The Wild Bunch (1969)

Taglines: They came too late and stayed too long.

The Wild Bunch movie storyline. After a botched robbery attempt in Texas, Pike Bishop and his gang head south across the Rio Grande and into Mexico. They are being pursued by Deke Thornton and his men, made up of bounty hunters. They had been hired by the railroad to stop Bishop and his gang from robbing the rail depot and now have 30 days to track them down and kill them.

Bishop and his men plan to spend only a short time in Mexico and then cross back into Texas to continue plying their trade. Their stay is lengthened however when they meet a violent Mexican general who wants them to rob a U.S. train carrying arms. They do so, but it leads to a violent and bloody final confrontation.

The Wild Bunch is a 1969 American revisionist Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring William Holden, Robert Ryan, Ernest Borgnine, Edmond O’Brien, Ben Johnson and Warren Oates. The plot concerns an aging outlaw gang on the Mexico–United States border trying to adapt to the changing modern world of 1913. The film was controversial because of its graphic violence and its portrayal of crude men attempting to survive by any available means.[2]

The screenplay was co-written by Peckinpah, Walon Green, and Roy N. Sickner. The Wild Bunch was filmed in Technicolor and Panavision, in Mexico, notably at the Hacienda Ciénaga del Carmen, deep in the desert between Torreón and Saltillo, Coahuila, and on the Rio Nazas.

The Wild Bunch is noted for intricate, multi-angle, quick-cut editing using normal and slow motion images, a revolutionary cinema technique in 1969. The writing of Green, Peckinpah, and Roy N. Sickner was nominated for a best screenplay Oscar, and the music by Jerry Fielding was nominated for Best Original Score. Additionally, Peckinpah was nominated for an Outstanding Directorial Achievement award by the Directors Guild of America, and cinematographer Lucien Ballard won the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Cinematography.

Directed by: Sam Peckinpah
Starring: William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Edmond O’Brien, Warren Oates, Jaime Sánchez, Ben Johnson, Emilio Fernández, Strother Martin, Albert Dekker, Dub Taylor
Screenplay by: Walon Green, Sam Peckinpah
Cinematography by: Lucien Ballard
Film Editing by: Louis Lombardo
Costume Design by: James R. Silke
Art Direction by: Edward Carrere
Music by: Jerry Fielding
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures, Seven Arts
Release Date: June 18, 1969