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Andrew Stevens pays loving but not hagiographic tribute to his late mother, famed actress Stella Stevens, in his documentary recently showcased at the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival. The film convincingly makes the case that its subject, best known for her performances in such pictures as The Poseidon Adventure and The Nutty Professor, is severely underrated, both as an actress and social activist. Stella Stevens: The Last Starlet aims to rectify that perception and, thanks to numerous clips of her work and effusive commentary by the likes of Quentin Tarantino and Vivica A. Fox, it succeeds beautifully.

The filmmaker (who appears frequently) admits that his relationship with his mother was rocky, to say the least, in the early years. Born in Yazoo City, Mississippi, Stevens got married at age 16 and had Andrew, her first and only child, six months later. The marriage soon dissolved, and when she moved to Hollywood to pursue an acting career,...

Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch is vastly popular and controversial, but despite being a legendary director's most famous film, it was not his favorite of his movies. The Ballad of Cable Hogue was Sam Peckinpah's favorite, and while it has comedic elements, it is dark and was plagued by controversy. Sam Peckinpah is a complex figure whom some love and others despise, but one way or another, his films made a huge impact on the art form, and The Ballad of Cable Hogue is a special one in his filmography.

Sam Peckinpah, firebrand director of some of the most loved and the most hated Western films ever made, once famously said, "There is a great streak of violence in every human being. If it is not channeled and understood, it will break out in war or in madness." In the case of Peckinpah himself, it's no secret that that...

Controversial yet successful, Straw Dogs by Sam Peckinpah was a hit plagued by graphic violence and censorship but still a critical darling. Jerry Fielding's score and Dustin Hoffman's performance elevated the film, making it one of Peckinpah's finest works that endures today. While the original Straw Dogs is unavailable for streaming, physical copies exist with extra content, and a 2011 remake provides a modern take.

A psychological thriller, Straw Dogs (1971) was directed by Sam Peckinpah from a script he co-wrote alongside David Zelag Goodman. They adapted the story from a 1969 novel titled The Siege of Trencher's Farm, which was, in turn, written by Gordon M. Williams. Both cover the same plot, albeit with some exceptions here and there. For instance, there are different names for their respective lead characters.

In the film, Dustin Hoffman stars as David Sumner, a scholar of applied mathematics another difference from the book, as his original counterpart teaches English.

Though his filmmaking career only lasted a couple of decades, Sam Peckinpah has cemented himself as one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. He's a director who bridged the Golden Age of Hollywood with the American New Wave (or New Hollywood) movement of the late '60s and '70s, paving the way for more violent, realistic, and dark films. Famous for The Wild Bunch and Straw Dogs, Peckinpah was transforming what a studio film could be. When Scorsese was making his debut film Mean Streets in 1973, it cost $650,000. The same year, Peckinpah made Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid for $4.6 million. Mean Streets was a success that launched Scorsese's career. Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid was a failure that nearly killed Peckinpah's.

But time has shown that this wasn't the director's fault. In fact, Peckinpah pushed to get his name off of the film before it was released,...

Gordon T. Dawson, known for his work on television series “Walker, Texas Ranger” and “Bret Maverick,” and his long association with Sam Peckinpah, has died. He was 84.

Dawson died in hospice in West Hills on March 6 due to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

His work in the industry spanned many facets, from child actor and wardrobe supervisor to script writer and producer. In his last television series, “Walker, Texas Ranger” starring Chuck Norris, Dawson worked as a writer, supervising producer and co-executive producer, writing 32 of the series episodes.

Dawson joined the Army at age 17, serving as a marksman and sharpshooter. Post-service, he became a fireman before landing a job at Columbia Pictures where he spent three months in the studio basement aging soldier uniforms for the film “Major Dundee.” When director Sam Peckinpah noticed that some of the extras did not have properly-aged uniforms, he shut down production and called Dawson...

Gordon T. Dawson, a costume designer-turned-screenwriter who worked on multiple movies with Sam Peckinpah and wrote on TV hits The Rockford Files and Walker, Texas Ranger among other films and series, died March 6 of pulmonary disease in West Hills, CA, his family announced. He was 84.

Related Story Hollywood & Media Deaths In 2023: Photo Gallery & Obituaries Related Story Stuart Margolin Dies: 'The Rockford Files' Two-Time Emmy Winner Was 82 Related Story Clarence Gilyard Jr Dies: 'Walker, Texas Ranger,' 'Matlock' & 'Die Hard' Actor Was 66

Dawson had worked as a fireman and had moved to working with costumes when Peckinpah used him to age costumes for his 1965 film Major Dundee. He would reteam with the director as wardrobe supervisor on 1969’s The Wild Bunch, then as associate producer (and uncredited writer) on 1970’s The Ballad of Cable Hogue and 1972’s The Getaway, and co-writer with Peckinpah on 1974’s...

Gordon T. Dawson, who parlayed a stint as a costumer for Sam Peckinpah into a career as a writer and producer with credits including The Ballad of Cable Hogue, The Rockford Files, Bret Maverick and Walker, Texas Ranger, has died. He was 84.

Dawson died March 6 in West Hills Hospital of complications from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, his family announced.

