding, Writer of Scores for Movies; Named for 3 Oscars" New York Times, February 19, 1980, page B4.
• Redman, Nick. “Jerry Fielding” Dictionary of American Biography, Supplement 10: 1976-1980. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1995. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center, Gale, 2008.
• Terrace, Vincent. Radio Programs, 1924-1984. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1999.

External links[link]

• Jerry Fielding at the Internet Movie Database
• Jerry Fielding at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)
• Demon Seed score on compact disc
• Jerry Fielding, From the Bands to the Films - interview by Les Tomkins in 1974
• Jerry Fielding Interview - a conversation with David Raksin; Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine No.58, 1980
• Jerry Fielding Biography and LP Discography
• Film Discography from Soundtrack Collector
• Jerry Fielding at Find a Grave
• An article in french about Jerry Fielding

Fritz Kreisler
Background information
Born	(1875-02-02)February 2, 1875 Vienna, Austria
Died	January 29, 1962(1962-01-29) (aged 86) New York City, USA
Genres	Classical
Occupations	Composer, violinist
Instruments	Violin
Years active	1903–1950
Notable instruments
Violin Kreisler Guarnerius 1707 Earl of Plymouth Stradivarius 1711 Greville-Kreisler-Adams Stradivarius 1726 Kreisler Guarneri del Gesù 1730c Kreisler-Nachez Guarneri del Gesù 1732 Huberman-Kreisler Stradivarius 1733 Lord Amherst of Hackney Stradivarius 1734 Kreisler Guarneri del Gesù 1734 Mary Portman Guarneri del Gesù 1735c Hart-Kreisler Guarneri del Gesù 1737 Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù 1740c Kreisler Bergonzi 1740c Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume 1860

Friedrich "Fritz" Kreisler (February 2, 1875 – January 29, 1962) was an Austrian-born violinist and composer. One of the most famous violin masters of his or any other day, and regarded as one of the greatest violinists of all time, he was known for his sweet tone and expressive phrasing. Like many great violinists of his generation, he produced a characteristic sound which was immediately recognizable as his own. Although he derived in many respects from the Franco-Belgian school, his style is nonetheless reminiscent of the gemütlich (cozy) lifestyle of pre-war Vienna.

Biography[link]

Kreisler was born in Vienna to a Jewish father and a German mother; he was baptised at age twelve. He studied at the Vienna Conservatory and in Paris, where his teachers included Anton Bruckner, Léo Delibes, Jakob Dont, Joseph Hellmesberger, Jr., Joseph Massart, and Jules Massenet. He made his United States debut at Steinway Hall in New York City on November 10, 1888, and his first tour of the United States in 1888–1889 with Moriz Rosenthal, then returned to Austria and applied for a position in the Vienna Philharmonic. He was turned down by the concertmaster Arnold Rosé. Hearing a recording of the Rosé Quartet, it is easy to hear why – Rosé was sparing in his use of vibrato, and Kreisler would not have blended successfully with the orchestra's violin section.^{[citation needed]} As a result, he left music to study medicine. He spent a brief time in the army before returning to the violin in 1899, giving a concert with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Arthur Nikisch. It was this concert and a series of American tours from 1901 to 1903 that brought him real acclaim.

Kreisler in October 1930 with dog on board Europa travelling to New York

In 1910, Kreisler gave the premiere of Sir Edward Elgar's Violin Concerto, a work commissioned by and dedicated to him. He briefly served in the Austrian Army in World War I before being honourably discharged after he was wounded. He spent the remaining years of the war in America. He returned to Europe in 1924, living first in Berlin, then moving to France in 1938. Shortly thereafter, at the outbreak of World War II, he settled once again in the United States, becoming a naturalized citizen in 1943. He lived in that country for the rest of his life. He gave his last public concert in 1947 and broadcast performances for a few years after that.

On April 26, 1941, he was involved in the first of two traffic accidents that marked his life. Struck by a truck while crossing a street in New York, he fractured his skull, and was in a coma for over a week.^[1] Towards the end of his life, he was in another accident while traveling in an automobile, and spent his last days blind and deaf from that accident, but he "radiated a gentleness and refinement not unlike his music," according to Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen who visited him frequently during that time (Kreisler and his wife were converts to Catholicism, received into the Church by the Archbishop himself). He died in New York City in 1962 and was interred in a private mausoleum in Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx, NY.

