Movies: “Major Dundee”

Mar. 15, 1965 - Opening today is “Major Dundee,” a Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring Charlton Heston, Richard Harris, Jim Hutton, and James Coburn. 

Written by Harry Julian Fink, the film is about a Union cavalry officer (Heston) who leads a contentious troop of Army regulars, Confederate prisoners, and Indian scouts on an expedition into Mexico during the Civil War to destroy a band of Apaches who have been raiding U.S. bases and settlements in the New Mexico territory. “Major Dundee” was filmed in various locations in Mexico. 

The production of the movie was very troubled. Peckinpah was often intoxicated on the set, and was reportedly so abusive towards the cast that Heston had to threaten him with a cavalry saber in order to calm him down. The actor even charged Peckinpah on horseback at one point, leading the director to panic and order the camera crane he was working on to be raised fast.

Peckinpah also fired a large number of crew members for what were reportedly trivial reasons throughout the shoot. Columbia studio executives feared that the project was out of control and that Peckinpah was too unstable to finish the picture, so they cut the shooting schedule of the film by several weeks.

According to some sources, Peckinpah’s original cut was 4 hours, 38 minutes. This was cut down to a finished product 1 hour, 23 minutes.

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