Major Dundee (1965)

Peckinpah Extended version.
Stars/Plot: Heston and Richard Harris. star as a Confederate POW and his Union Jailer chasing the Apache in Mexico.

Background: Heston made the movie to fulfill a contractual obligation and had no creative control over the movie except a veto over the director. With a script only 2/3 finished and with a budget of $3 million, Peckinpah was hired. Production difficulties almost got Peckinpah fired but Heston saved him. Peckinpah would later blame the studio for destroying his "masterpiece," but from reading his biography and Heston’s Diary its obvious the film was doomed from the start. After Dundee, Heston would insist on a completed script BEFORE filming. 

Pros - Acting, Direction, First 110 minutes.

Cons – Last one third of the movie. Having set up two great conflicts between the Calvary vs. Apaches and Harris vs. Heston, Peckinpah drops both to concentrate on the tepid Dundee and Sandra Berger romance including a terrible Heston/Berger skinny-dipping scene which ends with Heston's wounding. The movie then becomes even more digressive as it follows Heston into alcoholism and his ultimate recovery and rescue. The film ends with a well-filmed but pointless French vs. Americans battle.

Summary: The first two-thirds is great but the digressive last part makes the film just an above average western. Rating ***