THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND – DIRECTOR´S CUT
EUA | 1983-2022 | 102′ | Digital

Realização: Sam Peckinpah

Estreia do último filme de Sam Peckinpah, tal e qual o montou, nos Encontros Cinematográficos do Fundão. “The Osterman Weekend” fora retirado ao realizador em 1983 e remontado pelos produtores para o lançamento comercial. No entanto, às escondidas de todos, Sam Peckinpah conseguiu montar a sua versão definitiva e guardar uma cópia pessoal em 35 mm. Quase 40 anos depois, será finalmente conhecida, graças aos esforços de Don Hyde e Mike Siegel, grandes arquivistas e zeladores do legado de Sam Peckinpah. “The Osterman Weekend – Director´s cut” apresenta uma complexa história de espionagem e de vingança, com agentes duplos e em que um agente secreto americano prepara uma armadilha aos homens que julga responsáveis pelo assassinato da sua mulher.

 

THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND – SAM PECKINPAH´S FINAL CUT
Mike Siegel

When BBC’s Barry Norman started his 1976 Talkshow Interview with the director of the just released CROSS OF IRON, he could only speak two words: „Mr.Peckinpah…“ The director interrupted him: „There are three people in the world who call me Mr. Peckinpah. And they are all lawyers for MGM.“

Indeed the director had tried to sue MGM after the studio had taken away the film from him in 1973. But as we all know, the studios always win. Which doesn’t necessarily mean that the audience does too: One could fill whole books and magazines with stories about mutilated films of our beloved form of art. From MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS to DANCE OF THE VAMPIRES, Sergio Leones butchered ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST and ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA. Even ‘OSCAR-collectors’ like David Lean had to watch helplessly the studios ruin their films.

But no director is more related to studio fights and disowned films like Sam Peckinpah. The reason for this is not only the fact that some of his films were taken away from him and badly recut, but also his way of dealing with it: It is almost impossible to find an interview with Sam Peckinpah in which he didn’t mentioned his dislike of people like Jerry Bresler, Michael Deeley, Wolf Hartwig, Jim Aubrey or whoever was responsible at that certain time. Finally Peckinpah was so much into it, he never even waited for the right question for his attacks – one just had to name the title of a film Peckinpah had trouble with (at least 50% of his 14 features) and the old iguana ‘started the ball’. There was one exception, though: after the producers of his last film, THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND, dismissed Peckinpah’s cut and recut the film for the theatrical release, Peckinpah didn’t speak too badly about it. The reason for this of course was the fact that by the early 80s it was difficult for him to find work. He had finished the film on time and budget and he also wanted to soften his bad boy image…

Sam Peckinpah was born on February 21st 1925. Denver Church, his maternal grandfather, had the biggest influence on his family: Church was a western-legend, a rancher, lawyer and an ex-congressman who had once built one of the biggest watering-systems in California. The bible was the holy word, just as holy as the given word to a man. Sam Peckinpah would later honour him and the old pioneers of the west in THE BALLAD OF CABLE HOGUE (1970) and would remember his father David ‘Boss’ Peckinpah in RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY (1962). Although numerous sources claim that Sam Peckinpah was of Indian heritage, the only Indian blood was that of two nannies who took care of him and his siblings. The name Peckinpah originated from the German name ‘Beckenbach’ and in his father´s family tree one can also find another familiar German name, that of ‘Eisenhauer’ (Eisenhower).

After he studied drama, Peckinpah moved to Television where he had to start as a stagehand and couldn’t move his career forward. By 1954 his luck changed: Director Don Siegel hired him as his assistant and between 1954 and 1956 Peckinpah worked on 10 feature films, not only for Siegel but also for Jacques Tourneur. In some of these films, like Siegel’s INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, Sam Peckinpah was playing bit parts as well. In Tourneur’s WICHITA Peckinpah even played a scene with Joel McCrea – they would work together again. Peckinpah’s career took a lift when he became a regular writer for the TV-series GUNSMOKE. He soon wrote for numerous other western TV-shows: his scripts were way above the average and in 1958 Sam Peckinpah finally made his directorial debut for BROKEN ARROW. He went on to create the superior series THE RIFLEMAN (Chuck Connors) and THE WESTERNER (Brian Keith). For both he directed nine episodes altogether and worked for the very first time with actors who soon would become part of his stock company: among them R.G. Armstrong, Warren Oates and Slim Pickens.

