If They Move . . . Kill 'Em!: The Life and TImes of Sam Peckinpah [Paperback]

David Weddle (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 27, 2001

The only major biography of Sam Peckinpah in print, David Weddle's If They Move...Kill 'Em! tells the wild story of Peckinpah's life with novelistic verve and does justice to one of the most important bodies of work in American cinema. Born into a clan of lumberjacks, ranchers, and frontier lawyers, David Samuel Peckinpah served in the Marines and then made his way to Hollywood, where he worked on a string of low-budget features before being hired as a writer for Gunsmoke in 1955. Quickly becoming the hottest writer in television, Peckinpah went on to direct a phenomenal series of features, including Ride the High Country, Straw Dogs, The Getaway, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, and The Wild Bunch. The life he led -- glamorous, wild, and beset by personal demons -- is as vivid as his films. A hopeless romantic and a grim nihilist, inspiration to such luminaries as DePalma, Scorsese, and Tarantino, Sam Peckinpah was an audacious American original. If They Move...Kill 'Em! is his wild and woolly story.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This biography portrays writer-director Peckinpah (1925-1984) as a gifted man at war with Hollywood, his four wives and himself. The signature of a Peckinpah film like The Wild Bunch or Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is an audaciously protracted, viscerally exciting brawl or shootout. The gravity of such carefully crafted sequences stems from their integration into psychologically nuanced narratives and from their moral ambiguity: in Peckinpah's world, even the "best" of men are capable of harrowing and unbidden acts of violence. Such a finely honed moral sense separates Peckinpah from his noisier imitators and speaks to his struggle to reconcile his aesthetic sensibility with the austere machismo he inherited from the unsentimental and self-reliant men in his family. Yet, as film critic and historian Weddle shows, the volatility of the filmmaker's temperament gets the upper hand, hastening his artistic and personal decline.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Known for violent action films such as The Wild Bunch (1969), Peckinpah was dismissed by many critics during his lifetime but is now receiving serious critical attention. The publisher bills this as "the first major biography" of the late writer-director, though many libraries already own Marshall Fine's Bloody Sam (LJ 11/1/91), as well as one or more critical studies. Fine's book is a rather conventional biography, with few surprises; Weddle offers a more vividly written mix of biography and analysis, though on occasion his writing style is too self-consciously hip. In both books, Peckinpah emerges as something of a stereotype: the hard-drinking, womanizing, yet inwardly sensitive hellraiser. Weddle's book is a good choice for libraries that don't already own Fine's book, but only large film collections really need both.
David C. Tucker, DeKalb County P.L., Decatur, Ga.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 592 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press (February 27, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802137768
• ISBN-13: 978-0802137760
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 1.3 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #852,903 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Tragic examination of the Sam Peckinpah myth May 11, 2003

By Chris K. Wilson

Format:Paperback

David Weddle's fine biography of director Sam Peckinpah "If They Move...Kill'em!" is a harrowing book, detailing an extraordinary professional life wrought with alcoholism, drug addiction, rage and eventually paranoia. This book doesn't attempt to brush Peckinpah off the mountain he will forever possess, but it does detail his inspirations, influences and life-long battle with the demons within. Peckinpah was indeed tortured, an Ernest Hemingway or even Jack Kerouac of his time. He was also one heck of an SOB.

As a fan of Peckinpah's extaordinary films, including "The Wild Bunch," "Cross of Iron," "Straw Dogs" and "The Getaway," I was always perplexed by the erratic quality of the films later in his career and his eventual disappearance from the filmmaking scene. I suppose Weddle's work provides an uneasy answer to these questions, and I think his arguments about Peckinpah living the life of the characters he created in his films is valid.

Peckinpah's legend has always overshadowed Peckinpah's work, which is why such underrated jewels as "Noon Wine," "Junior Bonner" and "The Ballad of Cable Hogue" have been overlooked. I appreciate Weddle's attempts at exposing this myth, and revealing the troubled inspirations and obsessions of Peckinpah. I have problems with the way Weddle skims the surface of many of his films, rarely providing much critical insight or interpretation. But to do so would be treading on the groundbreaking territory of Garner Simmons' ultimate work "Peckinpah, A Portrait in Montage." Weddle should be applauded for avoiding areas that perhaps have already been covered.

To support his argument, Weddle ignores films from Peckinpah's resume, and makes several generalizations which are not entirely accurate. As the years go by, curious viewers will eventually realize that "Cross of Iron" was one of his great films, just as they will also begin to appreciate the gritty greatness of "The Getaway." These films will never serve as examples of the eroding talent of Peckinpah. Though I do agree with Weddle that "Bring Me the Head of Alfred Garcia, "The Osterman Weekend" and "Convoy" are hollow shells of a once-great talent.

