Juramento de Vingança

"Major Dundee" is a Western hard to classify, in part because of some deliberate ambiguity in vision characteristic of director Sam Peckinpah's later work, in part from trying to force too much into too small a space. The result is a picture deeply flawed though never uninteresting.

The concept is terrific, anyway: In the waning days of the American Civil War, an Apache raiding party attacks a Union force and makes off with three small boys. Chasing them, with a mixture of Union, captured Confederate, and irregular civilian forces, is one Major Amos Dundee (Charlton Heston), a reckless albeit humane seeker of the same kind of glory that led George Custer to Little Bighorn a decade hence.

It's a big role tailor-made for Heston, who fills the part in his singular ham-on-wry way, going for the big moment even when delivering the smallest of lines, doing so with the kind of nuance and wit that carries you along for the ride. Heston imitators like Phil Hartman must have had a field day watching as Heston, stripped to his undershirt but still wearing a manly neckerchief, tells his head scout (James Coburn): "Don't get yourself killed. That would inconvenience me."

Also terrific is Richard Harris as the leader of the captured Confederates, Tyreen, a fellow more noble than Dundee but nursing an even more bloated sense of wounded pride. Harris was another blowhard actor who overdid it a lot but nails it here. Between Dundee and Tyreen is much of the film's central conflict. To Peckinpah's credit the early scenes showcasing this tension are every bit as tense and exciting as the action sequences later on.

Peckinpah even gets great service from such disparate elements as comic actor Jim Hutton (who doesn't seem to belong in a Peckinpah picture, yet makes it work here as a befuddled lieutenant with able help from Heston), location shooting in Mexico, and skysets that sometimes call to mind David Lean's work on "Lawrence Of Arabia."

Peckinpah was trying to make the same kind of epic as "Lawrence," vast in scope and profound in message. Here "Dundee" gets into serious trouble. As Dundee's band rides on, the script ambles off into strange directions, shoehorning a romance and a drinking binge for Dundee that pulls us away from the central story even as that mutates into twin conflicts with the Apaches and the French, all resolved in a rushed and unsatisfying fashion. Minor characters, played by name talents like Dub Taylor and Slim Pickens, are established as if they herald things to come, only to completely disappear instead. The theme music is as ill-fitting as Coburn's phony beard.

By all accounts Peckinpah eventually lost interest in "Major Dundee," and the result is a film that never finds its way. But it is never dull, and often arresting, especially as it gives Heston one of his broadest acting canvases. Dundee would be unsympathetic in almost anyone else's hands, but Heston gives him a humanity that draws him closer, and makes his foibles more real to us, even to some degree shared, as we watch every other character in the film round on him sooner or later and find ourselves pulling for Dundee even when he's wrong.

However lacking in discipline "Dundee" is, you can watch it over and over and come away entertained and with a different feeling each time, which shows something was working. A problem picture, yes, but one with a lot of heart, soul, and vision, a failed experiment but one worth experiencing all the same.