In 1961 Brian Keith was asked to make another film with his ‘PARENT TRAP’ co-star Maureen O’Hara. He agreed to do the small-budgeted western THE DEADLY COMPANIONS if he himself could choose the director: Sam Peckinpah. O’Hara’s brother Charles Fitzsimons wasn’t willing to let Peckinpah enhance the poor script and therefore the whole film, but Sam Peckinpah had his first credit as feature director. His next assignment, the modestly budgeted GUNS IN THE AFTERNOON, would become one of the best westerns ever made and established Peckinpah as a big directorial talent: he re-titled the film to RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY, used his father David Peckinpah as a blueprint for the Joel McCrea character of Steve Judd and created a moving portrayal of two aging gunfighters, their values and the dying west. The overall quality of this film lead Producer Jerry Bresler and his star Charlton Heston to the conclusion that Sam Peckinpah might be the right choice for the big-budgeted epic adventure MAJOR DUNDEE. Unfortunately the film was doomed from the start: Peckinpah had to start with an unfinished script and Columbia Pictures decided, only weeks before filming in Mexico started, to cut the budget from 4.5 million to 3 million Dollars. Peckinpah fought hard for his vision of the film and more or less ignored the change in budget and schedule. In the end Peckinpah filmed everything he needed for his epic film. Producer Jerry Bresler’s vengeance came right after filming ended: he fired Peckinpah and released the film in a badly edited 2-hours version. Soon after Peckinpah started filming MGM’s THE CINCINATTI KID starring Steve McQueen. Peckinpah´s vision of a very dark realistic drama of the great depression, filmed in black & white, was unpopular with Producer Martin Ransohoff from the start and Peckinpah was fired after only four days. This all lead to over two years without work for the ‘bastard son of John Ford’, as critics had labeled him after his promising start in western films.

In 1967 Peckinpah’s career finally came back on the track when Producer Dan Melnick hired Hollywood’s bad boy to write and direct NOON WINE for television. The show won scarce approval from novelist Katharine Anne Porter and nominations from the directors and the writers guild for the re-established Peckinpah as well. In 1968 Peckinpah made his big comeback film THE WILD BUNCH and became famous. The name “Peckinpah” from now on meant as much as the names of his famous actors. After his spectacular comeback it seemed that Sam Peckinpah wanted to catch up on the lost time during the mid-sixties: in the following four years he shot five remarkable films almost back-to-back: THE BALLAD OF CABLE HOGUE (1970), STRAW DOGS (1971), JUNIOR BONNER (1972), THE GETAWAY (1972) and PAT GARRETT & BILLY THE KID (1973). The last of those films was produced by MGM who at that time was more interested in their new grand hotel in Las Vegas. As a result they treated their filmmakers with little or no respect at all (like Blake Edwards and his disowned “The Carey Treatment”). Peckinpah had to fight almost as hard as on DUNDEE to get his film made and again was fired as soon as he delivered his cut. MGM never cared about the film and butchered it for a much too soon release date: they needed cash for their Las Vegas building site.

In the eleven years that followed Peckinpah would complete only five more films. His problems with producers and studios, his alcoholism and the use of cocaine, which only increased his already existing paranoia, all took their part in bringing down one of the best filmmakers Hollywood ever produced. He himself did not try to stop his own downfall and along the way alienated many of his loyal friends thanks to his erratic behaviour. His private life was a complete mess with several divorces and unhappy children. His professional life became more and more difficult: in 1974 he produced the dark and unsuccessful BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA, a vastly underrated film that is highly regarded today. With THE KILLER ELITE (1975) Peckinpah then hoped to make another action-hit in the range of THE GETAWAY – with modest results. His most unusual assignment became his last great film: the German production of STEINER – DAS EISERNE KREUZ (CROSS OF IRON, 1977) was shot in Yugoslavia and dealt with the German retreat on the eastern front. That meant only German and Russian characters would appear in the film, a fact that made the film non-commercial (only) for American audiences. Nevertheless, it became one of the very few war-movies that dealt with characters and not with battles.

Whether Sam Peckinpah decided to make CONVOY (1978) to get involved in a smash hit like SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT (1977) or whether he simply thought that the story of CONVOY was the story of today´s outlaws, we’ll never really know. It became another one of Peckinpah’s ‘lost movies’ that was heavily re-edited after Peckinpah was fired during post production. Thanks to Peckinpah’s addiction to cocaine, which often resulted in him being not able to function as a director, the film went way over budget and horror stories about its making were all over Hollywood. The fact that CONVOY became a smash hit didn’t change the situation: nobody wanted to hire Sam Peckinpah anymore.

