Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974) - Sam Peckinpah

Pretty much the last of Peckinpah's essential films, this nearly western from '74 is famous for Peckinpah having final cut, making it one of the few films that was released the way the man intended. Just like Orson Welles before him, producers and studios loved to chop about Sam's films. Thankfully a fair few of his greatest flicks are now back to the way Sam entended them to be. Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia has always been just the way Peckinpah envisioned it though.

In some Mexican backwater local gigolo Alfredo Garcia has managed to get the local mob boss's daughter up the spout. So being a typical mob boss he demands Garcia's head, with a huge cash sum for whomever manages the task. Peckinpah regular Warren Oates plays ivory tinkler Bennie, who thanks to his girlfriend having recently had a bit on the side with Alfredo happens to know what no one else does - that Garcia has just shuffled off this mortal coil. So off he sets, girlfriend in tow to decapitate the corpse and earn enough money to quit the rat race for good.

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia scores instant points with me for being so unique, I can't think of another film that is like this. It's part road movie (but then again maybe not, since how many road movies end up where they began?), and part gutter romance. The whole story feels like it could have been ripped straight from the grooves of Dylan's '76 album - Desire. Everyone in the film looks like they could do with a hot bath and a bowl of soup. Oates' Bennie is a throwback to the sort of character Bogart would have inhabited back in the 40's, in fact the film has a distinct touch of the John Huston's about it. Oates makes Bennie totally believable despite the fact that he's on one of cinema's strangest journeys. He starts off being a loveable rogue type but ends about as far away from that as you can get, without it ever feeling forced. I guess it's that old adage about having a good script and good actors being half the battle. It would be hard to imagine Steve McQueen (another Peckinpah regular) as Bennie for instance. In fact I'm hard pressed to think of anyone other than Warren Oates in this role since he made it so much his own, in much the same way that Nicholson did with R.P. McMurphy. Peckinpah peppers the rest of the film with a cast of unknowns (to me anyway), Isela Vega as Bennie's woman Elita is the only person who comes close to the amount of screen time allowed Oates. It's very much him and Peckinpah that dominate the film. Plus we never even get to see the title character.

Every town looks really run down, but once we're out on the road we get to see the real beauty of Mexico, it looks totally lush. Normally road movies make quite a big deal out of their cars, think of Sailor's '66 Ford Thunderbird in Wild at Heart, or Bullitt's 1968 mustang fastback. Not here though, the cars in this film look shittier than any you have seen on screen before. Welcome to planet Peckinpah. Now if the perma-sweaty people or bloody action scenes aren't enough to let you know that you're watching a Peckinpah film, then the editing surely is. It's that great thing he does during action scenes, slowing the action down and filming it from multiple cameras so that you can see exactly what happens. Even his dodgier later films have these great moments.

That's not to say that this is only blood and gore slo-mo action, because the best moments in the film also happen to be the tenderest. My favourite is the five minutes we spend with Bennie and his gal making plans for the future under a tree in deepest Mexico, although the wonderful little scene in a shower comes a very close second. Of course being Peckinpah we get two girls having their clothes ripped off (one of them even gets a busted arm thrown in for free), and Kris Kristofferson attempting to rape Elita.

From the moment Bennie desecrates Garcia's grave things tumble downhill fast for him, and anyone with even just a basic knowledge of Peckinpah will know how the film has to end. It's structured in such a way that scenes mirror each other. Using the digging up of Alfredo Garcia's grave as the cutting off point. Once the grave has been opened the film essentially runs backwards, repeating each scene until it finishes right where it began. Things change so much for Bennie during his mission/journey (his whole life philosophy alters), which means the same set up takes on a different hue, such as that shower scene, or the meeting between the heavies and Bennie in their hotel room. It's a perfect structure in that way, something I'd first noticed in a Melville film.

I don't think 'bloody' Sam gets the props he deserves because of the controversy surrounding many of his films, coupled with the fact that he managed to overshadow them by being such a larger than life figure. If you love the man then you've seen this numerous times already and probably have drinking games to go with it. If you're not up to snuff with yr Peckinpah films however then this is as good a place as any to start. Be warned though, you'll want to see everything Peckinpah made after watching this. Yep even Convoy.

The White Room (1989) - Bill Butt

God I love the interweb sometimes. I'd presumed that this was something I'd never ever get to see, and now here it is in all it's unfinished glory. For those of you blissfully unaware of just what The White Room is, I'll explain. Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty had a huge summer hit single in 1988 under the name The Timelords. Instead of buying gold plated swimming pools with their new found wealth, they decided to make a film and accompanying soundtrack. There are worse things to do with royalties such as burning a million quid, but that's another story I guess.

Anyway at some point during the shooting the money dried up. So Bill & Jimmy decided that another summer smash was in order, so they lifted Kylie Said to Jason from the forthcoming White Room soundtrack, and sat back and waited for the cash to roll in again. Except this time it didn't, the single didn't even make it into the top 100, and both film and soundtrack were scraped. The soundtrack although finished was reworked and became one of 1991's biggest albums, it's quite different to the original version though and well worth seeking out. The White Room film itself was plundered for a couple of videos, but other than that it has always been a bit of a mystery.

