Major Dundee - The 'Extended Cut' coming August 30th (1 Viewer)

[John Hodson]

Alternatively...

http://on.starblvd.net/meet/Entertai...ies/peckinpah/

 

[John Hodson]

DVD Times has the skinny on the 'Extended Cut' features here:

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment have announced the Region 1 DVD release of Major Dundee (Extended Cut) for 30th August 2005 priced at $14.94 SRP. Sam Peckinpah's first big-budget film was also the first to be taken away and released in a shortened version. But now, 40 years later, most of the missing footage has been located and reinserted with the entire soundtrack remixed in 5.1 Dolby Digital, and a completely new score composed. The new scenes complete the electrifying depiction of an oppressive Union officer who leads a squad of Rebel prisoners, ex-slaves, and criminals into Mexico to hunt down a band of murdering Apaches which raises the question: who represents a greater threat?

Features include:
Anamorphic Widescreen Presentation
English Mono / English DD5.1 Surround
French and Japanese audio
English, Japanese and Korean subtitles
All New Extended Version With Fourteen Minutes of Never-Before-Seen Footage
Audio Commentary With Four Peckinpah Historians
Deleted Scenes
Featurettes
Photo Gallery with production stills and posters
Original Theatrical Trailer

 

[Gordon McMurphy]

Great news! Thanks, once again, John! You'be really been on a great-announcements-roll of late!

This looks like a great package at a great price. Bring it on.

 

[Haggai]

The extended version is brilliant, I saw a screening a few weeks ago. Looking forward to the DVD, looks like there'll be some worthy features, and damn cheap to boot.

 

[oscar_merkx]

great news indeed

 

[JPCinema]

I thought Mr Crisp mentioned that both versions of the film would be on the DVD. Has that been nixed? That would be very disappointing not to be able to compare the 2 versions of the film.

 

[John Hodson]

Yes; I thought that was coming too, although I wondered at the time whether he was simply referring to the original film having been restored and preserved, so that both movies would be available - on film - for future generations.

 

[Juan C]

I've just seen this on dvdtalk:


Player

Audio file

 

[Elijah Sullivan]

Was anyone else real disappointed by the new music? I thought the new score... how to put this... sucked. I ended up watching it with the old score and it was worth trading 5.1 for Mono in order to get it. Too bad, I was really looking forward to it.

 

[Mark Cappelletty]

No, I like the new score a lot. It's a little downbeat, but worlds better than hearing the TOTALLY inappropriate Mitch Miller Singers warbling over the front and end credits.

This is a really great DVD. I hope the full Peckinpah documentary is part of WB's box set. Man, does R.G. Armstrong look rough. I think they filmed his interviews in a shotgun shack-- which appears to double as his bedroom!

 

[Gordon McMurphy]

Do you mean it was poor musicically or that it didn't 'match' the action (which the original track most certainly doesn't; it is the main weakness of the 123-minute version) or that the cues are badly timed? Please elaborate, Elijah; "sucked" never cuts any mustard with me, I'm afraid.

Christopher Caliendo (composer of the 2005 score) is someone I know nothing about, but the score feels like those typically unadventurous scores to similar films of that period, although it is a much more sombre score and fits the film well. Daniele Amfitheatrof (composer of the 1965 score) was a prolific composer and conductor who composed a substantial body of music outside of his movie work and I have always felt that he didn't understand film scoring very well, although he was a fine composer, but his cues in many films are very uninspiring and quaint. His original score for Major Dundee has a decent main theme, but it is drastically overused and as Glenn "DVD Savant" Erickson points out here, he inserts little musical 'stings' that are very irritating and tacky.

Caliendo's mariachi music for the fiesta is infinitely more effective than Amfitheatrof's clumsy scoring. One of the strengths of the new 'score' is the lack of it, now - silence replaces much of Amfitheatrof bombastic cues. Emotionally, the film is purer now; scenes can breathe in this quiet now.

Major Dundee is one of the great 'flawed' films in my eyes. Leaving the score aside and the cuts made to the film, I feel that main weakness, narratively speaking, is the lack of focus on Sierra Charriba and the Apaches, and the French Lancers. Which means that we have two hours of inner tension among Heston, Harris, Oates, etc and Senta Berger's role is just the obligatory lonesome senorita that by 1965 we have seen too many times. Harry Julian Fink was a so-so writer and the focus of the story wavers throughout and the cutting exacerbated this fault. But it is a powerful, intelligent and fascinating story of men in war. Peckinpah would revisit the themes of this film four years later and would succeed with panache, aplomb and greater air of sadness and regret, in the masterful, The Wild Bunch; in many ways, Major Dundee feels like a dry-run for that film, but it remains a fascinating film for many reasons.

 

[Gordon McMurphy]

R.G. Armstrong rules. He's an awesome dude.

 

[JPCinema]

I had the pleasure of meeting "R.G" years ago at the National theater in Westwood when I saw "The Deer Hunter". He sat in the row directly in back of me. We chatted before the movie and he was a very funny and delightfull guy...so different than most of his characters.

 

[John Hodson]

Go here and listen to DVD Talk Radio's Grover Crisp interview; fascinating stuff about 'Dundee', particularly at the end when he gives a few hints as to what's up next - apparently they've found better elements for a new edition of Mr Smith Goes To Washington and they're working on a whole slew of Capra titles, including American Madness, Antonioni's The Passenger with Jack Nicholson, and a Henri Clouzot film, The Truth with Ms Bardot. Yum.

My 'Dundee' came yesterday; my first impressions of the 5.1 score weren't good, but I think it was the shock of the new, and I actually warmed to it when I came across the 'fiesta' scene; I'll probably watch it through tonight. I did catch the whole of the excerpt from the Mike Siegel doco and it has only whet my appetite (R.G. Armstrong does indeed rule, and hasn't time been kind to Senta Berger?) - I'm looking forward to seeing the whole thing on DVD hopefully soon!

 

[Joel Vardy]

My copy just arrived. Really looking forward to seeing this again with the extended cut...

Joel

 

[chris19087]

I already have the script. Check this out - www.majordundee.blogspot.com

 

[chris19087]

[COLOR=FF00AA]I already have the script. Check this out - www.majordundee.blogspot.com[/COLOR]