Of all the famous movies most in need of a restoration that will likely never be possible (due to the destruction of original film elements), Sam Peckinpah's western Major Dundee (1965) is right up there with the likes of Greed (1924) and The Magnificent Ambersons (1942). Film historian Jim Kitses has called Major Dundee "one of Hollywood's great broken monuments." Peckinpah himself called his original version "possibly the best film I ever made in my life." On the flip side, he described the experience of having the picture taken out of his hands, badly edited down, and terribly scored "one of the most painful things that ever happened in my life...They left out what it's about."

Major Dundee is a Civil War-era western whose story and production have already been recounted on tcm.com. The somewhat restored and extended version produced in 2005, however, requires a little more backstory. Two days before the film's shoot began in February 1964, Columbia Pictures underwent a corporate shake-up and Major Dundee's shooting schedule and budget were slashed. Peckinpah was told to adjust the scope of his film to fit the lower parameters, but he was so obsessed with making the film the way he had originally planned - on the scale of Lawrence of Arabia (1962) - that he just kept on doing so. The new studio brass, recounted J. Hoberman in The New York Times, "feared that they had inherited a runaway production with a lunatic at the helm."

After a contentious shoot, the picture wrapped 15 days late and $1.5 million over budget. Peckinpah assembled a 164-minute (some accounts say 161-minute) version and was fired off the show by producer Jerry Bresler, who abhorred Peckinpah's use of violence in the film. Bresler oversaw the deletion of about 30 minutes of footage and the addition of a score by Daniele Amfitheatrof, which Peckinpah hated. Then, after a bad preview screening, the studio cut 12 more minutes, bringing the running time to 124 minutes. In all, the deletions included an opening massacre, major character development, and bits and pieces throughout that affected the story's overall coherence.

In 2005, Sony Pictures found the 12 minutes and restored them, meaning that Major Dundee now exists in the 136-minute version after it was first cut by Bresler. Peckinpah's original version (which itself was never really complete) will likely remain lost forever.

The other big difference, however, is that Sony also commissioned a brand-new score for the film, by Christopher Caliendo. That might seem like sacrilege, but in this case, it was a well-taken choice. Most film enthusiasts agree with Peckinpah that the original score was overly exuberant and occasionally ridiculous. Further, since the director had nothing to do with the original, the notion of a new score done in the style of a 1960s western is really quite an intriguing idea - in this one case alone. Besides a better, more appropriate score, there's actually less music overall in the new version, which allows dramatic scenes to play out more effectively but which also exposes some underlying sound problems with the film; it was evidently never properly mixed or dubbed, and as a result, a few scenes sound altogether too quiet in their backgrounds.

As for the reinserted footage, it comprises three new, complete scenes which critic Todd McCarthy has described as "the key introduction of Richard Harris' character..., the elaboration of Dundee's fort as a jail, and a drunken weekend of Dundee's that climaxes with the lady he has romanced discovering him with a half-naked Mexican whore. There are also numerous, much shorter insertions throughout, some of which make the film considerably more bloody." Dundee's recovery from a leg wound is expanded, for instance, as is a knife fight between James Coburn and the Indian scout.

Glenn Erickson, an expert on the film and its troubled production background, has written: "Although only 12 out of a possible 30 or 40 minutes have been restored, the average audience now has a chance to understand the show on a first viewing, and appreciate the scope of its story. The old cut had glaring continuity problems, starting with an awkward beginning that omitted the introduction of a main character and didn't properly establish the setting of Fort Brenlin as a Union stockade for Confederate prisoners. Big pieces seemed to be missing from the second half of the show, which barely maintained a coherent storyline."

In the end, writes Erickson, "A confusing movie with poor continuity is now an intriguing movie... a more complete assembly of a larger work."

Director: Sam Peckinpah
Producer: Jerry Bresler
Screenplay: Harry Julian Fink, Oscar Saul, Sam Peckinpah
Cinematography: Sam Leavitt
Editing: William A. Lyon, Don Starling, Howard Kunin
Production Design: Alfred Ybarra
Original Music: Daniele Amfitheatrof
Cast: Charlton Heston (Major Dundee), Richard Harris (Capt. Tyreen), Jim Hutton (Lt. Graham), James Coburn (Samuel Potts), Senta Berger (Teresa Santiago), Warren Oates (O.W. Hadley), Michael Anderson, Jr. (Tim Ryan), Mario Adorf (Sergeant Gomez), Brock Peters (Aesop), Slim Pickens (Wiley), Ben Johnson (Sergeant Chillum), R.G. Armstrong (Reverend Dahlstrom), L.Q. Jones (Arthur Hadley), Dub Taylor (Benjamin Priam).
C-136m.

by Jeremy Arnold