For Criterion Consideration: Sam Peckinpah’s Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia

Why is his head worth one million dollars and the lives of 21 people?

Ah, they don’t have taglines like that anymore. While trying to come up with a title for this week’s For Criterion Consideration, I went through a ton of films, both in my head and in my collection. And while perusing my shelves, I saw one of my favorite Sam Peckinpah films, Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia, the very underrated 1974 action film starring Warren Oates.

The film is pretty simple. A powerful man only known as El Jefe (Emilio Fernandez) wants the head of the man who has impregnated his daughter, Alfredo Garcia, and has offered anyone who can do the task one million dollars. Two months go by, with the search still going on in Mexico, and we are introduced to Bennie (Warren Oates), a retired military man who makes a living as a piano player and bar manager. He’s asked by two of El Jefe’s men if he knows where Garcia is. He doesn’t know the man but it seems that everyone else does and this is where the quest begins.

If you haven’t seen the film, I don’t want to ruin the twist that comes right away in the film (that would be wrong and we already get a lot of flack for spoilers), and I think it’s a film that once this story beat comes up right away in the picture, it’s more about Bennie’s search for Alfredo Garcia, with his girlfriend Elita (Isela Vega), a prostitute who had an affair with Garcia and the ultimate degradation of man himself when it comes to a chance at a new life.

This is a film made right after Peckinpah made the fantastic film Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid, which failed horribly at the box office. He made this film for a smaller budget (about $1.5 million) and set it in Mexico, which gave it a rough and authentic look. Peckinpah even went on record to say this was the only film that was released exactly the way he had intended from the start. Looking at it with that tidbit, you see this film more as almost an autobiographical look at Peckinpah himself, the alcoholism that was eating away at his life and the anxiety that seeped onto the screen from his own neuroses.

This is why this is my favorite film from Sam Peckinpah and his most personal makes it a great entry into a man who had battled not only Hollywood itself, but his own body with poison. I ask Criterion to please put out an edition so more people can get a gander at this film. MGM has put out a DVD years ago that had one great addition to the film, which was a commentary with Peckinpah scholars Paul Seydor, Garner Simmons and David Meddle. We also have a theatrical trailer, which has that gritty feel that I always fall in love with.

But if Criterion got their hands on it, there’s so much more that we’d have included. We already have an amazing documentary about Sam Peckinpah on Criterion’s release of Straw Dogs, which is sadly out of print now, so you never know if they’d recycle this overlook on his life. But I’d want a retrospective documentary about Warren Oates, an actor who was an actor’s actor and was loved by the people who worked with him, such as Peter Fonda, Ernerst Borgnine and Monte Hellman, who made Two-Lane Blacktop with Oates starring, another Criterion release. Another supplement could be about film making in Mexico and the beauty and ugly underbelly of the conditions. Also, maybe a look at violence in films (which Peckinpah favored) and how in the 60’s and 70’s films weren’t shying away from the red stuff but got a lot of flack for it. Plus a booklet with Roger Ebert’s great review/insight into the film and some of Peckinpah’s scholars writing their thoughts of this film in particular.

It’s a film that might not be for everybody, which is something that is said for Peckinpah’s catalog of film. Criterion doesn’t shy away from violence in film, and seeing this film in a pristine print would be beneficial for any cinephile in general. Especially for Peckinpah fans that might forget about this film. Plus it has one of the greatest titles for a film. Hands down. So I ask Criterion, consider this film for a future release and once again we can say there’s a Peckinpah film currently in the collection.