When I was a kid, a big thing in the neighborhood was playing a game of cops and robbers. Usually, I'd be chased by one of the other neighborhood boys who would would raise his imaginary pistol and point it at me, yelling "bang, bang!!" In return, I would turn around, raise my pistol and fire. That kid's head would burst open like a watermelon and he'd hit the ground dead because I wasn't using an imaginary pistol but a real one I'd found in my dad's sock drawer.

A couple years later, when I got out of juvie, cops and robbers was a still a big game. This time we only used imaginary guns. And when anyone got hit by an imaginary bullet they fall backwards, clutching their chest as if a mixture of blood and tissue were rocketing outward*. Then they would hit the ground in slow motion, emitting a baritone scream as if time itself were slowing down for their death throes.

* A friend of mine who's rather knowledgeable about these sorts of things (I think he's shot a bunch of people) informs me that the classic cinematic gunshot death, where people are thrown backwards from the force of a bullet is physically impossible. In reality the bullet sort of cleaves its way into your body without a lot of full body impact. Try shooting a few people and you'll see what I mean.

Little did we know it, but we were emulating a kind of dying made popular by Sam Peckinpah. For it was the infamous director of such films as "The Wild Bunch", "Straw Dogs" and "Cross of Iron" who authoritatively defined the classic archetypical movie death shown here:

HOW TO DIE THE SAM PECKINPAH WAY!!*

1) Bullet hits you, sending bloody, meaty particles bursting out of your chest.

2) Fall over backwards and roll about on sun-chafed desert floor.

3) Feel time slow down as everything switches to slow motion and all audio drops several octaves.

* By this we mean, how to die in a movie the Sam Peckinpah way. If you want to die for real the Sam Peckinpah way, chain smoke, chain drink, and do cocaine for 40 years and you should do just fine.

Notching up the level of violence found in movies consumed by wide eyed youngsters is not, perhaps, the greatest contribution one can make to world culture, but irregardless, it's enough to make one ask, "Who was Sam Peckinpah?" And since you've found yourself here asking that very question, I feel it is my firm duty to answer it.

Peckinpah was a child of the west, born in Fresno California in 1925. Though he was small a boy, and consequently a small man, he was a scrapper, always eager for a fight whether or not he was in the wrong or right. (Hey, that rhy…) It was trait that lasted throughout his life - he battled, sometimes verbally, sometimes physically, with the actors and producers of his movies, the film critics who panned him, the women he married and the whores he screwed. He was man perennially in "War" mode, though, ironically, during his brief Army stint at the end of World War II of he saw no action.

Upon entering adulthood, Sam was soon attracted to the world of theater. (No doubt furthering the stereotype of men in show business as hard drinking, chain smoking, womanizing bastards.) Together with his first wife, Marie, he ended up in the University of Southern California's theater program, and from there graduated to directing shows at local playhouses in the Los Angeles area. This led to some early television work, and his first movie gig: dialogue director on the classic sci-fi piece, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." (Peckinpah has a small role in the film as Charlie, the meter reader, who like most characters in the film, is converted to a pod person.) From there the shape of Peckinpah's future career began to define itself. He landed a series of writing gigs for television shows like "Gunsmoke," "Blood Brother" and "Have Gun - Will Travel."

Western themed showed are as rare on television these days as a funny sit-coms (all you According to Jim fans can blow me), but in the late 50's the boob tube was filled to the brim with tough talking hombres who traveled the high planes delivering their own brand of justice. And Peckinpah's scripts were known for pushing the things just a little further than the suits in the head office wanted to go. Arnold Laven, producer of the series Peckinpah really made a  mark on, “The Rifleman,” commented, "The 'Rifleman' was a tough, hard-hitting show, but the violence didn't have that meanness. There was a reality and meanness to Sam's violence that bothered me."

