Sam Peckinpah, a Revolution in Hollywood, and the Making of a Legendary Film
by W. K. Stratton
Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Feb 2019
352 pages
Genre: History, Current Affairs and Religion
Publication Information
For the fiftieth anniversary of the film, W.K. Stratton's definitive history of the making of The Wild Bunch, named one of the greatest Westerns of all time by the American Film Institute.
Sam Peckinpah's film The Wild Bunch is the story of a gang of outlaws who are one big steal from retirement. When their attempted train robbery goes awry, the gang flees to Mexico and falls in with a brutal general of the Mexican Revolution, who offers them the job of a lifetime. Conceived by a stuntman, directed by a blacklisted director, and shot in the sand and heat of the Mexican desert, the movie seemed doomed. Instead, it became an instant classic with a dark, violent take on the Western movie tradition.
In The Wild Bunch, W.K. Stratton tells the fascinating history of the making of the movie and documents for the first time the extraordinary contribution of Mexican and Mexican-American actors and crew members to the movie's success. Shaped by infamous director Sam Peckinpah, and starring such visionary actors as William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Edmond O'Brien, and Robert Ryan, the movie was also the product of an industry and a nation in transition. By 1968, when the movie was filmed, the studio system that had perpetuated the myth of the valiant cowboy in movies like The Searchers had collapsed, and America was riled by Vietnam, race riots, and assassinations. The Wild Bunch spoke to America in its moment, when war and senseless violence seemed to define both domestic and international life.
The Wild Bunch is an authoritative history of the making of a movie and the era behind it.
"Starred Review. Stratton does a fine job of putting the film in its historical context ... The Wild Bunch is a valuable addition to the literature of American film history and will be greeted by Wild Bunch devotees with adoration." - Booklist
"Starred Review. What's most striking here is the depth of Stratton's research, with attention given to every aspect of, and player in, the film. This engaging, well-researched book belongs in every library and in the hands of every student of cinema." - Library Journal
"Starred Review. Essential reading for fans of the epochal (and reportedly soon to be remade) movie as well as movie-history and Western buffs generally." - Kirkus
"Stratton's thorough research yields a fascinating perspective on how Peckinpah created a western of unparalleled realism and intensity." - Publishers Weekly
"Sam Peckinpah was a drunk, a brawler, and a visionary, a cinematic Homer whose epic poem, The Wild Bunch, is one of our greatest Westerns and an audacious milestone in New Hollywood's brief ascendancy. W.K. Stratton captures the man, his achievement and the turbulent era in which it was made with solid judgments, vivid prose and a deep commitment to discovering the truth. He makes clear that Peckinpah's masterpiece was not just a bridge from classical Westerns to post-modern ones, but a deep, personal meditation on violence, greed, masculinity, and imperial illusions." - Glenn Frankel, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of High Noon
"Fifty years after its release, Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch remains as convulsive, exhilarating, and upsetting as ever. W.K. Stratton's act of passionate advocacy scrupulously records the battles that went into its making, and the battles Peckinpah's admirers have been fighting ever since." - Charles Taylor, author of Opening Wednesday at a Theater or Drive-In Near You
"W.K. Stratton's The Wild Bunch is the best kind of book about movies, rich in anecdotes that inform the miracle of how the movie got made and what ended up on screen. Sam Peckinpah is humanized without being softened, his demons and drive revealed to be those of an artist trying to make art in a business that doesn't care. I loved this book. It's a must read for fans of the Western and Peckinpah." - Ron Shelton, Academy Award-nominated screenwriter and director of Bull Durham, White Men Can't Jump, Cobb, Tin Cup, and other movies.
"W.K. Stratton provides many fresh perspectives on the [The Wild Bunch] and its maker. The passages on the historical events of the Mexican Revolution and the figures who waged that war provide insights into Peckinpah's masterpiece. For this we owe a debt to Mr. Stratton." - David Weddle, author of If They Move...Kill 'Em!: The Life and Times of Sam Peckinpah
"Stratton's epic book is almost as mythic as the film it chronicles. It's much deeper than movie criticism. It revisits Mexican history, the history of the Western film, the biography of San Peckinpah, and the astounding stories of that wild bunch of a cast and crew. I've been waiting for this book since 1969." - Luís Alberto Urrea, author of The House Of Broken Angels
"W.K. Stratton's absolutely authoritative chronicle about the making of The Wild Bunch was, for me, a kind of long-delayed psychoanalysis -a way to understand the images I had seen on a movie screen half a century ago and to sort out why they had left me so horrified and thrilled and changed me. A movie that can cast that kind of lifelong spell on its audience is a movie that deserves a great book, and now it has one." - Stephen Harrigan, award-winning author of A Friend Of Mr. Lincoln, Remember Ben Clayton, and The Gates Of The Alamo
This information about The Wild Bunch was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
W.K. Stratton is the author of five books of nonfiction and three of poetry. He has written for Sports Illustrated, Outside, GQ, and Texas Monthly, and was named a Fellow of the Texas Institute of Letters in 2017. He is a longtime resident of Austin, Texas.
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