Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
Encyclopedia
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (Tráiganme la cabeza de Alfredo García) is a 1974 American action film directed by Sam Peckinpah
and featuring Warren Oates
.
Made in Mexico on a low budget after the commercial failure of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
(1973), Peckinpah claimed that, of all his films, Alfredo García was the only one released as he had intended. The film was a box-office and critical failure at the time, but has gained a new following and stature in the decades since.
), is summoned before her father and interrogated as to the identity of her unborn child's father. Under torture, she identifies the father as Alfredo Garcia whom El Jefe had been grooming to be his successor. Infuriated, El Jefe offers a $1 million reward to whoever will "bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia".
The search progresses for two months. In Mexico City, two of El Jefe's personal henchmen, a pair of business-suit clad dispassionate hitmen, Sappensly (Robert Webber
) and Quill (Gig Young
), enter a saloon and encounter Bennie (Warren Oates
), a retired United States Army officer who makes a meager living as a piano player and bar manager. The two men ask about Garcia, believing that they will have more luck getting answers out of a fellow American. Bennie plays dumb, saying that the name is familiar but that he doesn't know who Garcia is.
It turns out that everyone in the bar knows who Garcia is; they simply don't know where he is. Bennie goes to meet his girlfriend, Elita (Isela Vega
), a prostitute at a bordello. Elita admits to having cheated on Bennie with Garcia, who had professed his love for her, something Bennie refuses to do. Elita informs him that Garcia died in a drunk driving accident the previous week.
Bennie is excited by the possibility of making money by simply digging up the body. He goes to Sappensly and Quill, in the hotel room of their boss, Max, and makes a deal for $10,000 for Garcia's head, plus two hundred dollars in advance for expenses. Bennie convinces Elita to go on a road trip with him to visit Garcia's grave, claiming that he only wants proof that Garcia is in fact dead and no longer a threat to their relationship.
En route, Bennie proposes, promising that their future will soon change, and she can retire from prostitution. Elita is cautious, and warns Bennie against trying to upset their status quo.
On the road, Bennie and Elita are accosted by two bikers (one played by Kris Kristofferson
), who pull guns and decide to rape Elita. Bennie seems unsure how to react. Elita agrees to have sex with the bikers if they spare Bennie's life, and goes off with the biker played by Kristofferson. He rips off her shirt to look at her breasts, lets her slap him twice, slaps her back, then walks away: she follows. Bennie knocks the first biker unconscious while he's playing Elita's guitar. He takes the gun and seeks the other biker and Elita. She is now passionately kissing the biker, and ready to make love with him. Bennie finds them together; then shoots him dead, as well as the first biker. The murder cycle has opened.
He confesses to Elita his plan to decapitate Garcia's corpse and sell it for money. Elita is disgusted, and, still shaken from what has just happened, begs Bennie to give up this quest and return to Mexico City, where they can be married and live a modest life of relative peace. Bennie again refuses, but agrees to marry Elita in the church of the town where Garcia is buried.
They find Garcia's grave, but when he opens the coffin, Bennie is struck from behind with his shovel by an unseen assailant. He wakes up to find himself half-buried in the grave with Elita, who is dead. The corpse of Garcia has been decapitated.
Bennie learns from villagers that his assailants are driving a station wagon. He catches up with the men after they blow out a tire. Bennie shoots them, searches their car and claims Garcia's head. Stopping at a roadside restaurant, he packs the sack containing the head with ice to preserve it for the journey home. Bennie begins addressing the head as if Garcia were still alive, first blaming Alfredo for Elita's death and then conceding that both of them probably loved her equally.
Bennie is ambushed by members of Garcia's family. They re-claim the head and are about to kill Bennie when they are interrupted by the arrival of Sappensly and Quill. The hitmen pretend to ask for directions. Quill produces a sub-machine gun and murders most of Garcia's family, but is fatally shot by one of them. As Sappensly sorrowfully looks at Quill's corpse, Bennie asks, "Do I still get paid?" Sappensly turns to shoot but Bennie kills him, takes Garcia's head and returns to Mexico City, "arguing" with Garcia's head all the while.
At his apartment, Bennie gives Garcia's head a shower and then brings the head to Max's hotel room, feigning willingness to surrender the head for his $10,000, but then revealing that he is no longer motivated by money; rather, he blames Elita's death on the bounty and intends to kill everyone involved. Several men pull guns but Bennie manages to evade fire and kill them all. He takes a business card from the desk with El Jefe's address on it.