So is it any good? Well that all depends on just how much you like The KLF I suppose. Not a lot happens really, the film starts off in Trancentral, Jimmy Caulty's squat where most of The KLF's music was recorded, there is a (in the parlance of the time) rave going on. I spotted Youth, Alex Paterson and Cressida Cauty all dancing away. Bill and Jimmy stroll outside and get into Jimmy's Ford Galaxie cop car. Here they meet their real life solicitor David Franks, they converse (all mumbled) and then our duo head off into the night for a spin around London. The film itself is silent, in as much as their is no heard dialogue, the soundtrack will be recognisable to anyone who would bother watching this. Although I will say that I'm not 100% certain it's the correct soundtrack since the version of Build a Fire that is on here is from the White Room album, and not the unreleased version from the White Room Soundtrack (oh do keep up and stop yawning at the back).

Anyway after going into a tunnel in London they reappear in Spain. Lots of shots of the Ford Galaxie driving through stunning but empty landscapes, Bill finds a dead eagle and Jimmy paints the car white and not a lot else. They drive up into the mountains, and eventually find and climb up to The White Room, Franks turns up again, and then it's all over.

What's it all about? Well it's all supposedly to do with a contract that The KLF signed from a group calling themselves Eternity. Apparently (and I'm thinking a pinch of salt might be best with this) if The KLF were able to show a fictional route to the White Room, then Eternity would divulge the location of the real White Room to them. All sounds a bit X-Files, but then you have to remember just how much The KLF have mythologized themselves, and also how influenced they were by The Illuminatus! Trilogy of books by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. So anything is possible with that in mind. Anyway there were stories about the film being finished, with proper actors coming in and everything, but nothing came of it and that was that. I'd honestly say that if you're a fan then you have to see this, but for the casual film fan I'd say don't bother there are better ways to waste 45 minutes of your life. Go stick on the White Room LP instead.

The African Queen (1951) - John Huston

Of course this is one of those films that everyone has seen time and time again, a timeless classic that no true film fan would get to almost forty without seeing, right? Um, well everyone it would seem except me. This is just one of the many so called classics that I've never seen. Not that I haven't wanted to, it just happened that our paths haven't crossed until now. The same goes for Gone With the Wind, Grease, Top Gun and a whole host of others. Although truth be told I've gone out of my way to avoid those three. Still the important thing is that I've seen it now, and better than that I can totally see why generation after generation have kept this films flame flickering. For me the genius of the film wasn't John Huston's direction, James Agee's screenplay or even Jack Cardiff's glorious Technicolor cinematography, no it's the on screen chemistry between Hepburn and Bogart. Together they really spark off one another, and make their fate something that you really care about.

For the few that aren't already acquainted with the story of The African Queen, I'll briefly run through it. It's September 1914, Rose (Hepburn) and her missionary brother are doing Gods work in deepest darkest Africa. Charlie (Bogart) is a the polar opposite of Rose, a swarthy sweaty uncouth tramp steamer operator. The first world war breaks out, the Germans raid the village where Rose is based, her brother dies and Charlie offers to sail her out of danger. You can see where all this is heading can't you? Like all good road movies (and make no mistake that's exactly what this is, a road movie without the road), there are adventures aplenty, each bringing our couple closer together. They're heading for a huge lake to destroy a German gunship, supposedly they are going to Macgyver up a couple of torpedoes out of the bits and bobs on Bogart's boat. This leads to one of the best lines in the film when Bogart claims 'There ain't nothing so complicated as the inside of a torpedo', except we all know that he is about to embark on a journey with the one thing in life that is infinitely more complex - Rose. Oh how will it end?

To be honest there isn't much suspense in the film since it's fairly obvious that neither star will be making the journey upstairs. That doesn't stop it being a joy to watch though since the pleasure comes from the two leads battling their way down stream, which I guess in it's own way is just a metaphor for the way relationships work. Or am I reading too much into it? I like the fact that neither of them were spring chickens anymore, Hepburn isn't covered in lippy and has a birds nest haircut that Robert Smith would have envied for the majority of the film. Bogart as I mentioned earlier looks like a hobo, you can practically smell him through the speakers.

This was shot on location in the Belgian Congo which adds to the sweaty feel of the film, although Huston isn't so good at marrying the studio footage with that shot on location. So while the studio bound scenes look just that, the African location scenes look as lush as one would expect. Funnily enough Jean Renoir was also taking those huge cumbersome Technicolor cameras out on location too that year, although he was in India making (for me at least) the superior The River. Funny old world. So to sum up, this is a perfect Sunday afternoon film, I can't see it ever becoming greater than any of those other Bogart/Huston films for me, but then when you're up against Key Largo, The Maltese Falcon or best of all The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, it's not all that surprising is it?