Abbigail Bush what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Aubrey Hackett While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Donald Seymour This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

edwagreen While they knew what the score was, hard to fathom a group of Confederate prisoners would throw their lot in with Union soldiers to get revenge on the Apache Indians for destroying a village. This was the story that was kept in diary form of that adventure.As Dundee, Charlton Heston sounds like he is Moses at the beginning of the film, especially when he recites scriptures from the bible. Richard Harris plays his foe, a former friend and soldier with Dundee who went over to the Confederate side when war broke out.The film recounts their adventures whether it was with the French in Mexico and a confederate soldier deserting the regiment and Harris taking the obligation he had to take.Naturally, there is the love interest of Senta Berger.

wes-connors As the U.S. Civil War winds down, stiff-jawed prison warden Charlton Heston (as Amos Dundee) rounds up a motley crew of "civilians, criminals, Southerners and Negroes" to hunt down a hoard of bloodthirsty Apache Indians. Nasty business. Along the way, the group fights tension among themselves. Major Heston's main adversary is pre-war chum and present Confederate captive Richard Harris (as Benjamin "Ben" Tyreen). Young Union bugler Michael Anderson Jr. (as Timothy "Tim" Ryan) watches over the brandy, keeps a diary, and occasionally narrates. The brandy proves most difficult to keep in supply; it makes hapless lieutenant Jim Hutton (as Graham) a fine dancer...Showing off in her low-cut clothing, sexy Senta Berger (as Teresa Santiago) is a sight for sore eyes; in an arousing scene, she takes a dip in her slip. Moving along, Heston can't decide on a consistent hairline, and bearded James Coburn (as Samuel "Sam" Potts) plays Indian seer. All of this has been elongated by finds and restorations over the years. Because director Sam Peckinpah sandwiched this film between "Ride the High Country" (1962) and "The Wild Bunch" (1969), you'd think there must be some meat in "Major Dundee". Now, the film looks like it needs to be edited down.**** Major Dundee (3/15/65) Sam Peckinpah ~ Charlton Heston, Richard Harris, Michael Anderson Jr., Jim Hutton

Steffi_P The 1960s were surely the weirdest era in Hollywood history. Never was there a sharper division between up-and-coming youngsters and grizzled traditionalists. It was strange enough to see the new and the old side by side on theatre posters or list of award nominees, much stranger still to see the disparate influences mixing together in the one picture. The Western, by now an unfashionable genre in any case, was going through a revisionist anti-establishment phase, but the conventions of this most American of genres were dying hard.At first glance Major Dundee could be something out of the 50s. It's one of the last Westerns in which the Indians are unequivocally the bad guys, and the whole thing is packaged like one of the old classics, with a handsome lead man, an obligatory (but somewhat limp) love angle, blazing Technicolor, and even an upbeat theme song with a rather corny Ned Washington lyric. The flick was penned by TV writer Harry Julian Fink and B-movie hack Oscar Saul, so not the most prestigious duo but consider that this was one of the biggest breaks either ever had. It seems that on some level they are trying to be a bit more revisionist and edgy, most likely with input from director Sam Peckinpah, who had some hand in the screenplay, although I doubt it was a decisive one. The title character is a sort of unfeeling cynic who places military protocol above all else, and the rivalries between his men are beefed up into the real conflict of the story. But this is not quite so provocative as it sounds. Western anti-heroes had been popular for some time now, and Dundee is not that different from Frank S. Nugent creations like Colonel Thursby (Fort Apache, 1948) and Ethan Edwards (The Searchers, 1956).Behind the camera, Peckinpah stands out as a would-be maverick surrounded by a regularly professional crew. In particular the balletic editing patterns he would later be known for are nowhere to be seen. Still, you can see his thoughts are leaning that direction. He makes most shots a unit, a frame for one actor or action, which necessitates a complex editing pattern regardless of the editor's personal take on it. Violence is sudden, chaotic and, like a Michael Curtiz battle sequence, composed of eye-catching little snippets of action. We also see a lot of the judicious god shots – that sense of cool detachment that characterises prime Peckinpah. And, whatever his contribution to the script it seems he aims to bring out the most cynical elements in the story on a visual level. He even portrays the West as a ravaged landscape, barren and spiky, filled with the ruins of Old Mexico – the only relics of medievalism in the New World.Standing tall amongst this landscape is a delightful rogues' gallery of a cast. This is the kind of role that really suits Charlton Heston. A bit like the guy he played in The Big Country, not actually bad but certainly obnoxious, yet still effortlessly attractive and charismatic. He has a body that makes lounging around look almost noble, and a face to which a sardonic glance is handsome. I'd much rather see him like this than faking it as some clean-cut good guy. Richard Harris gives his character a kind of melodramatic sense of self-importance, playing the kind of gentleman-cum-hell-raiser that he was in real life. But what one really remembers is that supporting cast of rugged uglies, with faces that match the wilderness. What's really great about guys like L.Q. Jones, Slim Pickens and Warren Oates is that they look totally authentic, to the point where it's even hard to think of them as actors. You just can't imagine them going back to a caravan to shower off the dust.In the end it is really these little touches – the motley cast, the impressive little proto-Peckinpah moments – that make Major Dundee worth watching. It does suffer from a lack of cohesion, and is certainly held back by that unshakeable studio Western look. Eventually the old time Western style would fade out completely, and we would at last get some pure and decently-made neo-Westerns, of which Peckinpah would be a champion. All the same it's sad to see the remnants of the classic Western looking so awkward and dated here, for they come from the genre's golden age, which no amount of revisionism or even nostalgic homage can hope to match.

ianlouisiana .............but very little in the way of logic and continuity."Major Dundee" is,quite frankly,a mess and a disappointment after "Ride the High Country" - arguably Mr S.Peckinpah's greatest work.The Major himself is not an enigma,merely a bore and a boor to boot.Arrogant and unable to see the big picture,impulsive and a glory hunter - just the kind of officer soldiers all over the world and throughout history dread to come across. His former colleague Captain Tyreen (Mr R.Harris ridiculously Oirish) has his measure from the start and tries to deflect some of his more outlandish plans and the clash between the two of them dominates the film despite being but one of several story ideas that are run up to see who salutes them. What might have been a competent and mildly interesting Civil War tale becomes a overheated mess of pseudo Spaghetti Western clichés.Mr Peckinpah eventually gained the reputation of a "maverick",but I think it more likely he simply didn't give a s***t.Certainly that insouciance is there for all to see in "Major Dundee"which is royally screwed up and is rescued from absolute disaster only by the pleasure of watching hams like Mr S Pickens, Mr R.G.Armstrong and Mr Warren Oates ripping up the studio cactus. Back in 1965 Miss S.Berger seemed very sexy.Now she seems merely superfluous.A clear case of Art imitating life.