In 1961, that meanness got its first shot at the big screen. Following the destruction of his first marriage due to alcoholism and violence, Peckinpah directed "Deadly Companions," essentially a movie length version of the TV westerns he'd be directing. The film tanked, destroying the company that had produced it. But in 1962, Peckinpah got another shot with "Ride the Country." Also a western, the film was a bit more successful and got Sam some critical notice. This led to "Major Dundee," a Civil War pic starring Charlton Heston. And it was here, the quintessential Sam Peckinpah began to appear. He would drink like a fish, patronize prostitutes (paying them out of the movie buget), fire crew members in screaming fits of rage and so infuriated Heston that the actor charged at him on horseback while brandishing a saber. After the film wrapped Peckinpah fought lividly with the producers over the final cut. (A battle they won.) The movie was panned critically, and when Peckinpah repeated his behavior on the set of his next gig, “The Cincinnati Kid,” he was fired.

It was 1964, Peckinpah was closing in on 40, and it looked like his career was over. He spent close to five years drinking, writing scripts, drinking and tinkering around his house in Malibu. (It’s not as bad as it sounds.) He was still recognized as a skilled director, but no-one wanted to touch him do to the fact that he was insane. But while Peckinpah brooded, something else was happening. The dark half of the 60's flew into high gear. The faux-violence of the television western morphed into the very real televised violence of Viet Nam. Martin Luther King was assassinated. Riots erupted in the streets. The cultural landscape of America was altered in a way the country had never seen before. And suddenly the stage was perfect for Peckinpah to direct "The Wild Bunch."

Released in 1969 and considered Peckinpah's masterpiece, "The Wild Bunch" was such an orgy of violence and blood it probably could not have been shown in mainstream movie houses even a few years previous. Again, the film was a Western, albeit one set in the declining years of Western lore. Automobiles had begun to replace horses, and the skill and tenacity required to fire a rifle was being replaced with the scattershot destruction of the machine gun. Amidst this backdrop, Peckinpah followed the trail of destruction left by an amoral band of bank robbers and gangsters who are hired by a Mexican general to steal a trainload of guns. After the general apprehends one member of the gang, the surviving group decides there is such a thing as honor amongst thieves and they go back to rescue their compatriot. The result is a twenty minute gun battle that would raise eyebrows today for its vast carnage. Soldier after soldier is hit with machine gun bullets causing their chests to burst open as they rocketed back from the impact. And it was here Peckinpah defined his version of violence. It was bloody; an effect Peckinpah achieved by attaching blood and meat filled condoms that could be primed to explode (squibs) to the actor's bodies. But it had an almost mythological aesthetic. When the audience saw death from the character's point of view they felt the reel slow down as time came to a standstill and then suddenly speed up past normal as the actor's body hit the ground and his soul was sucked away to whatever afterlife he'd earned. And it goes without saying that very few characters make it out of the film alive.

Upon the release, the film was decried by many for it unending violence, but it earned genuine acclaim from many critics (including Time’s Richard Schickle who argued that “The Wild Bunch,” “…may someday emerge as one of the most important records of the mood of our times.”) The film was also a financial success restoring Sam’s career from the damage he done to it during the mid-sixties. He directed another picture, a quaint Western entitled “The Ballad of Cable Hogue” and then moved onto the film that further shocked audiences with it raw brutality: the grim, gritty, “Straw Dogs.”

While "The Wild Bunch" was a depiction of mega-warfare, as well-armed groups were pitted against each other, "Straw Dogs" worked its violence on a much more personal level. An Uber-nerd mathematician played by Dustin Hoffman moves with his wife to the small village in England where she'd grown up. Determined to lose himself in his work, Hoffman's character, David, doesn't notice his wife balking at the tedium of her existence as a housewife, or the interest she provokes in the local ruffians. He's finally awakened from his intellectual stupor when he decides to take into his home a dull-witted pedophile who is being stalked by an angry mob. The nebbish scholar surprises himself at his propensity for violence as he dispatches the attackers one by one using a variety of low-tech tools (A steel-jawed man-trap replaces the machine gun as the weapon of notice.) and plain old raw violence.

