Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia **** (1974, Warren Oates, Isela Vega, Gig Young, Robert Webber, Helmut Dantine, Emilio Fernández, Kris Kristofferson) – Classic Movie Review 8,420

A Mexican crime lord offers $1 million bounty for the head of the seducer who has made his teenage daughter pregnant, in Sam Peckinpah’s gruesome and horrifying, first-rate 1974 action crime thriller Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia.

Emilio Fernández stars as a wealthy Mexican rancher and crime lord called El Jefe (Spanish for The Boss), who offers $1 million bounty for the head of a lothario seducer who has made his teenage daughter pregnant, in director Sam Peckinpah’s gruesome and horrifying, first-rate 1974 action crime adventure Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, a mix of Mexican modern-day Western and neo noir thriller.

This bleak and nihilistic, macabre trip to Mexico’s heart of darkness starts with an elegiac atmosphere and proceeds at a deliberate pace, perhaps too deliberate in places, through its tense and unsettling 112 minutes via some spectacular violent set pieces and some incongruously tender moments, to one of Peckinpah’s typically bloody climaxes.

The main star Warren Oates scores extremely strongly in a brio performance as the down-and-out American barroom pianist Bennie, who is hired by a wild bunch of bounty hunters, hit men Quill and Sappensly (Gig Young, Robert Webber) and their boss Max (Helmut Dantine), to join in doing the dirty work and collect the bounty, along with his motel maid prostitute girlfriend Elita (Isela Vega), who was also briefly a lover of Alfredo Garcia.

Alfredo Garcia is already dead. Elita tells Bennie that Garcia died in a drunk-driving crash the previous week.

Bennie and Elita set out to find his grave, and Bennie buys a huge sword, ready to dig up the body, cut off the head, and deliver it. But to whom? The bounty hunters or the Mexican rancher? The way is bumpy. There is a lot of money at stake, and a lot of honour too, A couple of sleazy, gun-toting bikers (Kris Kristofferson, Donnie Fritts) target Bennie and Elita, and a bunch of dangerous members of Garcia’s family want the head back and so stop Bennie getting his money.

Written by Gordon Dawson and Sam Peckinpah, and based on a story by Frank Kowalski, this daring and deranged pseudo-Western is one of Peckinpah’s most weird and wonderful, and least understood or appreciated films, though now generally revered as a Peckinpah cult classic.

Predictably, this uniquely strange, disturbing, morbid movie bombed at the box office, costing $1.5 million and taking only $700,000 in US/ Canada cinemas. The film’s ‘hero’ talks to the severed head as if Garcia were still alive, for heaven’s sake! This gives Warren Oates no problem at all. Not many star actors could pull this off, but Oates does it in sweaty, seedy super style. A good film ‘hero’, maybe, but not exactly a good role model.

Made in Mexico for $1,500,000, the film benefits from Peckinpah being in control away from the American studios, so it is his own cut and not messed about with by studio bosses. Apparently, it his only film that is his own final cut, saying it was the only one of his films released as he had intended.

He picked his locations to portray his gritty, harshly realistic vision of Mexico. The terrain might have appealed to Peckinpah, but it is not exactly a good advert for the Mexico Tourist Board. He focused on finding the right bar for Bennie’s workplace and found it it Tlaque-Paque, in Mexico City’s Plaza Garibaldi. With these authentic locations spattered through the movie, it is a shame about some of the unconvincing studio interiors at Estudios Churubusco.

Peckinpah picked one of Mexico’s top cameramen Alex Phillips Jr as his director of photography, and they agreed on zooms and multiple camera setups. Peckinpah told him: ‘I make very few takes, but I shoot a lot of film because I like to change angles. I shoot with editing in the back of my mind.’ There are some odd camera shots.

With a cast and crew mostly of Mexicans, they started shooting in late September 1973, and principal photography ended three days before Christmas. Peckinpah had a week off before supervising the editing. There are some odd editing choices. Sharper editing might have produced a more exciting, slightly more conventional, yet less extraordinary film.

Jerry Fielding again provides the score for Peckinpah and it certainly is an odd one. The film is certainly an odd one.

Also in the cast are Chano Urueta, Jorge Russek, Chalo González, Don Levy, Enrique Lucero, Janine Maldonado and Tamara Garina.

Release dates: August 7, 1974 (Los Angeles) and March 13, 1975 (Mexico),

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is directed by Sam Peckinpah, runs 112 minutes, is made by Optimus Films and Estudios Churubusco Azteca, is released by United Artists, is written by Gordon T Dawson (screenplay) and Sam Peckinpah (screenplay), based on a story by Frank Kowalski and Sam Peckinpah, is shot by Alex Phillips Jr, is produced by Martin Baum, is scored by Jerry Fielding, and is designed by Enrique Estevez.

The cast

The cast are Warren Oates as Bennie, Isela Vega as Elita, Robert Webber as Sappensly, Gig Young as Johnny Quill, Helmut Dantine as Max, Emilio Fernández as El Jefe, Kris Kristofferson as The Biker, Donnie Fritts as Second Biker, Chano Urueta, Jorge Russek, Chalo González, Don Levy, Enrique Lucero, Janine Maldonado and Tamara Garina.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8,420

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com