Stars: Warren Oates, Isela Vega

Director: Sam Peckinpah

Summary: When a wealthy Mexican offers a large reward for the head of the man who seduced his daughter, he triggers off an orgy of violence, death and destruction as bounty hunters take up the offer.

In 1974, Sam Peckinpah directed BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA, a film that is, even for Peckinpah, relentlessly bleak in its portrayal of life. Tellingly, it was one of the last films Peckinpah produced; it was also the fearsome director's personal favorite of the many movies he directed. Warren Oates stars as Bennie, a piano-player who happens upon two bounty hunters who have been dispatched by a Mexican rancher to collect the head of Alfredo Garcia. It seems that Garcia had impregnated the rancher's daughter, who wants his head as indisputable proof that this deviant is dead, and won't be bothering his family again. Penniless and out of luck, Bennie does a little snooping of his own, discovers that his girlfriend knows where the final resting place of Garcia is, and decides to usurp the bounty hunters by severing Garcia's head and collecting the cash for himself. Peckinpah unleashes some ferocious scenes of violence as Bennie attempts to complete his task, while Oates is magnificent as Bennie, who slides into madness as events take a turn for the worse; he even resorts to talking to Garcia's decapitated head, and washing it in the shower.


A truly awesome addition to Peckinpah's canon of films, BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA is often unfairly overlooked in favour of more popular Peckinpah fare such as THE WILD BUNCH and STRAW DOGS. While the film may be shot through with Peckinpah's trademark misogyny and violence, it nevertheless remains a potent ride through humanity's dark side, with Peckinpah training his unrelenting camera on some gruesome scenes that remain long in the memory after the final credits fade.

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Sam Peckinpah knew he couldn't call a movie Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garciaand get away with it. That's why he did it. When he undertook this nakedly personal project, in self-exile in Mexico, the director was a deeply bitter man out of favour with critics, the media, and the Hollywood establishment, which had just released his Pat Garrett &Billy the Kid in a mutilated version. "Bring Me the Head..." sounded like the parody title of an ultraviolent Sam Peckinpah movie, and he flung it in our faces just as his onscreen surrogate tosses the titular object at the camera. Thing is, the movie is a masterpiece--raw, shocking, beautiful, and brave--in which Peckinpah confronts his enemies and his own demons. Warren Oates plays a gringo piano-player stuck in Mexico who hears that some powerful men are willing to pay a bounty on a guy he knows. They don't know the guy is already dead, killed in a car accident. It'll be easy to exhume the trophy and collect the money--except that it will cost our seedy hero everything he has and ever wanted. John Huston's Treasure of the Sierra Madrehad always been a key legend for Peckinpah; this film is a subterranean re-imagining of it, with Oates as both the son of Fred C. Dobbs and the carnival-mirror reflection of Peckinpah himself. And Isela Vega's performance as the sainted whore Elita--bruised and worldly one minute, radiant and clear-skinned as a child the next--is an act of grace. --Richard T. Jameson

Aspect Ratio:	1.85 Anamorphic Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Interactive Menu Screens, Chapter Selections
Subtitles:	French, Greek, Italian, Spanish
Year:	1974
Release Date:	June 20, 2005
Runtime:	108 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	10005453
Keywords:	Bring, Head, Alfredo, Garcia, General, Me, Drama
Genre:	Drama