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Major Dundee (The Extended Version) (1965) | 
| Director: Sam Peckinpah
Actors: Mario Adorf, R.g. Armstrong, Senta Berger, Albert Carrier, John Chandler
Studio: Columbia TriStar
Category: DVD
List Price: CDN$ 14.95
Buy New: CDN$ 10.18
You Save: CDN$ 4.77 (32%)
New (18) Used (2) from CDN$ 9.50
Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 605
Format: Ac-3, Dolby, Dubbed, Ntsc, Subtitled, Widescreen
Languages: English (Original Language), French (Original Language), English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), Japanese (Subtitled), Korean (Subtitled), French (Dubbed), Japanese (Dubbed)
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6
MPN: COLD04943D
ISBN: 1404955313
UPC: 043396049437
EAN: 9781404955318
ASIN: B00083FZFY
Theatrical Release Date: 1965
Release Date: May 31, 2005
Availability: Usually ships within 1 - 2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: BRAND NEW items direct from the USA. Please allow 8 to 12 business days for delivery. Customs charges may apply.
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From Amazon.com
This restoration of Sam Peckinpah's 1965 western IMajor Dundee/I is nothing short of magnificent, a noble attempt at restoring a famously wrecked masterpiece. When Peckinpah went over budget and over schedule during the Mexico shoot, unshot scenes were canceled and the footage rudely cut by the studio. The director disowned the results. In 2005, surviving footage was patched back in, and a new musical soundtrack commissioned to replace the score Peckinpah hated. This raises some legitimate questions about interpreting a director's intentions, and about messing with film history, but IMajor Dundee--The Extended Version/I is such a rousing, mysterious experience, one feels grateful. p Major Dundee (Charlton Heston) is a vainglorious officer busted to the decidedly inglorious job of overseeing prisoners in a fort in New Mexico. An abduction gives him the excuse to mount an expedition into Mexico, chasing the perpetrators and perhaps a shot at greatness. His ragtag posse includes Confederate POWs, notably one Captain Ben Tyreen (Richard Harris), whose intense former friendship with Dundee is tainted with a sense of betrayal on both sides. (Heston and Harris, two actors not known for subtlety, are splendid.) Part Ahab, part Alexander the Great, Dundee leads the expedition away from its purpose and into a near-mythic kind of wandering. p Peckinpah gets everything right--the landscapes, the sneaky humor, the code of men. He also takes time to distinguish the supporting characters, such as Jim Hutton's awkward young officer and Senta Berger's stranded widow. The Peckinpah stock company of amazing character actors is in place, too, including James Coburn, Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, L.Q. Jones, and Slim Pickens. It will never be exactly what Peckinpah envisioned, but now IMajor Dundee/I rides suspiciously close to greatness. I--Robert Horton/I
Amazon.com Essential Video
At one point in the filming of this flawed epic, actor Charlton Heston (in the title role) got so mad at director Sam Peckinpah that he charged him on horseback with a cavalry sword and Peckinpah had to escape into the air on the camera crane. Yet Heston offered to give up his salary to get the studio to let Peckinpah finish the film. As it turned out, this story--of a headstrong Army professional who goes slightly crazy chasing a band of Apaches while shepherding a group of Confederate prisoners--was taken away from Peckinpah in the editing room and recut, so that much of the character development was eliminated from the crucial central section of the film. Still, it offers solid outings by Heston and Richard Harris (as his prisoner) and gives a hint of things to come in Peckinpah's next film, IThe Wild Bunch/I. I--Marshall Fine/I
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| Customer Reviews: Read 7 more reviews...
 Wrong Turn May 30, 2004
2 out of 7 found this review helpful
Sam Peckinpah's bungling of this film and his discharge from The Cincinnati Kid nearly terminated his directorial career, and Dundee gives a hint of the self-destructive inclincations that eventually put him out of business for good. The disciplined creator of The Rifleman and The Westerner TV series and director of the masterpiece Ride the High Country went completely haywire on Dundee, much to the shock of the studio backing it, and although Peckinpah tried to shift the blame, it was his alone for mounting a disastrously disorganized production of a thoroughly idiotic script. His principal reason for pushing the project apparently was his desire to film in Mexico, a country for whose women he was devloping an all-consuming passion. That and his incipient alcoholism were having severe personality repercussions and giving an ugly cast to Peckinpah's works that he never shook completely.brpThis story of a Union POW camp officer using Confederate prisoners to cross into Mexico to hunt for Apaches has no basis in historical reality whatsoever and there isn't a single believable scene as a consequence.
 BRAVO!!! March 1, 2004
L Gontzes (Athens, Greece)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Definitely a great Western and one of my personal favorites, Major Dundee, brings to the screen such heavyweights as Charlton Heston and Richard Harris, whose performances are outstanding, making this movie one of the best of its kind. The acting, the battles and the costumes are all wonderful!brMajor Dundee is a movie about honor, bravery, and heroes from a time long gone. brA great movie indeed!