A former firefighter, Dawson spent three months in a Columbia Pictures basement using a blowtorch, paraffin and glue to age the principal soldier uniforms for the Peckinpah-directed Major Dundee (1965). When the extras’ costumes did not match the ones Dawson had prepared, Peckinpah shut down production on the first day of shooting.

Dawson was summoned to the set in Mexico to age the other costumes, noting in the 1993 documentary Sam Peckinpah: Man of Iron that he was “terrified” to meet the intimidating director. He needn’t have worried, though; Dawson fixed the other costumes,...

Actress Stella Stevens, noted for the Jerry Lewis comedy feature "The Nutty Professor" (1963) and director Sam Peckinpah's "The Ballad of Cable Hogue" (1970) has died:

Stevens also appeared in the Elvis Presley musical feature "Girls! Girls! Girls!" (1962), "The Poseidon Adventure" (1972) and TV series "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", "Bonanza" (1960), "The Love Boat", "Hart to Hart" (1979), "Newhart" (1983), "Murder, She Wrote" (1985),"Magnum, P.I." (1986), "Highlander: The Series" (1995) and "Wonder Woman" (1975).

Stevens also worked as a film producer, director, writer, as well as appearing in three "Playboy" magazine pictorials.

Click the images to enlarge...

Stella Stevens, who starred in the 1972 disaster film “Poseidon Adventure” and in films opposite Elvis Presley, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, died Friday in Los Angeles at the age of 84.

Her son, actor/producer Andrew Stevens, confirmed her passing to TheWrap via email. “I was notified early this morning,” Stevens said. “Stella had been in hospice for quite some time with stage seven Alzheimer’s.”

She is perhaps best known for her role as one of the victims of an ocean liner disaster in Irwin Allen’s epic “Poseidon Adventure.” She played a former prostitute married to Ernest Borgnine’s police detective, who, along with Gene Hackman and Shelley Winters, try to make it to the top of the overturned ship.

Stevens also starred with Elvis Presley in the 1962 musical “Girls! Girls! Girls!,” Jerry Lewis in 1963’s “The Nutty Professor,” and Dean Martin in the 1966 spy spoof “The Silencers.” In...

Stella Stevens, the screen siren of the 1960s who brought sweet sexiness to such films as The Nutty Professor, Too Late Blues and The Ballad of Cable Hogue, has died. She was 84.

Stevens died Friday in Los Angeles, her son, actor-producer-director Andrew Stevens, told The Hollywood Reporter. “She had been in hospice for quite some time with Stage 7 Alzheimer’s,” he said.

Shining brightest in light comedies, the blond, blue-eyed actress appeared as a shy beauty contestant from Montana in Vincente Minnelli’s The Courtship of Eddie’s Father (1963), portrayed a headstrong nun in Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows! (1968) opposite Rosalind Russell and frolicked with the fun-loving Dean Martin in two films: the Matt Helm spy spoof The Silencers (1966) and How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life (1968).

Stevens also starred opposite Elvis Presley in Girls! Girls! Girls! (1962), a movie she said she detested.

Her signature role, however, came in The Nutty Professor (1963), produced,...

Stella Stevens, who starred with Elvis Presley in “Girls! Girls! Girls!” and with Jerry Lewis in “The Nutty Professor” as well as in disaster film “The Poseidon Adventure,” died Friday in Los Angeles. Her son, Andrew Stevens, said she had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. She was 84.

“Girls! Girls! Girls!” (1962) was one of the more generic Elvis films— there wasn’t all that much for Stevens to do — but Variety was keen on her performance in 1963’s “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father,” starring Glenn Ford and Shirley Jones in the story of a widower who’s romantically interested in one woman while his son wants him to marry another: “Stella Stevens comes on like gangbusters in her enactment of a brainy but inhibited doll from Montana. It’s a sizzling comedy performance of a kook.”

In “The Nutty Professor” (1963) or any other Jerry Lewis film, one might expect the...

Stella Stevens, the actress best known for her roles in The Nutty Professor and The Poseidon Adventure and starring opposite Elvis Presley in Girls! Girls! Girls!, died today in Los Angeles after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease. She was 84.

Stevens’ passing was confirmed to Deadline by her son, actor-producer Andrew Stevens, and her longtime friend John O’Brien.

Related Story Hollywood & Media Deaths In 2023: Photo Gallery & Obituaries Related Story How To Watch Lisa Marie Presley's Graceland Memorial Service Online Related Story Lisa Marie Presley Dies: Singer, Songwriter, Daughter Of Elvis Was 54 Elvis Presley and Stevens in ‘Girls! Girls! Girls!’, 1962

A former Playboy centerfold from January 1960, Stevens was modeling in her hometown of Memphis when she was discovered and given a screen test by 20th Century Fox. She wound up under contract with Paramount and then Columbia through the ’60s, starring opposite such big names as Presley in Girls!

David Warner, one of the most versatile character actors of the past 60 years, is dead at 80. The British performer could play sickly sweet, side-splitting comedy, or dastardly villain with the skill that made almost every movie he was in better. And there were a lot of them: he appeared in over 220.

