I was just reading in the trivia section about Peckinpah's involvement and the nude Sharon Tate scene and subsequent controversy. Does anybody know to what extent Peckinpah's contributions were included in the final film and how long he was involved in the project?
shareFrom what I've been able to find out here and else where, his involvement was minimal, Really just started, didn't have the whole casttied up and was going to shoot secondary shots, with secondary actors, hence the Sharon tate link
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I've read that it was a black actress who was nude with Rip Torn, not Sharon Tate (who was the producer's girlfriend around this time, and he was not too good looking) ;and that Peckinpah filmed much of the film's early action chase sequence with McQueen. That latter contention makes little sense, for that scene is in color. Maybe Peckinpah shot it first in black and white.
It's not true that Peckinpah shot more nudity than the Producers allowed. There was just brief shot of one Actresses' back in one shot which was already described in the screenplay. By the time that scene was shot, Producer Martin Ransohoff had already decided to fire Peckinpah and he made up this ridiculous story to have a good reason for firing Peckinpah, who never did anything wrong or unfair except don't following Ransohoffs orders who wanted more romantic kitsch while Peckinpah wanted realism.
shareExpecting Peckinpah to deliver something romantic is like expecting a horror film from Charlie Chaplin. Now imagine a Charlie Chaplin version of the Wild Bunch...
shareMaybe I'm a little off but I find many scenes in BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA, JUNIOR BONNER and RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY very romantic, gentle and quite beautiful (even though in the COUNTRY, there's a tricky attitude towards the female characters that isn't exactly pro-feminist). Those three films also happen to be my favorites of Peckinpah because of their romanticism. Of course, it is, a kind of crude and dry romanticism as Peckinpah's most constant trademark was a overall dryness, dustiness, scantiness, a dramatical minimalism and rough lyricism that lies beneath the frames. Martin Ransohoff wanted to make CINCINNATI KID glittering Technicolor Entertainment, classical Hollywood style. When he figured out that he could never possibly get that from Peckinpah, who even tried to persuade him to shoot the film in black and white (!), he fired him, using that nudity story which he apparently sort of made up, as an excuse. He then brought in Norman Jewison, who certainly never had as strong a personality as a director as Peckinpah.
And, by the way: I think that Chaplin, another favorite director of mine, always had a strong tendency to horror and terror, he only sublimated it by turning it into black humour. To me, the performance scenes in LIMELIGHT or the scene with the feeding machine in MODERN TIMES got something extremely gritty, gruesome and frightening about them and I furthermore often thought that with only a slight turn into another direction, such scenes in Chaplin's films could've been sheer, terrifying horror.
Let alone Ballad of Cable Hogue.
shareMy understanding is that Peckinpah was fired after Day Four of Principal Photography, and that none of his work was integrated into the final film; largely because Jewison's work is in color, while Peckinpah's was in Black & White.
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Speaking as a Peckinpah fan, I think it was better that Jewison ultimately directed this film. Isn't it fitting that the director who made a movie where Steve McQueen gets beaten at penny-pitching by an African American kid would later go on to direct the movie in which Sidney Poitier slaps a white gardener?
What I don't understand is how we're going to stay alive this winter.
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Unfortunately Peckinpah was booted from the project quite early. The studio execs said he was "difficult," and he was pushing for the film to be more graphic with the violence and sex aspect (as usual.) It was only 1965 of course. If it was just a couple years later Sam might actually have been able to make this movie. I would have loved to see THAT result. I don't believe Peckinpah had any influence on the finished product.
"IMdB; where 14 year olds can act like jaded 40 year old critics...'
there would have been tons of slow-mo shots too.
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