El Jefe greets him as a hero and gives him a briefcase containing the promised million-dollar bounty. Bennie calmly relates how many people died for Garcia's head, including his beloved. El Jefe responds apathetically, telling Bennie to take his money and throw Garcia's head to the pigs on the way out. Infuriated that the object responsible for Elita's death is viewed as nothing more than garbage, Bennie first wounds El Jefe and then guns down all of his bodyguards.
Teresa enters with her newborn son as Bennie points a gun at El Jefe's head, but hesitates to shoot. She tersely urges Bennie to kill her father, and Bennie obliges, taking along the head as he leaves the scene (with the words, "I'll look after the father, and you look after the son"). Bennie makes a mad dash for escape, but is gunned down at the gates to El Jefe's estate.
when screenwriter and long-time friend Frank Kowalski told him an idea for a film: "I got a great title: 'Bring Me the Head of...,' - and he had some other name - 'and the hook is that the guy is already dead'." Peckinpah loved it and began writing on it then and also in England while making Straw Dogs. He went on to write the shooting screenplay with Gordon Dawson. Producer Martin Baum
had formed his own independent production company, Optimus Productions, and had a deal with United Artists
. Peckinpah approached him with 25 pages of the film's script. Baum read it and liked it. United Artists agreed to pay Peckinpah to write the script but he told Baum that he did not want any money for it because he owed him one. Peckinpah told Baum that if United Artists liked the script then they could pay him.
Peckinpah started pre-production in mid-August 1973 in Mexico City
. With the exception of a few key people, the crew was entirely Mexicans. He hired director of photography Alex Phillips, Jr., one of Mexico's premiere cameramen. They bonded over a dislike for wide-angle lenses, an admiration for zooms and multiple camera setups. Peckinpah told him, "I make very few takes, but I shoot a lot of film because I like to change angles. I shoot with editing in the back of my mind". While scouting locations, he relied extensively on his gut instinct and desire to portray a gritty, realistic vision he had of Mexico. He spent a lot of time searching for the right bar that would be Bennie's workplace. Peckinpah finally discovered a place in the Plaza Garibaldi known as "Tlaque-Paque". He looked around and said, "this is dressed. This is for real". Mexican members of the crew told him that the bar's owner had an infamous reputation and it was rumored that he once killed a woman there, serving very little jail time because he bribed the right people in positions of power.
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia went into production in late September 1973 and in an October issue of Variety
magazine, Peckinpah was quoted as saying, "For me, Hollywood no longer exists. It's past history. I've decided to stay in Mexico because I believe I can make my pictures with greater freedom from here". This upset the Motion Picture and Television Unions and they openly censured the director for his statement at their National Conference in Detroit. They also threatened Alfredo Garcia with union boycotts upon its release, labeling it a "runaway" production. In his defense, Peckinpah claimed that he was misquoted. Before the film was to be released, the unions relented on their boycott threat.
As principal photography continued into the month of December, the demands - both physical and mental - were taking their toll on the cast and crew. To help relieve the tension, Peckinpah and the producers bought out a local bar and threw a surprise party. Principal photography ended three days before Christmas and the director took a week off before supervising the editing of the film.
, with an 86 percent fresh user rating. Some film critics (including Michael Medved
) argue that Bring Me the Head of Alfredo García is one of the worst films ever made, while others (among them Roger Ebert
and Slant Magazine
) consider it a masterpiece. Michael Sragow of New York
magazine wrote, "a catastrophe so huge that those who once ranked Peckinpah with Hemingway
may now invoke Mickey Spillane
".
, Chevy Chase
(after fainting in an operating room) asks a nurse, "do you have the Beatles' White Album? Never mind, just get me a glass of hot fat. And bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia while you're out there."
In the "Film Club" round of the popular long running BBC Radio 4
panel comedy I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue
, regular reference is made to this film with one of more words changed to satisfy that weeks theme of comedy film titles.
Sam Peckinpah
David Samuel "Sam" Peckinpah was an American filmmaker and screenwriter who achieved prominence following the release of the Western epic The Wild Bunch...
and featuring Warren Oates
Warren Oates
Warren Mercer Oates was an American actor best known for his performances in several films directed by Sam Peckinpah including The Wild Bunch and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia...
.
Made in Mexico on a low budget after the commercial failure of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is a 1973 Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring James Coburn and Kris Kristofferson. Co-star Bob Dylan composed multiple songs for the movie's score and the album Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid was released the same year.The film was noted for...
(1973), Peckinpah claimed that, of all his films, Alfredo García was the only one released as he had intended. The film was a box-office and critical failure at the time, but has gained a new following and stature in the decades since.
