Anyone think that Major Dundee should have died in that last battle against the French?
The story arc of the character, from steadfast Union soldier, lover, lost love, drunken wastrel to soldier, perhaps he should have died as well?
I didn't explain that well, but you get my drift...
He who lives by the sword will be shot by those who can't
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His death should have been sealed the instant he, without orders or permission from above, organized his command at the prisoner of war camp. Remember a captain at the POW camp says he was given that command "because of Gettysburg." This means Dundee was not a favorite anymore. At a later scene the same captain says "I wish you will see him within a week" referring to the commander general and meaning dundee would be in boiling water then, not hot water...
In real life, he would have stripped of command, and sent to prison... Or worse...
The whole arc of the movie in the last half-hour or so is really bizarre - Dundee somehow goes from the drunken derelict languishing in Durango, haunted by memories of the campaign and his lost lovers Teresa and Melinche, and hunted by the French army, to a competent officer in complete control of the situation. Rather a radical character arc, and not done very convincingly.
I definitely think that it would have made more sense if not only Dundee had died, but the entire command had been wiped out too - having many of them survive kind of undercuts the point. In the original script Potts finds another Apache trail marker after they cross the Rio Grande into Texas, indicating that their problems with the survivors of Charriba's band may not be over.
"If you can’t say something good about someone, sit right here by me."
As good as the final battle with the French is, the whole last 30 minutes or so needed a lot of help, especially how the movie just ends. Hancock's idea that the whole command gets wiped out could have made this a classic. Just for the icing on the cake, maybe Dundee is badly wounded but survives while every single one of his men has been killed.
As for the movie as it is now, we don't know what happens to Dundee. When he tells Trooper Ryan to 'play him a tune,' there's a weariness in his face and voice that isn't just because he's survived through months of a campaign. I've always thought Dundee knew he was going to be up sh*t creek once he got back, even though he did save the Rostes children but at what cost?
"Congratulations, Major. It appears that at last you have found yourself a real war." Ben Tyreen
In the Fink novel, you'll recall, Dundee gets back to Fort Benlin, somehow remains in the Army, and is promoted to Colonel! Somehow that doesn't seem very plausible to me.
"If you can’t say something good about someone, sit right here by me."
The script had a lot of problems (tight schedule, clueless studio execs), but I still like it for being a rough draft of Peckinpah's "Wild Bunch".
shareTrue enough, but to be fair I think Peckinpah just wasn't a mature enough director at this point to handle such a big production.
"I do NOT want your tawdry tales of office lust infecting my newsroom!"
Yeah, an incomplete script coupled with Peckinpah having never directed something of Dundee's scale before and not being on the best terms with the producers certainly didn't help. I haven't read the book it was based on though.
shareThe Fink novelization was a tie-in book released around the same time as the film. It's an interesting read, although it's radically different from the finished film. Presumably it was based on a much earlier draft of the script.
"You know what else isn't cool, Bobby? Hell."
This is a recurring theme in Peckinpah's movies:
The man who should have died didn't, and the better man did. The death of the better man brings about redemption for the one who was weaker.
Ride the High Country: Gil Westrum was going to rob his partner and long-time friend Steven Judd. Only when he realizes Judd is walking into an ambush does he ride to the rescue, but he's too late. Judd is mortally wounded.
Major Dundee: Tyreen is a rebel traitor, but he's a better soldier and a better human being than the egotistical Dundee, whose arrogance and willingness to sacrifice his own friends and the men under his command got him assigned to guard prisoners in the first place, and got most of his men killed while hunting for Charriba -even after he had already recovered the kidnapped children.
The Wild Bunch: Deke Thornton, in order to save his own skin and buy his freedom, has turned informant for the railroad against the members of his old band of outlaws. He's likened to Judas -or worse, a man who sold out to a railroad. Clearly, his old friend Pike Bishop is the wilier and luckier of the two, yet he gets killed in a heroic gunfight, leaving Thornton and his new "bunch" -a clownish band of sadistic bounty hunters- to swoop in like buzzards in the aftermath. Thornton picks up Bishop's gun and regains his dignity and self-respect: he refuses to go back with the other bounty hunters (knowing there will be a $1000 price on his head for doing so) and rejoins what's left of his old gang.