Cinephiles might first recognize him for his work with Sam Peckinpah, as the horny preacher who “comforts” widows in “The Ballad of Cable Hogue,” as the drunken reprobate Henry Niles in “Straw Dogs”, and as a Nazi in “Cross of Iron.” He also has an astonishing scene in Richard Donner’s “The Omen,” in which he’s decapitated by a falling piece of sheet glass — the first time a beheading was conveyed so graphically in a Hollywood studio film.

But to more casual moviegoers all around the world he will forever be Billy Zane’s gunsel Lovejoy in “Titanic.

David Warner, best known for his roles in Titanic and The Omen, has died.

He was 80.

Warner’s death was revealed by his family in a statement to the BBC.

The statement revealed the actor had been suffering from a cancer-related illness.

“Over the past 18 months he approached his diagnosis with a characteristic grace and dignity,” the statement read.

“He will be missed hugely by us, his family and friends, and remembered as a kind-hearted, generous and compassionate man, partner and father, whose legacy of extraordinary work has touched the lives of so many over the years,” it continued.

“We are heartbroken.”

Warner, who was born July 29, 1941, in Manchester, England, made his U.S. film debut in 197- as Joshua Duncan Sloan in The Ballad of Cable Hogue.

He went on to appear in movies such as Straw Dogs, Cross of Iron, The Omen, The Man With Two Brains, Tron,...

Click here to read the full article.

David Warner, the classically trained British actor renowned for his performances as polished villains in Time After Time, Time Bandits, Tron, Titanic and so much more, has died. He was 80.

Warner died Sunday at Denville Hall, a nursing home in London for those in the entertainment industry, his family told the BBC.

“Over the past 18 months he approached his diagnosis with a characteristic grace and dignity,” they said. “He will be missed hugely by us, his family and friends, and remembered as a kind-hearted, generous and compassionate man, partner and father whose legacy of extraordinary work has touched the lives of so many over the years. We are heartbroken.”

In the first film he made in the U.S., Warner portrayed the itinerant preacher Joshua Duncan Sloane in Sam Peckinpah’s The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970), and the filmmaker brought him back to...

David Warner, the English actor who gave memorable performances on the big screen, in a key role in “The Omen,” and as villains in “Time After Time,” “Time Bandits” and “Tron,” has died. He was 80.

The actor died of a cancer-related illness on Sunday in London, his family told the BBC. “Over the past 18 months he approached his diagnosis with a characteristic grace and dignity,” his family said in a statement shared with the public broadcaster.

“He will be missed hugely by us, his family and friends, and remembered as a kind-hearted, generous and compassionate man, partner and father, whose legacy of extraordinary work has touched the lives of so many over the years. We are heartbroken,” the statement continued.

Warner was Emmy-nominated for playing Reinhard Heydrich, a Nazi official who was a key architect of the Final Solution, in the landmark 1978 miniseries “Holocaust,” and won an Emmy for playing...

The great director discusses some of his favorite movies with host Josh Olson.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

The Alzheimer Case a.k.a. Memory of a Killer (2003)

Memory (Tbd)

The Protégé (2021)

You Only Live Twice (1967)

Cast A Deadly Spell (1991)

The Mask Of Zorro (1998)

GoldenEye (1995)

Casino Royale (2006)

Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969)

Slap Shot (1977) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary

Salt (2010)

Atomic Blonde (2017) – Brian Trenchard-Smith’s trailer commentary, Randy Fuller’s wine pairing

The Manchurian Candidate (1962) – John Landis’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review, Randy Fuller’s wine pairing

The Manchurian Candidate (2004)

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

The Bridge On The River Kwai (1957) – John Landis’s trailer commentary

Oliver Twist (1948)

Dr. No (1962) – Brian Trenchard-Smith’s trailer commentary

The Guns Of Navarone (1962)

The Dirty Dozen (1967) – Ed Neumeier’s trailer commentary

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) – John Landis’s trailer commentary, Dennis Cozzalio’s 70mm reissue review

The Spy Who Loved Me...

The Notebook Primer introduces readers to some of the most important figures, films, genres, and movements in film history.The success of his latest release, Wife of a Spy (2020), has once again positioned Kiyoshi Kurosawa atop the list of international cinema's most celebrated filmmakers. Continuing what has been an exceptional festival circuit reign in recent years, the Kobe-born director's World War II drama was awarded the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival, and it is, as Notebook’s Aaron E. Hunt observes, an emblematic feature from Kurosawa, retaining several of the archetypes and tropes he has so often embraced. Indeed, a consistency in distinct systems of narrative and audiovisual expression has been central to Kurosawa's cinema, manifest in films spanning multiple genres and locations and relayed in mutable tones and mesmeric formal motifs. And though it took time to find traction with a global audience, this approach was something...

Max Evans, whose New Mexico cowboy novels “The Rounders” and “Hi-Lo Country” were made into movies, died on Wednesday in hospice care at the Va Medical Center in Albuquerque, N.M. He was 95.

His widow, Pat Evans, told the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper that her husband rode off to the “great mystery in the sky”: “He’s on a whole new adventure now.”