Kreisler wrote a number of pieces for the violin, including solos for encores, such as "Liebesleid" and "Liebesfreud". Some of Kreisler's compositions were pastiches in an ostensible style of other composers, originally ascribed to earlier composers such as Gaetano Pugnani, Giuseppe Tartini, and Antonio Vivaldi. When Kreisler revealed in 1935 that they were actually by him and critics complained, Kreisler answered that critics had already deemed the compositions worthy: "The name changes, the value remains" he said. He also wrote operettas including Apple Blossoms in 1919 and Sissy in 1932, a string quartet and cadenzas, including ones for the Brahms D major violin concerto, the Paganini D major violin concerto, and the Beethoven D major violin concerto. His cadenzas for the Beethoven concerto are the ones most often employed by violinists today.

He performed and recorded his own version of the first movement of the Paganini D major violin concerto. This version is rescored and in some places reharmonised. The orchestral introduction is completely rewritten in some places. The overall effect is of a late nineteenth century work.

The mausoleum of Fritz Kreisler in Woodlawn Cemetery

Kreisler owned several antique violins by luthiers Antonio Stradivari, Pietro Guarneri, Giuseppe Guarneri, and Carlo Bergonzi, most of which eventually came to bear his name.

He also owned a Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume violin of 1860, which he often used as his second violin,^[2] and which he often loaned to the young prodigy Josef Hassid.

On recordings, Kreisler's style bears a resemblance to that of his younger contemporary Mischa Elman, with a tendency toward expansive tempi, a continuous and varied vibrato, expressive phrasing, and a melodic approach to passage-work. Kreisler makes considerable use of portamento and rubato. The two violinists' approaches are less similar in big works of the standard repertoire, such as Felix Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto, than in smaller pieces.

A trip to a Kreisler concert is recounted in Siegfried Sassoon's 1928 autobiographical novel Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man.

Kreisler's emotionally expressive and accessible manner has been contrasted with Jascha Heifetz's infallible technical precision, more emotionally detached, and with a less immediately colorful sound. It has been repeatedly observed that while Heifetz was the most conspicuously perfect violinist, Kreisler was the most beloved.^[3]

Work[link]

Compositions[link]

See: List of compositions by Fritz Kreisler

See also: "Musical Hoax"

Recordings[link]

Kreisler's work has been reasonably well represented on both LP and CD reissues. Original masters were made on RCA Victor and HMV. His final recordings were made in 1950.

• Bach Concerto for Two Violins in D minor, BWV 1043, with Efrem Zimbalist (second violin), and a string quartet. rec. January 4, 1915.
• Beethoven Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61, with Leo Blech, Berlin State Opera Orchestra. rec. December 15, 1926.
• Beethoven Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61, with John Barbirolli, London Symphony Orchestra. rec. June 16, 1936.
• Beethoven Sonata No. 8 in G major, Op. 30, No. 3, with Sergei Rachmaninoff, pF. rec. March 22, 1928.
• Beethoven Sonata No. 9 in A major, Op. 47, with Franz Rupp, pf. rec. June 17–19, 1936.
• Brahms Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77 with Leo Blech, Berlin State Opera Orchestra, rec. November 21, 1927.
• Brahms Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77 with John Barbirolli, London Symphony Orchestra, rec. June 18, 1936.
• Grieg Sonata No. 3 in C minor, Op. 45, with Sergei Rachmaninoff, pf. rec. December 14–15, 1928.
• Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64, with Leo Blech, Berlin State Opera Orchestra. rec. December 9, 1926.
• Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64, with Landon Ronald, London Symphony Orch. rec. April 8, 1935
• Mozart Violin Concerto in D major, K. 218, with Landon Ronald, London Symphony Orchestra, rec. December 1, 1924.
• Paganini Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 6 (recomposed by Kreisler), with Eugene Ormandy, Philadelphia Orchestra, rec. December 13, 1936.
• Schubert Sonata No. 5 in A major, D. 574, with Sergei Rachmaninoff, pf. rec. December 20, 1928.
• attrib. Vivaldi, RV Anh. 62 (composed by Kreisler) Violin Concerto in C major, with Donald Voorhees, RCA Victor Orchestra, rec. May 2, 1945.