Plot
Teresa, the pregnant teenage daughter of a powerful man known only as "El Jefe" (Spanish, "The Boss") (Emilio FernándezEmilio Fernández
Emilio "El Indio" Fernández was an actor, screenwriter and director of the cinema of Mexico. He is best known for his work as director of the film Maria Candelaria which won the Grand Prix at the 1946 Cannes Film Festival.-Early life:Fernández was born in Mineral del Hondo, Coahuila...
), is summoned before her father and interrogated as to the identity of her unborn child's father. Under torture, she identifies the father as Alfredo Garcia whom El Jefe had been grooming to be his successor. Infuriated, El Jefe offers a $1 million reward to whoever will "bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia".
The search progresses for two months. In Mexico City, two of El Jefe's personal henchmen, a pair of business-suit clad dispassionate hitmen, Sappensly (Robert Webber
Robert Webber
Robert L. Webber was an American actor who starred as Juror #12 in the 1957 film 12 Angry Men.Webber was born in Santa Ana, California, the son of Alice and Robert Webber, who was a merchant seaman. He was a U.S. Marine during World War II serving on Guam and Okinawa...
) and Quill (Gig Young
Gig Young
Gig Young was an American film, stage, and television actor. Known mainly for second leads and supporting roles, Young won an Academy Award for his performance as a dance-marathon emcee in the 1969 film, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?.-Early life and career:Born Byron Elsworth Barr in St...
), enter a saloon and encounter Bennie (Warren Oates
Warren Oates
Warren Mercer Oates was an American actor best known for his performances in several films directed by Sam Peckinpah including The Wild Bunch and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia...
), a retired United States Army officer who makes a meager living as a piano player and bar manager. The two men ask about Garcia, believing that they will have more luck getting answers out of a fellow American. Bennie plays dumb, saying that the name is familiar but that he doesn't know who Garcia is.
It turns out that everyone in the bar knows who Garcia is; they simply don't know where he is. Bennie goes to meet his girlfriend, Elita (Isela Vega
Isela Vega
Isela Vega Durazo is a Mexican actress, and occasional producer, writer, and director.- Career :In 1957, she was chosen "Princess of the Carnaval" in Hermosillo; shortly afterward she began modeling. In 1960 she began her acting career, which continues to this day...
), a prostitute at a bordello. Elita admits to having cheated on Bennie with Garcia, who had professed his love for her, something Bennie refuses to do. Elita informs him that Garcia died in a drunk driving accident the previous week.
Bennie is excited by the possibility of making money by simply digging up the body. He goes to Sappensly and Quill, in the hotel room of their boss, Max, and makes a deal for $10,000 for Garcia's head, plus two hundred dollars in advance for expenses. Bennie convinces Elita to go on a road trip with him to visit Garcia's grave, claiming that he only wants proof that Garcia is in fact dead and no longer a threat to their relationship.
En route, Bennie proposes, promising that their future will soon change, and she can retire from prostitution. Elita is cautious, and warns Bennie against trying to upset their status quo.
On the road, Bennie and Elita are accosted by two bikers (one played by Kris Kristofferson
Kris Kristofferson
Kristoffer "Kris" Kristofferson is an American musician, actor, and writer. He is known for hits such as "Me and Bobby McGee", "For the Good Times", "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down", and "Help Me Make It Through the Night"...
), who pull guns and decide to rape Elita. Bennie seems unsure how to react. Elita agrees to have sex with the bikers if they spare Bennie's life, and goes off with the biker played by Kristofferson. He rips off her shirt to look at her breasts, lets her slap him twice, slaps her back, then walks away: she follows. Bennie knocks the first biker unconscious while he's playing Elita's guitar. He takes the gun and seeks the other biker and Elita. She is now passionately kissing the biker, and ready to make love with him. Bennie finds them together; then shoots him dead, as well as the first biker. The murder cycle has opened.
He confesses to Elita his plan to decapitate Garcia's corpse and sell it for money. Elita is disgusted, and, still shaken from what has just happened, begs Bennie to give up this quest and return to Mexico City, where they can be married and live a modest life of relative peace. Bennie again refuses, but agrees to marry Elita in the church of the town where Garcia is buried.
They find Garcia's grave, but when he opens the coffin, Bennie is struck from behind with his shovel by an unseen assailant. He wakes up to find himself half-buried in the grave with Elita, who is dead. The corpse of Garcia has been decapitated.