Evans also authored “Sam Peckinpah, Master of Violence,” a book about the making of the 1970 film “The Ballad of Cable Hogue,” and collaborated with Robert Nott on “Goin’ Crazy With Sam Peckinpah and All Our Friends.”

Evans, a native of Ropes, Texas, gained public notice with his 1960 novel “The Rounders,” about two modern-day cowboys foiled by an impossible-to-tame horse. Writer-director Burt Kennedy made a film version in 1965, starring Glenn Ford and Henry Fonda.

Evans was also known for his 1962 novel “The Hi-Lo Country,” a tale...

The director of Over The Edge and The Accused takes us on a journey through some of his favorite movies.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

The Student Teachers (1973)

Night Call Nurses (1972)

White Line Fever (1975)

Truck Turner (1974)

Heart Like A Wheel (1983)

The Accused (1988)

Over The Edge (1979)

Modern Times (1936)

City Lights (1931)

Manhattan (1979)

Some Like It Hot (1959)

The Apartment (1960)

North By Northwest (1959)

Moon Pilot (1962)

Mr. Billion (1977)

White Heat (1949)

The Wizard of Oz (1939)

The Three Musketeers (1973)

The Four Musketeers (1974)

Superman (1978)

Superman II (1980)

The Three Musketeers (1948)

Shane (1953)

The 400 Blows (1959)

8 ½ (1963)

Fellini Satyricon (1969)

Richard (1972)

Millhouse (1971)

The Projectionist (1970)

El Dorado (1966)

The Shootist (1976)

Woodstock (1970)

Payback (1999)

A Hard Day’s Night (1964)

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962)

Billy Liar (1963)

Ford Vs Ferrari (2019)

The Wild Bunch (1969)

The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970)

Bad Girls (1994)

Masters of the Universe (1987)

Giant (1956)

The More The Merrier (1943)

The Graduate (1967)

The Victors (1963)

…And Justice For All (1979)

Citizen Kane (1941)

An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn...

Richard Gillis, a singer, songwriter and composer who worked for Sam Peckinpah on the Western fable The Ballad of Cable Hogue, has died. He was 80.

Gillis died July 31 in Thousand Oaks as a result of complications from a fall at his home in Toluca Lake, his family said. 

For The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970), which featured an original score by Jerry Goldsmith, Gillis wrote music and/or lyrics for such songs as "Butterfly Mornings," "Tomorrow Is the Song I Sing" and "Wait for Me, Sunrise," performed by actors Stella Stevens and Jason Robards ...

Richard Gillis, a singer, songwriter and composer who worked for Sam Peckinpah on the Western fable The Ballad of Cable Hogue, has died. He was 80.

Gillis died July 31 in Thousand Oaks as a result of complications from a fall at his home in Toluca Lake, his family said. 

For The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970), which featured an original score by Jerry Goldsmith, Gillis wrote music and/or lyrics for such songs as "Butterfly Mornings," "Tomorrow Is the Song I Sing" and "Wait for Me, Sunrise," performed by actors Stella Stevens and Jason Robards ...

By Todd Garbarini

Film historian Douglas Dunning has informed Cinema Retro that Laemmle’s Playhouse 7 and Ahrya Fine Arts will be presenting the 50th anniversary screening of Sam Peckinpah’s influential 1969 film The Wild Bunch and special guests are scheduled to appear at both locations. The film stars William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Edmund O’Brien, Warren Oates, L.Q. Jones, Jaime Sanchez, Bo Hopkins, Strother Martin, Albert Decker, Emilio Fernandez, and Alfonso Arau and runs 145 minutes.

Please Note:

Screening #1 is on February 26th at the Playhouse 7 at 7:00 pm, and at press time W.K. Stratton, the author of a new book, The Wild Bunch: Sam Peckinpah, a Revolution in Hollywood, and the Making of a Legendary Film, will participate in a discussion after the screening. He will also sign copies of his book at the theater.

Screening #2 is at the Ahrya Fine Arts on March 2nd at 7:30 pm.

By John M. Whalen

Sam Peckinpah’s “The Ballad of Cable Hogue,” (1970) recently released on Blu-ray by the Warner Archive Collection, is a movie that doesn’t fit neatly into any specific category. Peckinpah, more notable for his violent action pictures about outlaws who’ve run out their string and go down in a blaze of glory, maintained that “Hogue” is a comedy. But co-star Stella Stevens, in an interview included on this Blu-Ray release, disagrees. She claims it’s a love story—a tragic love story. The answer, in my opinion, is that it probably falls somewhere in between. It’s both a comedy and a love story, and as such, is probably the most honest film about the human condition the hard-nosed Peckinpah ever made.

The story is a simple one. Jason Robards plays the titular character, a man left to die in the Arizona desert by two disreputable partners,...

The Western is the quintessential American movie genre. Its iconography has been seared into our collective conscious: the solitary cowboy riding the endless frontier, towns struggling to survive in a lawless land, the quick-drawing gunfighter. Generations of filmmakers have engaged with those symbols, building an entire cinematic language on a genre that began with the simple premise of good “white hats” vs. bad “black hats.” In doing so, they have created mythologies, torn down legends and subverted what it means to be an American.

