Arrow Blu-ray Film Review

Major Dundee (1965) • Limited Edition Blu-ray [Arrow Video]

Towards the end of the American Civil War, a Union officer assembles a motley force to cross into Mexico and defeat the Apache.

Described by the historian of western films Jim Kitses as “one of Hollywood’s great broken monuments”, Sam Peckinpah’s Major Dundee is probably still more famous for the messiness of its production than its merits as a movie. But if the original cut of 1965 is deeply unsatisfactory, the restored version premiered in 2005 (now re-released by Arrow in a lavish two-disc set with a panoply of extras), works perfectly well as a film in its own right, despite a few flaws, and offers a glimpse of what Peckinpah was aiming for.

Although he was already a successful director of televisions westerns with The Westerner (1960) and Gunsmoke (1955–1975), and had made two theatrical features including the well-received Ride the High Country (1962), Peckinpah wasn’t the first choice for Major Dundee. Producer Jerry Bresler and leading man Charlton Heston (who had long wanted to do a Civil War…