STACK #138 Apr 2016

EXTRAS

Discussions now continued apace on the cast’s secondary leads. Heston had originally proposed Anthony Quinn for the role of Ben Tyreen and Peckinpah had wanted Lee Marvin to play Dundee’s one-armed scout Sam Potts. However, when both actors turned down the roles they were then offered to Richard Harris and James Coburn, respectively. Australian actor Michael Pate, who had carved a career out of playing numerous Native Americans onscreen, was cast as the renegade Apache chief Sierra Charriba. Before they could allocate other actors to the numerous supporting roles, it was imperative that the scant story be developed into a workable Without Charlton Heston as the lead, producer Jerry Bresler knew he would lose the financing for his movie... screenplay. Peckinpah agreed to supervise Harry Fink, who had been hired by Bresler to write a first-draft script of his original story. After ensuring that Fink knew to incorporate all the ideas that had been discussed at the conference, Peckinpah took off for Durango in Mexico to scout suitable locations for the movie. When he returned some weeks later, Fink sent him a batch of screenplay pages he had written that covered the first third of the film. As he read through the script, Peckinpah grew aghast at Fink’s overly convoluted plot, which meandered all over the place, and dialogue so peppered with profanity, it would never get past the censor. Fink had also not elevated the Tyreen character to full co-star status, as Peckinpah had ordered. In Fink’s version, Tyreen is practically relegated to being no more than a mere onlooker to the whole saga. A furious Peckinpah wrote to Fink and copied Charlton Heston had become known worldwide for playing a host of historic and biblical-type film characters such as Moses, Judah Ben-Hur, El Cid Rodrigo de Vivar, and John the Baptist. Subsequently, the chance to play the ambitiously obsessed Major Dundee particularly appealed to him. Even more so as he knew that his next two contracted films would again see him portraying historical figures – Michelangelo and Gordon of Khartoum.

EXTRAS

Clockwise from top: James Coburn as Indian Scout Samuel Potts, Richard Harris as Captain Ben Tyreen, Sam Peckinpah scouting locations in Mexico for Major Dundee , and Michael Pate as Apache chief Sierra Charriba

in Bresler, “... Your first draft is so appalling, it’s completely unworkable ... no film company or director would or could shoot your script ... I want no part of it”. Bresler immediately brought in a new writer, Oscar Saul, who together with Peckinpah set about writing a whole new screenplay.  It was now almost the end of October 1963 and the film was due to begin shooting in December, which was now impossible. Bresler managed to get the shoot rescheduled to the 1st of February 1964. This was the latest possible date that did not conflict with Heston’s next project, The Agony and the Ecstasy, which was scheduled to begin filming in Rome in the summer of 1964. Without Heston as the lead, Bresler knew he would lose the financing for his movie, and consequently, Peckinpah would be robbed of his chance of directing a major motion picture. A desperate Peckinpah now faced the unenviable task of writing from scratch a 180- page script with a three-hour running time that included over twenty separate speaking parts as well as casting the parts... all within three months. 

To be continued...

25