My exposure to the West began in the living room of my parents’ house. My father, a Sephardic Jew born and raised in Greece, shared with me the movies he loved as a child. Over the years my enthusiasm for the genre only grew as I became a history buff, a lover of myths, and eventually a filmmaker. In interviews, I’m often asked to name my favorite Western,...

On Monday, August 28, 2017, Turner Classic Movies will devote an entire day of their “Summer Under the Stars” series to the late, great Louis Burton Lindley Jr. If that name doesn’t sound familiar, well, then just picture the fella riding the bomb like a buckin’ bronco at the end of Dr. Strangelove…, or the racist taskmaster heading up the railroad gang in Blazing Saddles, or the doomed Sheriff Baker, who gets one of the loveliest, most heartbreaking sendoffs in movie history in Sam Peckinpah’s Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.

Lindley joined the rodeo circuit when he was 13 and soon picked up the name that would follow him throughout the length of his professional career, in rodeo and in movies & TV. One of the rodeo vets got a look at the lank newcomer and told him, “Slim pickin’s. That’s all you’re gonna get in this rodeo.

Welcome to Random Roles, wherein we talk to actors about the characters who defined their careers. The catch: They don’t know beforehand what roles we’ll ask them to talk about.

The actor: David Warner began his acting career in the theater, and although it didn’t take him long to shift his focus to on-camera work in films and on television, he continued to show his roots in the stage by starring in cinematic adaptations of various plays. Over the course of his career, Warner has played plenty of bad guys—even playing the living personification of evil in Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits—but his greatest accomplishment has been his ability to slip into any genre, including Westerns (The Ballad Of Cable Hogue), comedies (The Man With Two Brains), World War II dramas (Holocaust), and horror films (The Omen). Just to make sure he’s got all...

Straw Dogs

Blu-ray

Criterion

1971 / 1:85 / Street Date June 27, 2017

Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Susan George

Cinematography: John Coquillon

Film Editors: Paul Davies, Tony Lawson, Roger Spottiswoode

Written by David Zelag Goodman and Sam Peckinpah

Produced by Daniel Melnick

Music: Jerry Fielding

Directed by Sam Peckinpah

Adrift from civilization, an attractive young couple find themselves threatened, assaulted, and eventually compelled to defend themselves in a bloody showdown. That is the basic premise of Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs, released in 1971 and inspired by some of the same movies then crowding the legendary dives of 42nd street. On its surface Straw Dogs is pure exploitation but its lasting power resides in Peckinpah’s transformation of those visceral grindhouse cliches into an appalling examination of human nature.

Straw Dogs begins with the seemingly benign introduction of David Sumner, a young man with an even younger wife, arriving in a tiny hamlet in the north of England,...

It’s been a good few months for Sam Peckinpah fans, as several films that were previously only available on standard-def DVDs with serviceable transfers have started appearing on Blu-ray. In an earlier column I recommended Warner Archive’s exquisite pressing of Ride the High Country, and now the label has released an upgrade of another essential Peckinpah film, The Ballad of Cable Hogue. Released in 1970 on the heels of The Wild Bunch, it’s a softer, more humanist movie than audiences were expecting from “Bloody Sam” — a sweet, reflective tale of the rise and fall of an American dreamer (beautifully […]...

Easily the most mellow of the films of Sam Peckinpah, this relatively gentle western fable sees Jason Robards discovering water where it ain’t, and establishing his private little way station paradise, complete with lover Stella Stevens and eccentric preacher David Warner. Some of the slapstick is sticky but the sexist bawdy humor is too cute to offend . . . and Peckinpah-phobes will be surprised to learn that the movie is in part a musical.

The Ballad of Cable Hogue

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1970 / 1:85 widescreen / 121 min. / Street Date June 6, 2017 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring Jason Robards Jr., Stella Stevens, David Warner, Strother Martin, L.Q. Jones, R.G. Armstrong, Peter Whitney, Gene Evans, William Mims, Kathleen Freeman, Susan O’Connell, Vaughn Taylor, Max Evans, James Anderson.

Cinematography: Lucien Ballard

Art Direction: Leroy Coleman

Film Editor: Frank Santillo, Lou Lombardo

Original Music: Jerry Goldsmith

Written by John Crawford and Edmund Penney

Produced by Sam Peckinpah...

By Darren Allison

Attending a film festival in the mid-seventies, Sam Peckinpah was once questioned about how the studios regularly bastardised his vision, his intension and more specifically, if he would ever be able to make a ''pure Peckinpah'' picture. He replied, '’I did 'Alfredo Garcia' and I did it exactly the way I wanted to. Good or bad, like it or not, that was my film.''

The overall narrative for Alfredo Garcia is neither complicated nor convoluted. Warren Oates plays Bennie, a simple pianist residing in a squalid barroom in Mexico. He is approached by two no-nonsense Americans (Robert Webber and Gig Young) who are attempting to track down Alfredo Garcia. The womanising Garcia is the man responsible for the pregnancy of Theresa (Janine Maldonado) the teenage daughter of a powerful Mexican boss El Jefe (Emilio Fernández). In a display of power, El Jefe offers...

