Movies - Major Dundee

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	Movies - Major Dundee

Major Dundee was a 1965 Western film starring Charlton Heston and Richard Harris, and directed by Sam Peckinpah. It has become notorious for the feud between Peckinpah and the producing studio, Columbia Pictures, during its production and editing.

Plot summary/historical basis

The plot of the movie involves the title character, played by Heston, a Union cavalry officer during the American Civil War, who was relieved of his combat command for misconduct and sent to command a prisoner-of-war camp in New Mexico Territory. After a family of ranchers and a relief column of cavalry is massacred by an Apache warlord named Sierra Charriba (Michael Pate), Dundee seizes the opportunity for glory, raising his own private army of Union troops (black and white), Confederate POWs led by his old friend and rival, Captain Tyreen (Harris), several Indian scouts, and a gang of civilian mercenaries to pursue Charriba into Mexico. Dundee's force pursues Charriba, engaging him in several bloody battles, as well as coming into conflict with French troops who are occupying Mexico under Emperor Maximilian of Mexico. Also, an Austrian doctor (Senta Berger) who is sympathetic to the Rebels under Benito Juarez joins up with the army, causing further tensions between Tyreen and Dundee. The film is narrated by Tim Ryan, a young bugler played by Michael Anderson, Jr., whose diary is meant to serve as an ironic counterpoint to the action, though in the cut version this intention by Peckinpah/Fink does not come across very well.

The screenplay, written by Harry Julian Fink (who also wrote the film's novelization), Oscar Saul, and Peckinpah, was loosely based on historical precedents; however, contrary to claims by the production team at the time, it was not actually based on a true story. During the Minnesota Sioux Uprising of 1862, Union forces in that state were forced to recruit Confederate prisoners from Texas to make up for their meager numbers in fighting the Indians. Unlike in the movie, where there is much animosity between the Union and Confederate troops in Dundee's command, the Rebels, called "Galvanized Yankees", fought well and without much complaint. Both Union and Confederate forces also battled Apache, Navajo, and Comanche Indians throughout the war along the U.S.-Mexico border, making the scenario of the movie at least somewhat plausible.

Some critics of the film have also pointed out similarities between this and Herman Melville's classic novel Moby-Dick
. Many of the characters are similar to those from that book, with Dundee as Captain Ahab, Tyreen as Starbuck, Ryan as Ishmael, and other minor characters, with Sierra Charriba and his Apache tribe substituting for the whale, as is the general plot line (an obsessive idealist drives himself to destruction, disregarding the affects on others). These references to Moby-Dick
were likely intentional on the part of the screenwriters. Some have also pointed out similarities of the plot to the Vietnam War, which are highly unlikely to have been intentional, as the war had not significantly escalated by the film's original production. (It should also be pointed out that the characterization of Dundee was closely based off the infamous Colonel George Custer.)

Besides the above, the superb cast also includes Jim Hutton, James Coburn, Brock Peters, Mario Adorf, and Peckinpah regulars Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, L.Q. Jones, Slim Pickens, John Davis Chandler, and Dub Taylor. Veteran character actor Karl Swenson also puts in a brief appearance as Dundee's second-in-command at the POW camp. Jody McCrea appeared in an early deleted scene as Lieutenant Brannin, the young leader of the relief column killed in the movie's beginning.

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