The Wild Bunch

[maggie2]

I've started a project of watching all of the films on the AFI top 100 list, because I'm the weird sort of person who loves ticking off items on a list.  Sometimes it's labor.  Sometimes it's a lot of fun.  My last effort -- The Wild Bunch, a violent western by Sam Peckinpah -- was mostly labor.  Until the last half hour when it was smashingly brilliant and made the whole thing worthwhile.   I once dated a very brilliant guy whose policy is to decide within the first ten minutes if it's worth staying for a movie, and leaving if the answer is no.   There are many times when that's the right policy. Maybe even most of the time.   But you do miss some spectacular stuff doing things that way, and I guess for me it's worth paying the price of sitting through some unredeemable schlock to not miss those pieces.that only come together in a mad audacious rush at the end.  

Comments

[norwie2010.livejournal.com]

Anecdote time: i just remembered the first time i saw "the wild bunch" on italian cable tv (in a shoddy hotel room, many years ago) - and the italian translation was really an adaption, including new and cheesy music, slow motion and brand new, sappy dialogues. I remember thinking "that was the worst western i ever watched".

Some time later i watched the original and was, just like you, blown away! Some simple changes and the end of an otherwise great work was awful!

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

Cool antecdote! I wonder what the people behind the Italian version were thinking.