Major Dundee - Restored Version

Restored Version

In April 2005, the New York City based Film Forum premiered an "expanded" version featuring several restored scenes, along with a new musical score by Christopher Caliendo. This expanded version was actually the 136 minute cut authorized by producer Jerry Bresler before he left Columbia Studios. Recently unearthed in Sony Pictures' archives, the restored version played in selected cities in North America and has been released on a Region 1 DVD. All of the cuts were edited out of the released version at the last minute; it is highly unlikely that Peckinpah's director's cut will ever be fully restored.

Restored scenes are listed below. These include both brief inserts and additions to existing scenes, as well as four major scenes restored to the film.

• Ryan plays "Taps" as soldiers bury the victims of the massacre.
• After Dundee, Potts, and the other Union troopers survey the massacre at the Rostes Ranch, Tyreen and his Confederates attempt to escape through a mountain stream. They are trapped by troops from the fort and Dundee's command. The next scene shows Dundee announcing to the fort's prisoners his need for volunteers. The scene introduces the character of Tyreen, who is only awkwardly introduced in the theatrical version, and provides the reason why he and his men are to hang later in the film (they killed a guard during their escape attempt).
• Tyreen's men refuse to wear the Union jackets provided to them by Dundee.
• Children watch Dundee's expedition leaving Fort Benlin.
• The wrestling match between Potts and the scout Riago is much longer, with Dundee chiding Potts because the artillery bet on him.
• Paco, one of Potts' Indian scouts, is killed by Apaches before the river ambush.
• The fiesta scene in the Mexican village is longer, with Potts leering at a pretty girl, who snubs him (which would have led to the knife fight scene detailed below), and Teresa trying to comfort a crying baby.
• Dundee recovers from his leg wound in Durango, while being tended to by Melinche (Aurora Clavell), eventually falling in love with her.
• Dundee and his officers—Tyreen, Potts, Lt. Graham, and Sgt. Gomez—find an Apache trail marker, and then debate strategy on how to fight Charriba. At the end of the scene, we learn the fate of Apache scout Riago, who had earlier in the film been accused of being an agent of Charriba's by Dundee and others. In the restored version, he is found crucified in a tree. In the theatrical version, his character disappeared without a trace.

Available as extras on the DVD are an unfinished knife fight scene between Potts and Gomez in a Mexican village, a longer version of Teresa and Dundee's interlude at the lake, and several silent outtakes—including a master shot which would have opened the massacre scene at the beginning, of Lt. Brannin and his men riding past a sheep farmer to the Rostes Ranch.

For the 2005 restored version, a new score was composed by Christopher Caliendo. This score was composed and recorded with a small studio orchestra to authentically sound the way director Peckinpah might have approved it had he been alive at the time of the film's restoration, and the way the music might have been done in its original 1965 release as opposed to today's larger orchestra-type scores. The new score is regarded by some critics as being better than the original, which was disliked by film experts and featured the title song performed by the Mitch Miller Sing-a-Long Gang, though many concede the new music is far from perfect; for example, there has been criticism of Caliendo's decision to leave unscored several sequences which did have music in the original version.