But what makes "Straw Dogs" such an infamous film is not its brutality, but the cynical attitude Peckinpah displays while creating such carnage. When the local thugs come to rape David's flirtatious wife, there are more than a few hints that she enjoys it (up to a point.) And while David first tries to peacefully sort out his problems with locals, it's not until he turns violent that any real resolution is reached. Violence, Peckinpah seemed to be saying, is the final arbitrator of who is wrong or who is right.

While “The Wild Bunch” had already marked Peckinpah as a director with a fetish for sadism, “Straw Dogs” secured this reputation. Critics lauded the technique of the film but panned its content. And “Straw Dogs” proved to be the last “great” film Peckinpah would make. He continued working during the ‘70s and ‘80s knocking out some credible material, like “Cross of Iron” starring James Coburn and some genuine stinkers like 1983’s “The Osterman Weekend.” He picked up a cocaine habit in the ‘70s to replace the alcohol but they ended up being perfect compliments for each other. His health deteriorated, he suffered a few heart attacks and finally cleaned up his act in the early 1980s. By this point, his years of living dangerously had taken their toll. He died of cardiac arrest on December 28^th, 1984.

But in a sense, Sam Peckinpah never died. Because whenever you see a film featuring gaping chest wounds, mass carnage, slow-motion death scenes and amoral heroes, you’re seeing the influence of Sam Peckinpah. His work is alive and well in the movies of John Woo, Walter Hill, Sam Raimi and Quentin Tarantino. And hopefully, Bloody Sam, wherever he is, can see these films and smile.   

What do you think America? Leave your comments on the Guestbook!

Wil Forbis writes many strange and amusing things for a variety of top secret organizations like Entertainment Weekly.

View Wil's Acid Logic web log!

Meet some other Interesting Motherfuckers: David Allan Coe by Wil Forbis Country's obscene outlaw walks the line. Bernie Casey by John Saleeby The blaxploitation star who rose from the ghetto of professional football. Bret Easton Ellis by Tom Waters Peruse the critical overview and interview with the fiction superstar. Phil Lynott by Wil Forbis Thin Lizzy's frontman rose from the streets of Ireland to the heights of rock stardom and then descended into the pit of drug abuse. Louis CK by Sean C Tarry Marvel at this stand up's ability to phrase the opposite of every song. Richard Lester by John Saleeby Meet the maniac who invented the music video. No, not Ivan Reitman! Sho Kosugi by Wil Forbis Fear the power of the Ninja! Fear it, Bitch! Bill Hicks by Cody Wayne The mind expanding comedian gets his due. Warren Zevon by Xander Horlyk A literary look at "a moralist in cynic's clothing." Pam Grier by John Saleeby Sweet Christmas! It's the queen of blaxploitation, Foxy Brown herself! Jack Webb by John Saleeby When he created the elite police unit of "Dragnet," Jack Webb laid the first blow against the scourge of America: Hippies! Doris Wishman by Wil Forbis The prolific adult film maker, whose work includes the classic Chesty Morgan movies, is probed and prodded. David Alan Grier by John Saleeby The thinking man of Def Jam. Dave Thomas by John Saleeby Wendy's Dave Thomas was all about Biggie Fries, Frosties and love. Spike Milligan by John Saleeby Read up on the life of the British comedy scribe. Toshiro Mifune by Wil Forbis The Japanese actor who slashed his way through a thousand samurai movies. Nina Hagen by Wil Forbis The Wagnerian Banshee who created the blueprint for punk/funk/opera. Bob and Tommy Stinson by John Saleeby Get to know the real talents of eighties punk sensations, The Replacements. Joan and John Cusack by Wil Forbis and Pete Moss A thought provoking summation of the Cusack sibling's careers. Features an impromptu interview with John Cusack by Pete Moss. (Primarily consisting of Cusack telling Pete to get the fuck off his property.) Tom Savini by John Saleeby The king of latex gore. And there's even more on our main page!

Additional Bloody Sam material: Wikipedia on Sam : A good overview of his work. The High Hat: A series of article by different authors looking at Peck's films.