Friday,
August 12 ~ Sunday, August 14
Directors
in Focus: Sam Peckinpah
Believing
real-life turmoil bred peerless creativity, Sam Peckinpah left
an indelible mark on post-1960s cinema with a relatively small
body of work that was not for the faint of heart, either in
the audience or his collaborators. Once noting "the outlaws
of the old West have always fascinated me... I suppose I'm a
bit of an outlaw myself," Peckinpah's unruly, incendiary
vision turned such films as Major Dundee (1965), The
Wild Bunch (1969), and the non-Western Straw Dogs
(1971) into forceful, complex ruminations on violence, morality,
and manhood.
Friday,
August 12 at 7:00pm
Saturday,
August 13 at 2:00pm
Major
Dundee New 35mm Restoration!
dir.
Sam Peckinpah, USA, 1965, 35mm, 136 mins, color
Introduced
by Irv Slifkin
 This
story of Civil War enemies banding together for battle against
Indian warriors and French soldiers features Charlton Heston
as the megalomaniacal major with the spellbinding Richard Harris
as his shackled Confederate prisoner Ben Tyreen. Augmented with
12 minutes of previously unseen footage, this new restoration
brings Peckinpah’s 1965 western closer than ever to the full
version that was slashed by its studio before its release.
Irv Slifkin is
the author of VideoHound’s Groovy Movies: Far-Out Films
of the Psychedelic Era (Visible Ink), a critically acclaimed
look at the weird and wild films of the 60s and 70s. Known as
“Movie Irv” to listeners of his weekly radio spot on WIP, Slifkin
has also contributed to the book, Cult Flicks and Trash
Pics, and many publications. He also writes a monthly film
column for Philadelphia Magazine.
Saturday,
August 13 at 7:00pm
Double
Feature! Two Films, One Admission
The
Wild Bunch
dir.
Sam Peckinpah, USA, 1969, 35mm, 145 mins, color
 In
the Southwest of 1913, a gang of outlaws is coerced by a Mexican
general into robbing a U.S. Army gun shipment, a move that has
fatal consequences. William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Warren
Oates, Edmond O'Brien and Robert Ryan star in this Peckinpah
masterpiece, infamous for its bloody and balletic action scenes.
followed
by
Cross
of Iron
dir.
Sam Peckinpah, USA, 1977, 16mm, 128 mins, color
Cross
of Iron centers on
Corporal Steiner, played by James Coburn, an accomplished but
war-weary combat veteran leading a group of German soldiers
on the Russian front. Steiner's authority comes under attack
when Maximillian Schell’s Captain Stransky takes over the command
of his troops. Orson Welles called Cross of Iron,
“the greatest antiwar movie since All Quiet on the Western
Front”.
Sunday,
August 14 at 2:00pm
Straw Dogs
dir. Sam Peckinpah,
1971, USA, 35mm, 118 mins, color
Special
thanks to Harry Guerro and Andrew Repasky McElhinney
Perhaps Peckinpah’s
most controversial work, the film follows American mathematician
David (Dustin Hoffman) and his wife Amy (Susan George) as
they move to her native Cornwall, England for an academic
sabbatical. When local thugs brutally attack Amy, the nebbish
David discovers a dark rage that ultimately must articulate
itself. A curious alter ego to the British John Boorman’s
look at rural American violence in Deliverance, Straw
Dogs is an unforgettable portrait of desperate survival.
Sunday,
August 14 at 7:00pm
Pat
Garrett and Billy the Kid
dir.
Sam Peckinpah, USA, 1973, 35mm, 122 mins, color
 Based
on the events leading up to the death of the famed outlaw Billy
the Kid, newly appointed sheriff Pat Garrett (James Coburn)
visits his old pal Billy (Kris Kristofferson) to warn him "times
have changed." Underscored by Bob Dylan's haunting soundtrack,
this film, restored and reassembled to its original length,
was to be Peckinpah’s final western and perhaps his greatest
elegy to the old ways of the West.
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