Western starring Charlton Heston and Richard Harris. At the end of the American Civil War, Major Amos Dundee is determined to wipe out a band of Apaches who have massacred a US Cavalry post. Short of men, he is obliged to take on thieves, renegades, volunteers and his Confederate prisoners who are led by an old enemy, Captain Tyreen.
Sam Peckinpah's third feature starring Charlton Heston as a Union officer leading a wild bunch of Confederate prisoners, including Richard Harris, to capture an even wilder bunch of marauding Apaches, almost became a major western. However, as with almost all of Peckinpah's pictures, problems arose - the script was reportedly never really finished, let alone polished, and, while Peckinpah had in mind a dark, violent epic about the Civil War, Columbia wanted a bright and breezy "cavalry and Indians" adventure. When Columbia threatened to fire Peckinpah in mid-schedule, Heston backed him up and offered to return his $200,000 fee. The studio, of course, accepted this rash offer and let Peckinpah continue, though it still cut around 40 minutes of footage. Damaged goods, then, though several sequences have undeniable grandeur.
| role | name |
|---|---|
| Major Amos Dundee | Charlton Heston |
| Captain Benjamin Tyreen | Richard Harris |
| Teresa Santiago | Senta Berger |
| Lieutenant Graham | Jim Hutton |
| Samuel Potts | James Coburn |
| Tim Ryan | Michael Anderson Jr |
| Sergeant Gomez | Mario Adorf |
| Aesop | Brock Peters |
| OW Hadley | Warren Oates |
| Sergeant Chillum | Ben Johnson (1) |
| Rev Dahlstrom | R G Armstrong |
| Arthur Hadley | L Q Jones |
| Wiley | Slim Pickens |
| Captain Waller | Karl Swenson |
| role | name |
|---|---|
| Director | Sam Peckinpah |