The end of the 1970’s also marked the end of the ‘New Hollywood’ as films like JAWS and STAR WARS promised big box office and ‘difficult’ filmmakers like Peckinpah, Siegel, Cimino and Scorsese weren’t very popular with Hollywood Studios. After years without a directing job and two heart attacks, Peckinpah finally tried to clean up his act: he tried to stay sober (as much as an addicted person like he could) and was hired to direct second unit for Don Siegel’s ill-fated JINXED! The film became Siegel’s last directorial effort, but brought Peckinpah back on track again: he soon was offered what became his last feature film, THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND (1983).

After five years without work, and directorial offers way below his status, Peckinpah accepted the 5 million Dollars rather low-budgeted independent production to get back in the game. The film´s young producers of course knew his bad reputation and did not allow Peckinpah to hire his trusted crew members from his glorious past, with the exception of cinematographer John Coquillon. Peckinpah was also not allowed to rewrite the flawed and confusing script, based on a lesser spy-novel by Robert Ludlum. But he had a great cast to work with: Burt Lancaster, John Hurt, Dennis Hopper and Rutger Hauer in his first Hollywood leading role. With all the limitations Peckinpah had a very hard time to produce a “Peckinpah film” of very high quality.

After the audience reacted negatively at the preview of Peckinpah’s first cut, the producers fired Peckinpah and recut the film. Of course Peckinpah was not to blame for the confusing narrative since he was not allowed to change the script in the first place. A big mistake by the producers who ignored the fact, that Peckinpah was one of the best writer-directors in the business. Outside of the USA the film was a modest success and on the new home video market it performed very well. Peckinpah did a promotional tour and even travelled to England and Germany, where he gave some very entertaining interviews. Although he finished the picture on time and budget, it wasn’t immediately followed by another job offer. It might have been too late anyway, since his health had deteriorated dramatically during the last years. He already looked 20 years older than he actually was and on December 28th 1984 he had his third and final heart attack in Mexico: hours after he was delivered to an LA hospital he was dead. A couple of days later his ashes were spread over the ocean near Paradise Cove, where he had spent his last years in a trailer. There’s no grave, no memorial place -just the movies and the spirit of Sam Peckinpah that lives forever in those films.

10 years after Peckinpah’s death, Warner Bros. finally restored THE WILD BUNCH to its full glory and even re-released the film in cinemas worldwide. The highly successful new DVD market created a perfect ground for restored film classics and audiences finally could enjoy films in great quality at home. In 2005 Warner Bros. made an attempt to create a restoration of PAT GARRETT & BILLY THE KID, which unfortunately failed. By now three cuts of the film exist, all of them flawed, the so-called “Turner-Cut” probably being the closest to Peckinpah’s intentions. That very year Sony Classics restored MAJOR DUNDEE from 122 to 136 minutes, at least some of the “lost footage” had survived. We live in the best time ever for home video releases and I was happy to co-produce over 35 international DVD and Blu-ray releases equipped with my many documentaries and featurettes. Along the way, little miracles happened: in 2017 a Japanese CONVOY print was discovered, which is 5 minutes longer than the official release version from 1977. As for THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND, Peckinpah’s first cut, the “preview cut”, had only survived as a bad video copy, which was included on the 2002 special edition DVD. One of the aforementioned miracles happened in 2019, when Peckinpah’s dear friend and archivist Don Hyde asked me whether I would like to get the only existing 35mm print of Peckinpah’s final cut and save it for future generations. Then COVID appeared on the scene and other things moved to the foreground, but in late 2021 I picked up THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND from German customs, 22 reels of film and separate sound. I made a deal with the Blu-ray label Imprint in Australia to release that version, which had been stored away for 37 years! The biggest surprise came when, after scanning, I put the film together in my computer: I realised that this was not the preview cut that we saw on that old videotape many years ago. This was a version nobody had ever seen before. I learned the fact that Peckinpah, unbeknown to his producers, had reacted to that unsuccessful preview back in 1983 by editing his own final cut with the help of his editor David Rawlins! He changed the pacing, put back some of the humour and dialogue the producers had taken out and removed and added scenes here and there. In my opinion the film plays the best in this version, it was his own personal director’s cut and I am very happy and proud that I could help preserving it for future generations…