Mangled to pieces February 7, 2003
T O'Brien (Chicago, Il United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Despite being ripped apart in the editing room, Major Dundee still manages to be a very entertaining western. Supposedly the movie was supposed to clock in at just under three hours, but the editing cut it down to just over two hours. It is a shame that it was mangled so badly since it has a lot of potential.br br Major Dundee stars Charlton Heston as Amos Dundee, a Union officer banished to the west for a mistake he made in the heat of battle. Richard Harris co-stars, he steals many scenes, as Confederate officer Benjamin Tyreen, an old friend of Dundee who was betrayed by him at a court martial hearing. Dundee organizes a ragtag bunch of Confederate prisoners, black Union infantry, frontiersman, and Jim Hutton as the bumbling artillery officer, Lt. Graham, assigned to the cavalry, to pursue Sierra Cheriba, a renegade Apache. Dundee's troop runs into the Apache as well as French lancers in Mexico amidst many well-executed action sequences. The final battle in the river should not be missed.p The movie does leave a few parts with no conclusion, but overall the film is well worth the watch. Great supporting cast with James Coburn, Ben Johnson, Warren Oates, L.Q. Jones, Slim Pickens and Senta Berger. Great action with good storyline. Too bad the movie got mangled since it is very good even mangled as it is. To all you Peckinpah fans out there, go out and get this movie!
Flawed but very watchable July 19, 2001
Erik North (San Gabriel, CA USA)
Despite being cut to pieces by its penny-pinching producer and then subsequently disowned by its director, MAJOR DUNDEE is a rather well-made antidote of sorts to those John Ford/John Wayne cavalry westerns that came before. Sam Peckinpah, on only his third movie overall and first with a big budget, managed to get enough on screen so that whatever flaws it might have are mostly kept to a minimum.pHeston plays an ambitious Union officer of an Army prison in New Mexico during the last months of the Civil War. When a band of marauding Apache destroy a nearby ranch, its occupants, and a regiment of his own troops, Heston sees a chance to get out of his run-of-the-mill job, for he sees himself as "a professional soldier, not a prison keeper." He assembles a ragtag regiment consisting of civilians, Union officers, negroes, and Confederates to go after the Apache. The pursuit, however, takes Dundee's gang across the Rio Grande into a northern Mexico now occupied by the French. Not only do they have to find the Apache and keep the peace amongst themselves, they also now have to avoid as much contact with the French lancers as well.pThe flaws in MAJOR DUNDEE are rather evident. It probably wasn't necessary for a love story involving Heston and a female village doctor (Senta Berger) to be inserted within. And as many reviewers have stated, there are a lot of loose ends in the story that needed connecting, and they all seem to have been left on the cutting room floor. Including them might have made this a 3-hour film instead of just 2 hours and 2 minutes, but MAJOR DUNDEE might actually have been a masterpiece.pDespite the flaws, the film is redeemed by its cast giving solid performances. Heston is, of course, at his best in the title role; yet even he is matched line-for-line by Richard Harris as Tyreen, his former friend and now sworn enemy. James Coburn also contributes a wry line or two as the one-armed scout Sam Potts. There is also Peckinpah's cast of the Usual Suspects here as well: L.Q. Jones, Ben Johnson, R.G. Armstrong, Warren Oates, Slim Pickens, and Dub Taylor. MAJOR DUNDEE also shows Peckinpah willing to stretch the violence angle a bit; the battle scenes are bloody enough to have warranted at least a 'PG-13' rating. He would up the ante in this department considerably when he made THE WILD BUNCH.pTo sum it up, MAJOR DUNDEE is a flawed movie, but one that remains compellingly watchable. Filmed almost exclusively on location in Mexico.
Follow Major Heston! April 4, 2001
I must first confess, that I had never heard of this movie in questions before, i.e., Major Dundee VHS ~ Charlton Heston. However, the movie turned out to a hidden gem (one of those rare gems that one should cherish and not misplace under any circumstances). The plot, storyline and script is well developed and the characters are well developed and the dialogue is very natural; and does therefore not seem forced or phony. I have to agree with another reviewer whom wrote the following Very fine cast and lavish production make up for overlong, confused story of cavalry officer (Heston) who leads assorted misfits against Apaches. Peckinpah disowned the film, which was re-cut by others. Panavision. Peckinpah should have reconsidered disowning (since just as Kubrick did with Spartacus), Peckinpah disowned a fine movie with an excellent story line, Heston doing what he does best, i.e., playing his role with vigor, fortitude, resolve and with so much swagger, confidence and conviction that one is sure that he was a Major at one point in his life. Definitely a movie that I would recommend as I see it as action packed, intense and definitely a must see movie.
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