The icon-establishing performances Marilyn Monroe gave in Howard Hawks’ Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) and in Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot (1959) are ones for the ages, touchstone works that endure because of the undeniable comic energy and desperation that sparked them from within even as the ravenous public became ever more enraptured by the surface of Monroe’s seductive image of beauty and glamour. Several generations now probably know her only from these films, or perhaps 1955’s The Seven-Year Itch, a more famous probably for the skirt-swirling pose it generated than anything in the movie itself, one of director Wilder’s sourest pictures, or her final completed film, The Misfits (1961), directed by John Huston, written by Arthur Miller and costarring Clark Gable and Montgomery Clift.

But in Don’t Bother to Knock (1952) she delivers a powerful dramatic performance as Nell, a psychologically devastated, delusional, perhaps psychotic young woman apparently on...

1961 Spanish poster for Funny Face (Stanley Donen, USA, 1957). Artists: “McP” (Ramon Marti, Joseph Clave, Hernan Pico).Of all the posters I’ve selected for Movie Poster of the Day over the past three months, I would not have expected this Spanish Funny Face to be the most reblogged and “liked” of all, but I am pleasantly surprised that it is. A gorgeous poster, credited to a triumvirate of artists, that repaints photographic images from the Us half-sheet in unexpected shades of purple and orange, it somehow caught Tumblr’s attention. Or maybe it was just those eyes.It tends to be true that the posters that catch fire the most are unusual and striking designs for well known films, like the Japanese Beetlejuice, the Polish Ran, the British Breathless, and the French On the Waterfront. Which makes it all the more heartening that the fourth most popular poster was a...

By John M. Whalen

When the “hardware widow” (Allyn Ann McClerie) asks Monte Walsh (Lee Marvin) if he’d gotten used to the idea of his long-time partner Chet Rollins (Jack Palance) and her being married, Monte says: “I never had so many things to get used to in my whole life, as now.” That line of dialogue in the middle of William Fraker’s “Monte Walsh” (1970) pretty much sums up this first and best film adaptation of Jack Schaeffer’s novel about the end of the Old West in general and the cowboy life in particular. It’s a true classic and even though it features two of the toughest tough guy actors of the sixties and seventies, it’s not a melodramatic shoot-em-up, full of violence, sound and fury. Rather it’s an elegiac portrait of the way it must have really happened, presented in a style as...

Below you will find our favorite films of the 68th Locarno Film Festival, as well as an index of our coverage.Daniel Kasmantop Picksi. L’Accademia delle Muse, CosmosII. Thithi, Happy Hour, Right Now, Wrong ThenIII. Deux Rémi, deux, 88:88COVERAGEDay 1: James White (Josh Mond), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Don Siegel)Day 2: Infinitas (Marlen Khutsiev), I Am Twenty (Marlen Khutsiev), The Ballad of Cable Hogue (Sam Peckinpah)Day 3: Cosmos (Andrzej Żuławski), The Wild Bunch (Sam Peckinpah)Day 4: Thithi (Raam Reddy), Te prometo anarquía (Julio Hernández Cordón), Chant d'hiver (Otar Iosseliani), July Rain (Marlen Khutsiev), Year of the Dragon (Michael Cimino)Day 5: L’Accademia delle Muse (José Luis Guerín), Les idoles (Marc'o), Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (Sam Peckinpah), The Killer Elite (Sam Peckinpah)Day 6: Good Morning, Night (Marco Bellocchio), No Home Movie (Chantal Akerman), Epilogue (Marlen Khutsiev)Day 7: Chevalier (Athina Rachel Tsangari...

Above: Jerzy Flisak’s 1972 poster for The Ballad of Cable Hogue (Sam Peckinpah, USA, 1970)To coincide with the complete retrospective of the films of Sam Peckinpah currently running at the Locarno Film Festival, I thought I might try to select the best posters of one of my favorite directors. But when I looked at all the posters for Peckinpah’s films it was clear that the best Peckinpah posters were made in Poland. There are a couple of great American one sheets from the 1970s—those stark black and white photographs for Straw Dogs and The Getaway—but nothing quite matches these six Polish designs for visual panache. Jerzy Flisak’s typically witty and playful poster for the most light-hearted of Peckinpah Westerns, The Ballad of Cable Hogue, is one of Flisak’s greatest designs and one that beautifully encapsulates the story of an old prospector exploiting a well in the Arizona desert.

My second day in Locarno I've shamefacedly dedicated to what some of the critics here call "the old movies." To be honest, while I am very much thrilled to be one of the first people to see new films by my favorite filmmakers as well as be surprised ones by those I don't know, almost every one of these films, most shot digitally and certainly projected digitally here in Locarno, I will be able to catch again somehow, whether in the "digital library" at the festival itself, through a link from a filmmaker/producer/publicist/friend, or at the next festival stop they make. The 35mm films in Locarno are obviously therefore a much more rarified commodity and experience, something David Bordwell testified to in his report from the nearly all film (and certainly all "old movies") festival in Bologna in June: namely, the increasing popularity of festivals which cater to these now-unique celluloid experiences,...