Bennie learns from villagers that his assailants are driving a station wagon. He catches up with the men after they blow out a tire. Bennie shoots them, searches their car and claims Garcia's head. Stopping at a roadside restaurant, he packs the sack containing the head with ice to preserve it for the journey home. Bennie begins addressing the head as if Garcia were still alive, first blaming Alfredo for Elita's death and then conceding that both of them probably loved her equally.
Bennie is ambushed by members of Garcia's family. They re-claim the head and are about to kill Bennie when they are interrupted by the arrival of Sappensly and Quill. The hitmen pretend to ask for directions. Quill produces a sub-machine gun and murders most of Garcia's family, but is fatally shot by one of them. As Sappensly sorrowfully looks at Quill's corpse, Bennie asks, "Do I still get paid?" Sappensly turns to shoot but Bennie kills him, takes Garcia's head and returns to Mexico City, "arguing" with Garcia's head all the while.
At his apartment, Bennie gives Garcia's head a shower and then brings the head to Max's hotel room, feigning willingness to surrender the head for his $10,000, but then revealing that he is no longer motivated by money; rather, he blames Elita's death on the bounty and intends to kill everyone involved. Several men pull guns but Bennie manages to evade fire and kill them all. He takes a business card from the desk with El Jefe's address on it.
El Jefe greets him as a hero and gives him a briefcase containing the promised million-dollar bounty. Bennie calmly relates how many people died for Garcia's head, including his beloved. El Jefe responds apathetically, telling Bennie to take his money and throw Garcia's head to the pigs on the way out. Infuriated that the object responsible for Elita's death is viewed as nothing more than garbage, Bennie first wounds El Jefe and then guns down all of his bodyguards.
Teresa enters with her newborn son as Bennie points a gun at El Jefe's head, but hesitates to shoot. She tersely urges Bennie to kill her father, and Bennie obliges, taking along the head as he leaves the scene (with the words, "I'll look after the father, and you look after the son"). Bennie makes a mad dash for escape, but is gunned down at the gates to El Jefe's estate.
Cast
- Warren OatesWarren OatesWarren Mercer Oates was an American actor best known for his performances in several films directed by Sam Peckinpah including The Wild Bunch and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia...
as Bennie - Isela VegaIsela VegaIsela Vega Durazo is a Mexican actress, and occasional producer, writer, and director.- Career :In 1957, she was chosen "Princess of the Carnaval" in Hermosillo; shortly afterward she began modeling. In 1960 she began her acting career, which continues to this day...
as Elita - Robert WebberRobert WebberRobert L. Webber was an American actor who starred as Juror #12 in the 1957 film 12 Angry Men.Webber was born in Santa Ana, California, the son of Alice and Robert Webber, who was a merchant seaman. He was a U.S. Marine during World War II serving on Guam and Okinawa...
as Sappensly - Gig YoungGig YoungGig Young was an American film, stage, and television actor. Known mainly for second leads and supporting roles, Young won an Academy Award for his performance as a dance-marathon emcee in the 1969 film, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?.-Early life and career:Born Byron Elsworth Barr in St...
as Johnny Quill - Helmut DantineHelmut DantineHelmut Dantine was a film actor remembered for playing many Nazis in thriller films of the 1940s. The Vienna-born actor appeared uncredited in Casablanca early in his career .Dantine's father was the head of the Austrian railway system...
as Max - Emilio FernándezEmilio FernándezEmilio "El Indio" Fernández was an actor, screenwriter and director of the cinema of Mexico. He is best known for his work as director of the film Maria Candelaria which won the Grand Prix at the 1946 Cannes Film Festival.-Early life:Fernández was born in Mineral del Hondo, Coahuila...
as El Jefe - Kris KristoffersonKris KristoffersonKristoffer "Kris" Kristofferson is an American musician, actor, and writer. He is known for hits such as "Me and Bobby McGee", "For the Good Times", "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down", and "Help Me Make It Through the Night"...
as the biker
Development
Director Sam Peckinpah was working on The Ballad of Cable HogueThe Ballad of Cable Hogue
The Ballad of Cable Hogue is a 1970 Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring Jason Robards, Stella Stevens and David Warner.Set in the desert of Arizona during the transitional period when the frontier was closing, the movie follows three years in the life of Cable Hogue, a failed...
when screenwriter and long-time friend Frank Kowalski told him an idea for a film: "I got a great title: 'Bring Me the Head of...,' - and he had some other name - 'and the hook is that the guy is already dead'." Peckinpah loved it and began writing on it then and also in England while making Straw Dogs. He went on to write the shooting screenplay with Gordon Dawson. Producer Martin Baum
Martin Baum (agent)
Martin "Marty" Baum was an American talent agent known for his work at the Creative Artists Agency , including the first head of the agency's motion picture department...
had formed his own independent production company, Optimus Productions, and had a deal with United Artists
United Artists
United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....
