MAJOR DUNDEE

Dismissed at the time of its release and cut by the studios, the restored version of "Major Dundee" is now just regarded as one of Peckinpah's masterpieces. It's a richly detailed and beautifully structured, as well as a psychologically and morally complex, study of men in conflict and it's one of the greatest westerns ever made. It's set during the closing days of the Civil War and it's about a Yankee major's hunt for the Apaches who have massacred a community and made off with their children. To help him in his search he recruits a group of Confederate prisoners under the command of Richard Harris as well as six 'coloureds', (their spokesman is Brock Peters), so it's a western as much to do with racism as anything else, (the internal conflicts between the Confederates and the Negro soldiers and the hatred Dundee has for the Apaches not to mention a punishing dalliance with the French in Mexico). If the middle section, involving an unlikely romance between Dundee and a German widow played by Senta Berger, feels a little tacked on it doesn't substantially weaken the picture. It also gives Charlton Heston one of his greatest parts; indeed his performance as Dundee may be the best of his career and in a superb cast Richard Harris and, perhaps surprisingly, Jim Hutton are stand-outs. The magnificent widescreen photography is by Sam Leavitt and the brilliant script, again one of the finest of any western, is by Peckinpah, Harry Julian Fink and Oscar Saul.