Hong Sang-soo's Right Now, Wrong Then.The lineup for the 2015 festival has been revealed, including new films by Hong Sang-soo, Andrzej Zulawski, Chantal Akerman, Athina Rachel Tsangari, and others, alongside retrospectives and tributes dedicated to Sam Peckinpah, Michael Cimino, Bulle Ogier, and much more.Piazza GRANDERicki and the Flash (Jonathan Demme, USA)La belle saison (Catherine Corsini, France)Le dernier passage (Pascal Magontier, France)Der staat gegen Fritz Bauer (Lars Kraume, Germany)Southpaw (Antoine Fuqua, USA)Trainwreck (Judd Apatow, USA)Jack (Elisabeth Scharang, Austria)Floride (Philippe Le Guay, France)The Deer Hunter (Michael Cimino, UK/USA)Erlkönig (Georges Schwizgebel, Switzerland)Guibord s'en va-t-en guerre (Philippe Falardeau, Canada)Bombay Velvet (Anurag Kashyap, India)Pastorale cilentana (Mario Martone, Italy)La vanite (Lionel Baier, Switzerland/France)The Laundryman (Lee Chung, Taiwan)Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, USA) I pugni ni tasca (Marco Bellocchio, Italy)Heliopolis (Sérgio Machado, Brazil)Amnesia (Barbet Schroeder,...

Editor's Note: We're proud to announce that we are now the North American home for Locarno Film Festival Artistic Director Carlo Chatrian's blog. Chatrian has been writing thoughtful blog entries in Italian on Locarno's website since he took over as Director in late 2012, and now you can find the English translations here on Notebook as they're published. To kick things off, we're posting his piece on Sam Peckinpah, who was recently announced to be the subject of the festival's epic retrospective this year. The Locarno Film Festival will be taking place August 5th to 15th. ***The life of Sam Peckinpah sits like a splendid diamond set between two glorious eras for American cinema, one already on the decline and the other still to come. Retracing his career means looking as much at the great classical tradition that preceded him as at the new directors currently leaving their mark on the imagination.

‘Gone with the Wind’ actress Mary Anderson dead at 96; also featured in Alfred Hitchcock thriller ‘Lifeboat’ Mary Anderson, an actress featured in both Gone with the Wind and Alfred Hitchcock’s adventure thriller Lifeboat, died following a series of small strokes on Sunday, April 6, 2014, while under hospice care in Toluca Lake/Burbank, northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Anderson, the widow of multiple Oscar-winning cinematographer Leon Shamroy, had turned 96 on April 3. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1918, Mary Anderson was reportedly discovered by director George Cukor, at the time looking for an actress to play Scarlett O’Hara in David O. Selznick’s film version of Margaret Mitchell’s bestseller Gone with the Wind. Instead of Scarlett, eventually played by Vivien Leigh, Anderson was cast in the small role of Maybelle Merriwether — most of which reportedly ended up on the cutting-room floor. Cukor was later fired from the project; his replacement, Victor Fleming,...

“Dead Man’s Burden” premiered at the L.A Film Fest to excellent reviews and and plaudits for first time director Jared Moshé and his cast: Clare Bowen as the fierce Martha, David Call as her husband Heck, and Barlow Jacobs as her long lost brother Wade. Our review said the film “is worth the watch for its sheer beauty, but it’s also a slow burner of Western tragedy that hails many new talents to keep an eye on.” It’s a slice of filmmaking that harkens back to cinema’s past, and reminds you why shooting on film needs to be preserved. We sat down with Moshé, Bowen, Call and Jacobs last week to talk favorite Westerns, shooting in New Mexico and historical authenticity. Here are some of the highlights and insights from the wide-ranging conversations below.

Shooting on 35 mm was never in question for this low budget indie.

Tuesday marked thirty years since the untimely passing of Warren Oates. The great, grizzled actor's work has fallen somewhat out of fashion these days -- few, bar perhaps Quentin Tarantino, name Sam Peckinpah or Monte Hellman, Oates' closest and most frequent collaborators, as influences. If you're familiar with him at all, it's likely from his parts as outlaw Lyle Gorch in "The Wild Bunch" or as Sgt. Hulka in Bill Murray comedy "Stripes." But for a time in the 1970s, Oates was Hollywood's go-to badass character actor, a man who everyone from Norman Jewison and William Friedkin to Steven Spielberg and Terrence Malick wanted to work with.

Born in Depoy, Kentucky in 1928, Oates discovered acting at the University of Louisville, and soon headed west to L.A. where he swiftly became a regular face in the golden era of TV westerns, including parts on "Rawhide," "Wanted: Dead or Alive," "Have Gun - Will Travel...

This past week, I've posted five lists looking back at the movies and movie ads of 2011. I didn't really have to dig through a year's worth of articles because I kept a list of everything I found noteworthy. This year, I also kept a movie journal and made a record of every time I watched a feature-length film. Then I took an image or a slice of an image from each movie and put them into a collage. I feel pretty proud to have stuck with this project for 365 days (or if you want to be absolutely obnoxious about it, 363 days), and I'd like to share it with all of you. After the jump, you'll find two different collages and then the list of 368 movies I saw (not 368 different movies because I watched some flicks twice; I probably watched around 350 different films). I hope you like it. [Because the collages count viewings and not different movies, some films have more than one image] Here's the really...

