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'If They Move... Kill 'Em!": The Life and Times of Sam Peckinpah

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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.

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.

I always enjoy books on film makers that not only include comments on their films and styles but also some behind the scene type of details, like how director come out with new ideas, things happened during the shooting and etc. This way, you get a whole idea about the real identity of the film maker. David Weddle's book has all that content in a novel like style. You feel like reading a thrilling novel about one of Hollywood's greatest film makers. I personally found Peckinpah as one of the most interesting and original personalities of Hollywood, with his own out-of-cliches style. The book's first prologue section strikes you and grabs you with a fantastic section dedicated on the detaisl about the launch days of "Wild Bunch". It is quite apparent that the author has put a tremendous energy in talking with various sources, who bring a undisputed quality into the book. He (the author) tries to provide a full insight about Peckinpah's insparation points for all of his products. A work of this quality surely deserves author's personal interview with Peckinpah along with what he heard from "others". I am not sure whether he met Peckinpah personally. May be he didn't have an idea that one day he would produce such a book on Peckinpah. That is the first deficient or missing point about the book. What really surprised me great deal is that the author never mention about Peckinpah's greatest inspiration on his late westerns, like Wild Bunch. That is, his relation with famous Italian director Sergio Leone. I have read several anecdotes which say that Leone and Peckinpah were good friends and Peckinpah admired Leone a lot. Many sources say that Leone was his greatest inspiration for his masterpiece, Wild Bunch. Writing such a book on Peckinpah and never saying a word on Leone is surely a major deficiency of this book and, to me, this makes the book's sections on Peckinpah's westerns not quite complete. The author doesn't also mention that Peckinpah once took a role in one Spaghetti Western, called China 9, Liberty 37. The author either doesn't know all this or ignores the reality that Peckinpah was influenced by Leone style westerns. Whether like it or not this is fact and missing in the book. May be some day the author comes out with a new version of the book which include all those details. Then I would rate the book as 10. Let's see until then. The comment written by Cenk KIRAL from Istanbu

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.

If there has ever been a man for whom the phrase "consumed by his inner demons" was apt, that man was director Sam Peckinpah. And as David Weddle makes clear in this massive and massively detailed biography, Peckinpah's films bring many of these demons out to strut or cower on the silver screen. As Weddle remarks, almost everyone who loves film can remember the first time he saw THE WILD BUNCH, and yet, like almost all of Peckinpah's "serious" films other than RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY, it was severely mutilated by studio meddling.

Not since Orson Welles has there been a famous director who had so much trouble with studio interference. And yet there were clearly times when some intelligent interference was more than justified... MAJOR DUNDEE falls completely to pieces in its "third half," to echo Tom and Ray of CAR TALK. THE BALLAD OF CABLE HOGUE is a giant void at its center... where there should be a love story, there's absolute vacuum, despite the talents of the performers. STRAW DOGS is repellant and unmemoriable despite the efforts of Dustin Hoffman. Sam turned every film in which he had much control into a psychodrama in which his characters wrestled with Sam's own problems. In this, he was a true auteur.

Weddle's research is overwhelming and his information about Peckinpah's childhood, college days and TV career is very enlightening... but he makes a major mistake in trying to relate these early experiences of Peckinpah in the most mechanical and naive way to Peckinpah's massive later psychological problems. We even listen in to some of Peckinpah's innermost thoughts, which is pretty preposterous in a supposed work of nonfiction.

And as another reviewer has noted, the list of influences on Peckinpah has a gigantic lapse--- other directors! Apart from a few random mentions of John Ford, there's hardly a hint that Peckinpah ever went to movies, or ever studied the works of other directors. Yet his early films burst onto the scene precisely when there was a directorial ferment almost without precedent in US and international film-making.

Peckinpah's film career is a sad and disturbing litany of maniacal career- and self-destruction. After alcohol withered his talents to a minimum, he discovered cocaine, and spent the rest of his short life in a moronic haze penetrated randomly by spurts of insane violence and agression... until his heart stopped abruptly. Ironically, in his decline he did a couple of by-the-numbers potboiler action films, and these were the only ones of his films that made real money for the studios. His best known, and best, films, like the WILD BUNCH, were box-office failures and not available for viewing even today in their uncut, unmutilated forms.

It's almost all here, a repellent and tragic story that only a Shakespeare could really do much justice to. Recommended, if you've ever wondered what kind of man could have had the vision embodied in the first 15 minutes or the final 15 minutes of THE WILD BUNCH.

I have always been a huge fan of peckinpah's films but now have a much greater appreciation of them after reading this book. The life of peckinpah is facinating and clearly gives the reader an understanding of what made this man tick as well as why his films were so different. I highly recommend this book along with all of peckinpah's films-good or bad.

I am an avid reader of biographies. They are a difficult genre to critique because everyone has their own ideas about what parts of an individual's career and what works of the individual should be focused on. My indicator of a great biography is how well the biographer can flesh out personal history to not only help us understand the individual but to demonstrate how the individual's character eventually infuses his works. With accuracy and grace, David Weddle taps into the events of Sam Peckinpah's life and lays out the specific moments that molded the man and his works. Weddle wields a mastery of lyricism in prose that makes the ride all that more enjoyable. Compared to previous works about Peckinpah's life, this work is a compassionate study of a complex human being who made films that moved people. We now can understand an otherwise misunderstood man. Also, Weddle shows how Peckinpah attempted to utilize all that he had learned in theater, televison and life to tell his stories in film as truly as possible. Weddle's biography is a must read for film students, film makers and any person who loves the movies. I highly recommend it.

this is a terrific book - a model movie biography. the author seems to have the perfect distance from Peckinpah - knew him personally but not so intimately as to get sucked into the emotional maelstrom that the director seemed to engulf his associates and family in. At the same time he has obviously done his leg work. What is worth noting is how he always sets Peckinpah in the context of his times throughout his life. You get the feeling that Weddle could have doubled the length of the book and still kept it riveting. It's a good thing this book has finally come out in paperback since the hard back edition seems to be out of print.

David Weedle's 1994 book "If They Move Kill Em - The Life and Times of Sam Peckinpah" is one of the best film biographies around, largely because Weedle knows that the people who read this book are interested in the films, so he manages to relate the "life and times" part of the book to the films, rather than giving us a mere recitation of life and times and then a few chapters about the films. IOW, Weedle is consistently relating Peckinpah's life events to his films, showing how a character or an event helped shape either an approach to a film or an actual scene in a film.

More than that, he shows how Peckinpah keeps coming back to certain themes or archetypes and re-uses them in subsequent films, or how because events (usually a producer's interference) prevent him from expressing himself in one film, he uses the opportunity to revisit the theme/archetype later. This is precious stuff, showing that Weedle has not only done his research, but he has thought about the material, processed it, and made some intelligent observations.

If I can fault the book at all it is that Weedle spends a lot of time on Peckinpah's TV career and "The Wild Bunch" and not so much on some of his other films. I was particularly disappointed in the amount of space devoted to "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia" and "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid". Which is not to say that I wanted less about "The Wild Bunch", but more about the other films.

Bottom line - One of the best film biographies around, and certainly the best on Peckinpah.

This biography is the best I have read on Sam Peckinpah. I was enthralled to read on about Sam's life through the voice of David Weddle, the author. Weddle caught the essence of Peckinpah in a very realistic way, almost as if Peckinpah had written this himself. It was very enjoyable, and I wished that the book was even longer.