. Peckinpah approached him with 25 pages of the film's script. Baum read it and liked it. United Artists agreed to pay Peckinpah to write the script but he told Baum that he did not want any money for it because he owed him one. Peckinpah told Baum that if United Artists liked the script then they could pay him.
Peckinpah started pre-production in mid-August 1973 in Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
. With the exception of a few key people, the crew was entirely Mexicans. He hired director of photography Alex Phillips, Jr., one of Mexico's premiere cameramen. They bonded over a dislike for wide-angle lenses, an admiration for zooms and multiple camera setups. Peckinpah told him, "I make very few takes, but I shoot a lot of film because I like to change angles. I shoot with editing in the back of my mind". While scouting locations, he relied extensively on his gut instinct and desire to portray a gritty, realistic vision he had of Mexico. He spent a lot of time searching for the right bar that would be Bennie's workplace. Peckinpah finally discovered a place in the Plaza Garibaldi known as "Tlaque-Paque". He looked around and said, "this is dressed. This is for real". Mexican members of the crew told him that the bar's owner had an infamous reputation and it was rumored that he once killed a woman there, serving very little jail time because he bribed the right people in positions of power.
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia went into production in late September 1973 and in an October issue of Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
magazine, Peckinpah was quoted as saying, "For me, Hollywood no longer exists. It's past history. I've decided to stay in Mexico because I believe I can make my pictures with greater freedom from here". This upset the Motion Picture and Television Unions and they openly censured the director for his statement at their National Conference in Detroit. They also threatened Alfredo Garcia with union boycotts upon its release, labeling it a "runaway" production. In his defense, Peckinpah claimed that he was misquoted. Before the film was to be released, the unions relented on their boycott threat.
As principal photography continued into the month of December, the demands - both physical and mental - were taking their toll on the cast and crew. To help relieve the tension, Peckinpah and the producers bought out a local bar and threw a surprise party. Principal photography ended three days before Christmas and the director took a week off before supervising the editing of the film.
Reception
On its release in 1974, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo García was disapproved by viewers and critics, and failed at the box office. However, the film has since found a contemporary audience, maintaining a 81 percent fresh rating at Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
, with an 86 percent fresh user rating. Some film critics (including Michael Medved
Michael Medved
Michael Medved is an American radio host, author, political commentator and film critic. His Seattle, Washington-based nationally syndicated talk show, The Michael Medved Show, airs throughout the U.S...
) argue that Bring Me the Head of Alfredo García is one of the worst films ever made, while others (among them Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
and Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine is an online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New York Film Festival.- History :...
) consider it a masterpiece. Michael Sragow of New York
New York (magazine)
New York is a weekly magazine principally concerned with the life, culture, politics, and style of New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to The New Yorker, it was brasher and less polite than that magazine, and established itself as a cradle of New...
magazine wrote, "a catastrophe so huge that those who once ranked Peckinpah with Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
may now invoke Mickey Spillane
Mickey Spillane
Frank Morrison Spillane , better known as Mickey Spillane, was an American author of crime novels, many featuring his signature detective character, Mike Hammer. More than 225 million copies of his books have sold internationally...
".
Popular Culture Reference
In the 1985 comedy film FletchFletch (film)
Fletch is a 1985 comedy film about a wisecracking investigative newspaper reporter, Irwin M. Fletcher , who writes under the name of Jane Doe...
, Chevy Chase
Chevy Chase
Cornelius Crane "Chevy" Chase is an American comedian, writer, and television and film actor, born into a prominent entertainment industry family. Chase worked a plethora of odd jobs before moving into comedy acting with National Lampoon...
(after fainting in an operating room) asks a nurse, "do you have the Beatles' White Album? Never mind, just get me a glass of hot fat. And bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia while you're out there."
In the "Film Club" round of the popular long running BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
panel comedy I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue
I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue
I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, sometimes abbreviated to ISIHAC or Clue, is a BBC radio comedy panel game broadcast since 11 April 1972 at the rate of one or two series each year , transmitted on BBC Radio 4, with occasional repeats on BBC Radio 4 Extra and the BBC's World Service...
, regular reference is made to this film with one of more words changed to satisfy that weeks theme of comedy film titles.
External links
- "Dead Man Walking" essay by David Thomson in Sight and Sound