Peckinpah!

“He found water where it wasn’t”. Hardly seen even in its day, this is yet another troubled Sam Peckinpah project which nonetheless emerged as a lyrical, deeply personal western love story that stands with the very best of his work. Its failure led the director to consider abandoning westerns once and for all. Although she and Peckinpah fought throughout, it features Stella Stevens’ finest performance, which she had hoped would lead to stardom.

Click here to watch the trailer.

This is all:

The Ballad of Cable Hogue is currently on Netflix Instant. Go! Watch it now!

Peckinpah! Peckinpah! Peckinpah!

On Monday, September 12, join Joe Dante for the trailer to the Ballad of Cable Hogue.

“He found water where it wasn’t”. Hardly seen even in its day, this is yet another troubled Sam Peckinpah project which nonetheless emerged as a lyrical, deeply personal western love story that stands with the very best of his work. Its failure led the director to consider abandoning westerns once and for all. Although she and Peckinpah fought throughout, it features Stella Stevens’ finest performance, which she had hoped would lead to stardom.

On Wednesday, September 14, join Josh Olson for the trailer to Cross of Iron.

Compromised by a dwindling budget and production Euro-chaos, Peckinpah was not completely satisfied with this Ww II story of a German unit at the Russian front in 1943. The climax was literally improvised by James Coburn and Maximillian Schell when the money ran out. But Peckinpah...

At a time when remakes – like them or not – are status quo for the movie industry, few films achieve a level of being anywhere near as good as their originals. This is especially true for the horror genre. After so many still-births and disappointments (Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, Last House on the Left, to name but a few), fans have longed for someone to take a beloved film from the past and improve it, updating it to fit a more modern sensibility. Many have tried… most fail.

Enter director Steven R. Monroe and his re-imagining of the exploitation classic I Spit On Your Grave (review here) (Blu-ray/DVD review here). Long whispered about by fans as a cornerstone of late ’70s grindhouse fare, I Spit On Your Grave is admittedly a tough row to hoe. The film tells the story of a woman living alone in a...

Netflix Nuggets is my way of spreading the word about what I consider to be the greatest thing since sliced bread… Netflix streaming movies instantly to your computer and/or compatible home theater. As Netflix makes movies titles available in their already vast and eclectic catalog of rentals via online streaming technology, I’ll spotlight the one’s I feel are worth taking note of as they become available.

In this, the first edition of Netflix Nuggets, we’ll feature five films; two brand new and wildly unique foreign films, one new documentary, and two classics from master filmmakers.

The Ballad Of Cable Hogue (1970)

[streaming of Ballad Of Cable Hogue available only until 1/31/2011]

Director: Sam Peckinpah

Synopsis: Abandoned in the desert, prospector Cable Hogue survives his ordeal when he discovers a freshwater spring. Transforming the oasis into a much needed pit stop on the local stagecoach route, the resourceful Hogue sits back to wait for his double-crossing former partners.

In our latest installment of our ongoing podcast series, Running Dialogue, Russ, Curt, and I discuss Black Swan, The Tourist, and Four Lions. All three of us talk about Black Swan and our various issues with the film. Russ and I talk The Tourist and how it fails and then Curt and I talk about Four Lions and how it succeeds. Since I was the only one of us who saw all three films, I proclaim myself the King of all Movies for all-time.

Click here to listen to the new episode. Also, you can hit the jump for a list of all the movies we’ve recommended so far. Finally, click here to add Running Dialogue to your RSS feed.

Running Dialogue #20 – Black Swan, The Tourist, and Four Lions

Curt – Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary Matt – The Red Shoes

Russ – Videodrome

Running Dialogue #19 – Harry Potter and the...

In the latest installment of our ongoing podcast series, Russ, Curt, and I discuss Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and The Next Three Days. Also, since it’s finally expanding to the greater Atlanta area, we talk about Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours. While all three of us liked these movies, we each had our own particular qualms. We also go into spoiler territory on Deathly Hallows at the end of the episode, so be sure you listen after you’ve seen the movie if you want to get Russ’ thoughts on particular deus ex machinas in the movie as well as my issue regarding the unclear nature of one character’s fate.

Click here to listen to the new episode. Also, you can hit the jump for a list of all the movies we’ve recommended so far. Finally, click here to add Running Dialogue to your RSS feed.

Craig here with Take Three.

Today: David Warner

Heads, brains and faces, skewed or distorted, are the prominent concerns with today’s Take Three supporting actor David Warner: the lopping off, the removal of, and the obsessively creepy staring, respectively, are what it's all about. In The Omen, From Beyond the Grave and The Man with Two Brains Warner thrilled us in a delightful and devious manner. He's an ideal actor for Halloween season.

Take One: I'm starting with the Man in the Mirror

Double-dealing, in particular, was the name of the game in ‘The Gate Crasher’, the first segment of Kevin Connor’s 1973 Amicus portmanteau film From Beyond the Grave. Warner was Edward Charlton, who surely lived to regret the snagging of an ancient, dubiously prescient mirror from shopkeeper Peter Cushing at a cut-price cost. Warner plays Charlton as cocky and belligerent one minute, and fearfully seized up the next.