Broadway[link]

• Apple Blossoms (1919) – operetta – co-composer
• Continental Varieties (1934) – revue – featured composer for "Caprice Viennois" and "La Gitana"
• Reunion in New York (1940) – revue – featured composer for "Stars in Your Eyes"
• Rhapsody (1944) – musical – composer.

Autobiography[link]

• Kreisler, Fritz (1915). Four Weeks in the Trenches. Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin. OCLC 1161448. http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/memoir/Kreisler/Kreisler.htm. 

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Fritz Kreisler

• Fritz Kreisler at Allmusic
• Fritz Kreisler at the Internet Broadway Database
• Works by Fritz Kreisler at Project Gutenberg
• Free scores by Fritz Kreisler at the International Music Score Library Project
• An assembled edition of original pieces and arrangements for violin and piano by Fritz Kreisler. From Sibley Music Library Digital Scores Collection
• Fritz Kreisler String Quartet in a minor Soundbites & discussion of work
• Discography of Fritz Kreisler on Victor Records from the Encyclopedic Discography of Victor Recordings (EDVR)
• Recordings of Fritz Kreisler on the Library of Congress jukebox

Dorothy Fields
Dorothy Fields working with Arthur Schwartz on A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1951)
Background information
Birth name	Dorothy Fields
Born	(1905-07-15)July 15, 1905
Origin	Allenhurst, New Jersey, United States
Died	March 28, 1974(1974-03-28) (aged 68) New York City, United States
Occupations	Lyricist

Dorothy Fields (July 15, 1905 – March 28, 1974) was an American librettist and lyricist.

She wrote over 400 songs for Broadway musicals and films. Along with Ann Ronell, Dana Suesse, Bernice Petkere, and Kay Swift, she was one of the first successful Tin Pan Alley and Hollywood female songwriters.

Biography[link]

Fields was born in Allenhurst, New Jersey,^[1] and grew up in New York City.

Her father, Lew Fields, an immigrant from Poland, was a vaudeville comedian and later became a Broadway producer. Her career as a professional songwriter took off in 1928, when Jimmy McHugh, who had seen some of her early work, invited her to provide some lyrics for him for Blackbirds of 1928. Fields and McHugh teamed up until 1935. Songs from this period include "I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby", "Exactly Like You", and "On the Sunny Side of the Street."

In the mid-1930s, Fields started to write lyrics for films and collaborated with other composers, including Jerome Kern. With Kern, she worked on the movie version of Roberta, and also on their greatest success, Swing Time. The song "The Way You Look Tonight" earned the Fields/Kern team an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1936.

Fields returned to New York and worked again on Broadway shows, but now as a librettist, first with Arthur Schwartz on Stars In Your Eyes. (They re-teamed in 1951 for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.) In the 1940s, she teamed up with her brother Herbert Fields, with whom she wrote the books for three Cole Porter shows, Let's Face It!, Something for the Boys, and Mexican Hayride. Together, they wrote the book for Annie Get Your Gun, a musical inspired by the life of Annie Oakley. They intended for Jerome Kern to write the music, but when he died, Irving Berlin was brought in. The show was a success, and ran for 1,147 performances.

In the 1950s, her biggest success was the show Redhead (1959), which won five Tony Awards, including Best Musical. When she started collaborating with Cy Coleman in the 1960s, her career took a new turn. Their first work together was Sweet Charity. Her last hit was from their second collaboration in 1973, Seesaw. Its signature song was "It's Not Where You Start, It's Where You Finish". Fields died of a stroke the next year at the age of 68.

Fields was the sister of writers Herbert and Joseph.

Trivia[link]

Thirty-five years after her death, Barack Obama, in his inauguration speech as 44th President of the United States on January 20, 2009, echoed lyrics by Fields when he said, "Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America".^[2] This alludes to the song "Pick Yourself Up" from the 1936 film Swing Time, for which Jerome Kern had written the music, in which Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire sang Fields's words "Pick yourself up; dust yourself off; start all over again".^[3]

References[link]

External links[link]

Biography portal

• Dorothy Fields at the Internet Movie Database
• Dorothy Fields at Internet Broadway Database
• Dorothy Fields at the Songwriters Hall of Fame
• Dorothy Fields at Find a Grave