The English Teacher's Top Ten: The Films of Sam Peckinpah

Our maverick English Teacher and movie buff goes the "Top Ten " route with movie makers, movie stars, and movie genres. Up next - Bloody Sam. Brilliant, belligerent, gifted, difficult, sensitive, and excessive, Sam Peckinpah expanded the boundaries of movie making while at the same time alienating both producers and audiences. At his best he was a brilliant imagist and editor; at his worst, a violent, misanthropic sensationalist. As complex and contradictory as his films, Peckinpah even now, almost 40 years after his untimely death, still fascinates and infuriates. NOTE: I have included his TV film "Noon Wine" because, after the failure of " Major Dundee", it resurrected his career and got him " The Wild Bunch". It also distills the essence of the "other Peckinpah" - The elegiac artist who could make "Ride the High Country" and "Junior Bonner".