Pat Garret & Billy the Kid also follows this pattern, only Garret never finds redemption.
There's just one problem with the argument that Tyreen is a better man than Dundee on this point. Tyreen fully *endorsed* the idea of continuing to take on the Apache even after the children had been rescued, agreeing with Dundee that their easy release was likely a ruse. So quite correctly they both prepared for an ambush only to get bloodied up with their supplies gone. At no point in the film does ANYONE raise the objection that pursuing the Apache is meaningless after the children are rescued. If this was supposed to be a central theme to the movie, then you can blame Sam Peckinpah for not introducing it into the script.
shareCheck your history books. Many a man after a incompetant military battle has been promoted, especially if the 'butcher's bill' is high
sharePersonally, I think MAJOR DUNDEE should logically have ended with only a handful among the command surviving to return to the post -- where the Major should have faced the firing squad for his costly, self-serving campaign.
And jelperman, above, offered an excellent post on Peckinpah characters' fates. However, I don't agree that Deke Thornton in THE WILD BUNCH was a turncoat; he was an aging man who finally had borne as much prison brutality as he could take, and accepted a deal to free himself. Remember, Pike Bishop himself refuses to judge Thornton because he "gave his word to a railroad." (Pike remembered too well that HE had chosen to escape, rather than be captured along with Thornton.) If Pike held no grudge against Thornton, neither should we.
Most great films deserve a more appreciative audience than they get.
In my thread "Numbers" I count the numbers of Dundee's command as well as I can.
It looks like only about 10 to 12 men remain at the end of the movie, out of about 46 or 47 who left Fort Benlin. 10 or 12 men seem like only a handful to me. And that gives about a 75 percent fatality rate for the expedition.
if you listen to the voice over reading from the journal it goes from just a couple of days between each entry (the last being end of January) to suddenly months later
i guess that's why he's 'suddenly' got is act back together.
just saw this for the first time on TCM and my family and i in unison said 'wait that's it?!' at the abrupt end too
especially since at the beginning of the movie it said the bugler was the only survivor and we have his journal to thank for even knowing of the events that transpired :P
unless the movie is implying that sometime after the end and before they get to the fort all the other survivors are killed (except for the bugler)
if that's the case maybe they were going for a 'feel good' ending even though it ends in tragedy (like John travolta's character in pulp fiction)
The opening monologue is saying that Trooper Ryan was the only survivor of the massacre at the Rostes Ranch, not the mission into Mexico. His diary is then the only written proof of the mission to save the kids, get the Apaches and tangle with the French.
"Congratulations, Major. It appears that at last you have found yourself a real war." Ben Tyreen
I think if Major Dundee had died instead of Captain Tyreen the movie would have been better. To me Dundee should have paid somehow for his reckless deviation from military rules. And it just wasn't so important to me that Tyreen charged and sacrificed his life for the troops, because that 'redemptive'-style act felt fake or forced, not realistic.
As a matter of fact I was particularly disappointed the final confrontation between them at the end of the mission never happened.
As the film went along it seemed to be a strong dramatic point but as it worked out Tyreen didn't get to confront Dundee as he'd wanted to.
The ending was okay but without that stand-off/resolution or whatever you want to call it between those two towering figures the movie had less impact, IMO.
"Did you make coffee...? Make it!"--Cheyenne
I kind of like the idea of Dundee's command getting wiped out during the fight at the river with the French cavalry, except for the bugler Tim Ryan. He was the lone survivor of the first clash with Charriba, so let him survive this fight and make it back to the camp to tell the story of the campaign upon his arrival.
"check the imdb cast list before asking who portrayed who in movies please"
If that happened nobody would want to go on any mission or patrol with Tim Ryan again!
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