The problems behind the scenes of this Civil War-era western (director vs producer over final cut, director's excesses and delays causing budget issues) are legendary. Thankfully, though the finished product is far from perfect, enough good things remain to make the film watchable and entertaining. Heston plays the square-jawed title character, an action-loving soldier who resents being put in charge of a prison camp. When a local settlement is slaughtered by Apaches, he must set out to rescue three captured boys but finds that he can't do it alone and must rely on a ragtag assortment of helpers. One of the few "real" officers he gets is Hutton as a rather bumbling, by-the-numbers lieutenant. He fills out his party with several Confederate prisoners, notably Harris as an embittered Captain, one-armed scout Coburn, several Negro Union soldiers led by Peters and various criminals and degenerates including Taylor and Pickens. Heston and Harris forge a very uneasy alliance as they head south into Mexico to retrieve the captives. They stumble onto the remains of a village in which curvy Berger is tending to the sick and dying. Needless to say, she sparks the interest of both Heston and Harris, only adding to their enmity. Eventually, the motley band of soldiers finds itself hunting Apaches while being hunted by French soldiers who are occupying Mexico. This escalates into an almost impossible situation when Heston's group reaches a river with the enemy both in front of and behind him. All the elements for a grand-scale, epic story are in place, but it falls short of excellence because of the problems in the editing room. Heston is great as the damaged, but heroic Major. Harris, though oddly cast and sporting that goofy blue eyeshadow he favored in the 60's, is also strong and the two make great adversaries. Coburn's role is smaller, but he gives it impact. Berger's role epitomizes the words decorative and obligatory, but she is luminous, especially when she isn't continuously yanking on her shawl (which happens VERY often!) The cast is chock full of excellent actors who enhanced many western films and television series. Oates has a nice turn as a Confederate who tests Heston's mettle (though he is referred to many times as a boy and was 37 years old!) Anderson is very endearing as a young bugler who becomes a man during the conflict. (Palacios, who plays his love interest, married director Peckinpah after this.) The primary problems seem to come in the mid to late section of the film when many things happen to the characters in swift succession and it's hard to completely gather their motivations and the timing of the actions. This section was clearly cut, haphazardly, and it weakens the narrative and the pace of the film. (Note Heston's sudden beard which appears out of nowhere.) Also, some of the battle sequences are edited so choppily that it's difficult to see who's being killed off! One must just assume, from whoever's left at the end, that the rest of the characters didn't make it. Still, the action scenes in the film are excitingly staged and the actors go a long way in putting the story across. Though it is rarely shown in widescreen, that format is a must for fully appreciating the camera-work and composition of the film. Heston, who admired (but tangled mightily with) Peckinpah, wound up making no money for his work as he put up his salary to help defray the cost overruns.

In 1864, the Apache warriors led by Sierra Charriba slaughter a Union troop of soldiers and a family of settlers. They abduct their three sons and flee to Mexico. Major Amos Charles Dundee (Charlton Heston), who was disgraced at the Battle of Gettysburg and sent to a POW outpost in New Mexico, decides to hunt down Sierra Charriba and his Apache seeking for glory. He recruits an army of Confederate prisoners-of-war, black soldiers, a reverend that knows the boys and outcast people (thieves, drunken etc.) and chases the Apache group seeking also revenge, crossing illegally the border with Mexico.

The restored version of "Major Dundee" is a good film directed by Sam Peckinpah. The story of revenge and seeking glory by a stubborn officer has great moments, mainly the constant friction between Union and Confederate soldiers that are forced to team-up. The lack of chemistry between Charlton Heston and Senta Berger in an unnecessary romance could have been edited. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Juramento de Vingança" ("Vengeance Oath")

The first half of "Major Dundee" is gripping and fascinating. The problem is that the second half doesn't deliver on the build-up. The whole point is supposed to be the pursuit of the Apache, yet the film spends more time getting sidetracked from all this, in particular the scenes of Dundee's injury and descent into drunkenness (and did we really need Senta Berger, since her role is really pointless, despite the visual scenery she adds?) and when the Apache is found, it happens too abruptly. Fascinating supporting characters disappear or are downplayed too much in the second half, and the ending is too abrupt as well. Since the expedition ends up returning after the surrender of Lee and the end of the War, I was surprised there was no scene of Dundee returning to the Fort and offering a final reflection on Tyreen. The film literally cried out for it.

Charlton Heston felt that Dundee should have been more about the issues of the Civil War and had they stuck to this approach all through the film we might have had a great film instead of a merely good one.

Major Dundee (1965) was a test of wills between Sam Peckinpah and the studio heads, it was also a proto-type for his true master piece The Wild Bunch. The movie seems to be edited by foreign hands and out of place music has been added to the soundtrack. The most annoying thing about this film (besides the bad editing and music) is the narration, it seems so out of place.

Major Dundee is about a drunken battle harden officer who must lead a rag tag bunch of p.o.w.s, prisoners and calvary men across the southwestern desert and into Mexico searching for some "wild Indians". As they travel further and further across the arid plains, the people within the troop discover death, disease and horror along the way. They also learn something about themselves.

What could have been an epic western drenched in booze and blood was sloppily edited so it theaters could fit in more viewings and the content shocked the movie board. This led to Sam Peckinpah to become disillusioned with Hollywood and drift in and out of television before he got another chance at making another film within the studio system.

Recommended for Sam Peckinpah fans, others need not apply.