"If They Move...Kill'Em!" is eye-opening and disturbing. It needed to be written. Many artists who rose to prominence during the 1960s and 1970s suffered a similar Peckinpah fate - cocaine addiction, alcoholism, a life of excess. That he was still able to make his films was a stunning achievement. That he took 10 years and 5 films off of his life (at the very least), is an American tragedy. Weddle has done a good job at revealing a man who not only was his own worst enemy, but who lived the ignoble life of the tortured artist to the extreme. To know Peckinpah the man, is to eventually understand his utterly unique films.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars The Man Behind The Squibs September 2, 2008

By Bill Slocum VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Sam Peckinpah didn't direct Hollywood classics. He directed raw, flawed, mesmerizing movies that tapped into the savage, bleeding heart of man. It was an art fueled by a life on the edge, seeking both epiphany and self-destruction. The latter came much easier.

David Weddle's 1994 biography charts Peckinpah's journey from television journeyman to celebrated auteur to washed-up coked-out has-been with obvious humanity and a clear-eyed appreciation for what Peckinpah brought to the cinematic table. Beginning with his 1969 milestone "The Wild Bunch", Peckinpah revolutionized the language of film with slow-motion, cross-cutting, and rapidfire editing, usually in sequences with much violence. "Blood ballets", they were called, and "Bloody Sam" was the guy who made them.

"With his cameras Peckinpah sought to penetrate the primitive heart of the violence, to capture both its seductiveness and its horror," Weddle writes.

But this hard-earned success of Peckinpah's was short-lived. He made a number of brilliant films in the years right after "The Wild Bunch"; arguing which, if any, are actually better than "Bunch" is the Peckinpah fan-club handshake. But Weddle notes that Peckinpah's many personal demons, fueled by alcohol and, later, cocaine, not to mention a circuitous trail of women, pushed him to a point where the films became ill-focused, "plagued by gaps in continuity, sudden lurches in tone, and scenes that were sloppily bad." The man who worked out "Wild Bunch's" amazing finale on the set devolved into a fuzzy-headed drunk.

Weddle may be better known to you, as he was to me coming in, as one of three Peckinpah authorities, known as the "Peckinpah Posse", who offer commentaries on select DVDs of Peckinpah movies. I always found Weddle to be the closest in line with my own thoughts of Peckinpah, appreciative but not worshipful of the man's output.

The book is not as steady in its POV. He notes the many flaws in "Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid", a movie I can't stand, but then spends an entire chapter on it, quoting admirers of the film like Martin Scorsese to the point he sounds like an admirer himself. "Junior Bonner", a much better film to me, one of the best Peckinpah did, gets only desultory mention.

Behind the scenes, Weddle presents piercing insights, particularly regarding Peckinpah's escalating irrationality. On "Straw Dogs", he befriended an actor playing the most villainous character and dragged him out at 3:30 in the morning of a shooting day to sit by the sea with a bottle of tequila and sing "Butterfly Mornings," a folksy love duet from his previous film "The Ballad Of Cable Hogue." There's something twistedly brilliant in that, even if Peckinpah contracted pneumonia from the episode and nearly lost the film.

By 1976, making his war film "Cross Of Iron", Peckinpah was walking through an airport swigging slivovitz with an enabling lackey, one of several "pilot fish" as Weddle calls them who latched on to Peckinpah for the ride. "Cross Of Iron" was his last decent film by most accounts, but a far cry from "Straw Dogs" and other early 1970s films.

As other reviewers note, Weddle doesn't get into Peckinpah's cinematic influences, an oversight. He does make an interesting case for Peckinpah's pathfinding television work, and champions the classic pre-"Bunch" film "Ride The High Country", all in a way that points up how Peckinpah developed the framework for his revolution to come.

Weddle doesn't make Peckinpah come alive for me as a personality, perhaps because he burned so bright that those interviewed seem somewhat singed by their closeness. But he makes me want to watch more Peckinpah. That's probably what Weddle was aiming for.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A Response June 16, 2005

By MyComa

Format:Paperback

If you are interested in a detailed look at Sam Peckinpah's life and work, this book is a great starting point. I was particularly struck by Weddle's descriptions of Sam's creative process. Near the end of the book, the recurring theme of "he was drunk (and/or) high again," gets somewhat stale. But Weddle was only reporting fact. For any Peckinpah fan or even those just finding out about the director, this book is well-worth your time.

Last thing...Sorry, but I have to respond to a previous reviewer J. Austin. You lose all credibility as a reviewer when you criticize a biographer for not knowing enough about his subject when you--yourself--fail to spell the subject's name correctly. Secondly, the author's name is Weddle, not Waddle. Thirdly, Weddle hardly claims that Cross of Iron is embarassing. You quoted one word, "embarassing," and removed the entire context around it. Weddle stated that some scenes in Cross of Iron were embarassing (a result of Peckinpah's erratic behavior and inability to focus for a full day's work), but overall Weddle was complimentary of the film. It was Convoy that Weddle dismissed altogether--something I think all Peckinpah fans would agree with. And finally, Weddle apparently did meet Peckinpah on the set of The Osterman Weekend, as he points out in the introduction to Paul Seydor's The Western Films.