Over at Film Score Monthly's website there's pretty exciting word on some of the special features promised for the upcoming Peckinpah boxset later this year:

FILM SCORE FRIDAY 1/14/05
By Scott Bettencourt

This February marks the 80th anniversary of Sam Peckinpah's birth, and this spring Columbia will be releasing a recently discovered longer cut of his dark 1965 Civil War-era adventure MAJOR DUNDEE, the film he directed between his classics Ride the High Country and The Wild Bunch, to selected theaters. What is most unusual about this re-release is that Columbia has commissioned an entirely new score, by a selected-but-not-yet-named composer (an unknown), to replace the film's original Daniele Amfitheatrof score (which was reportedly hated by Peckinpah, who was not involved in the film's final cut). The film's upcoming DVD release will feature the new score as well as the Amfitheatrof score on separate audio tracks.

Peckinpah expert Nick Redman is preparing a multi-box DVD set of Peckinpah films to be released later this year. One of the highlights for film music fans will be the DVD of THE GETAWAY, which is expected to feature the film's rejected Jerry Fielding score isolated on a separate audio track, spotted exactly as Fielding intended. The supplementary material will include one sequence from the film with Fielding's music mixed back in, and a documentary on Fielding's collaboration with Peckinpah and the rejection of the Getaway score, featuring interviews with Fielding's wife and daughter.

If this isn't enough for Peckinpah fans, Redman and film editor Paul Seydor (Cobb, Tin Cup) will follow up their Oscar nominated documentary The Wild Bunch: An Album in Montage with A Simple Adventure Story: Sam Peckinpah, Mexico and The Wild Bunch, a new documentary which will feature newly discovered color outtake footage from The Wild Bunch as well as new footage exploring the Mexican locations where the film was shot. The documentary will premiere at the American Cinematheque in late February and also show at the Cannes Film Festival. Also at Cannes will be a new cut of Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.



Suddenly, I feel much, much poorer.

Great, great news. Especially about a new score for MAJOR DUNDEE. The only question of course is who gets to determine if the new one is good enough. But I can't imagine anything being worse than the score the film already has. It comes close to ruining the movie.

Sounds like a great set. My wallet is already crying.

A "new cut" of PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID? Is there any information regarding this? It's crazy to imagine how many different cuts of this film are out there. I grew up on the theatrical cut, and found alot of love for the "director's cut" (though I sincerely missed some scenes from the theatrical that were left out of the directors), and have seen part of the tv cut. So what version is being released in this box set? It's always baffled me how a "directo's cut" can be compiled without the participation of the late director. Are notes enough to justify a so-called director's cut? Frankly, I was a little let down by the newer version of TOUCH OF EVIL. What I'd like to see on the new PAT GARRETT dvd would be both the theatrical and director's cuts; possibly throw in the new tv scenes as a supplement. A great and underrated film like this deserves an all-out special treatment.

Will this boxset also feature 'give me the head of alfredo garcia' as well as 'Pat Garret' , Major Dundee', 'wild bunch' and the 'getaway'???

BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA is an MGM film and is being afforded a separate release this March in the US, and a later one (June, I think) in Europe. It will include a commentary track by Peckinpah scholars Paul Seydor, Garner Simmons, David Weddle and Nick Redman.

Thanks for posting that boxset news, Steve. In my wildest, most optimistic moments I never dreamed there'd be a set like this. It's also great to see these new soundtracks are on a separate audio track, thereby preserving the original releases. One question: the Jerry Fielding score on THE GETAWAY is described as an "isolated track"; does this mean there'll be no dialogue alongside it?

Anyway, this is fantastic news.

My understanding is that Peckinpah was permitted to assemble two cuts of PAT GARRETT & BILLY THE KID, with a preview screening aranged for each one. It appears that Peckinpah smuggled his first cut out of MGM (he screened it for Paul Seydor, who describes it in the first edition of his book on the director), but left the second cut behind. I believe it is this second cut that was reissued a few year's back as a director's cut.

It would seem that cut number one differed from cut number two in that it included the scene in which Aurora Clavell played Garrett's wife, and that it ended with an onscreen title which linked the events of the film to Watergate. I assume it is this first cut which will be playing at Cannes.

The scene with Garrett's wife was included in the television version, while the old theatrical cut includes one scene (showing Garrett beating information out of Rutanya Alda) and several other brief moments and lines of dialogue ("You don't figure he's too good to drink with us?" "Maybe it's the other way around") that aren't in either of Peckinpah's cuts.