Customer Reviews

Peckinpah: The Western Films--A Reconsideration

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This is, quite simply, the finest book on film theory and analysis that I have ever read. I am a great admirer of Peckinpah's work, especially his westerns, so I am very happy to see a serious consideration of his work.

Mr. Seydor writes with great insight, intellegence, and with a thorough understanding of this neglected and under-appreciated director.
Too many people identify Sam Peckinpah as a director of blood and guts movies containing violence for the sake of violence.

Mr. Seydor shows the themes and emotions that saturate Peckinpah's work and tells us that this is a director of immense talent and passion. He also lets you know that he directed other westerns besides "The Wild Bunch".

I hope that someday Mr Seydor will write a book about Peckinpah's non-western films as well. But in the mean time, this book is perfect for movie addicts like myself, but is also very accessable to the casual film fan as well.

This excellent book by Paul Seydor is informative and just plain fun to read discussion of Sam Peckinpah's Western TV and film work. I enjoyed Seydor's discussions of the TV work that Peckinpah did on among others 'Gunsmoke', 'The Rifleman', and finally his own show 'The Westerner' with Brian Keith (which I wish was available on DVD for viewing enjoyment).

His major Western films are discussed in exquisite and fascinating detail. Discussed by Seydor are Peckinpah's first feature, 'The Deadly Companions' (also needs to be put on DVD in America), the elegiac and wonderful 'Ride the High Country', the flawed but fascinating 'Major Dundee', the interesting TV movie work by Peckinpah 'Noon Wine' (inexplicably not available on DVD), his most famous film 'The Wild Bunch', the enjoyable 'Ballad of Cable Hogue' and Peckinpah's interesting, intriguing take on 'Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid'.

Seydor illuminates these films with keen insight. His discussions of all of these films are excellent. I really enjoyed the discussions on 'High Country', 'Dundee', 'Pat Garrett' and the 'Wild Bunch'. Seydor talks about the restoration of 'The Wild Bunch' in the '90s. This ended up being controversial because for a time the film was going to receive an X or NC-17 rating. Seydor discusses all of this in a fair and interesting manner. He really makes you want to get the DVDs out again and look at these films for the umpteenth time. That is a sign of excellent film analysis.

I hope someday that a companion book on the films done by Peckinpah not discussed by Seydor in this book could be done. I would especially like someone to discuss the best of the rest films, 'Straw Dogs', 'Junior Bonner', 'The Getaway', and 'Cross of Iron' in such an intelligent manner as Seydor did in his work.

I highly recommend checking this book out. Peckinpah has been lucky in that the caliber of authors (Seydor, Marshall Fine, David Weddle, Garner Simmons, Stephen Prince, and Neil Fulwood) working on his life and films have done such an excellent job.

A+

I purchased this book as a gift for a family member who is very into the Civil War era and US History in general. He specifically requested this book so I assume it is well worth the money.