Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

129 Pages·2011·1.59 MB·English

by  Ian Cooper

C
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L The Wall Street Journal called it ‘grotesque, sadistic, C
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magazine it was ‘a catastrophe’. Upon its initial release, T
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Sam Peckinpah’s film was a critical and commercial disaster.
R G BRING ME THE HEAD
But for many, it is a demented masterpiece, a slice of violent,
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hallucinatory autobiography and the only ‘pure Peckinpah’.
P A
H This study looks at the making of this most divisive of films, P
H OF ALFREDO GARCIA
I its initial reception and subsequent reassessment. As part
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of an in-depth analysis, consideration is given to its status E
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as an auteur work, a genre film, a confession and a bizarre
Ian Cooper
self-parody.
IAN COOPER is a screenwriter, author and book editor.
His contributions to the Wallflower Press series of Critical
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Guides to Directors include entries on Robin Hardy, Bob R
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Clark and Zalman King. He is also the author of a book on G

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Alfredo Garcia cover.indd 1 13/06/2011 01:02
C U LT O G R A P H I E S
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CULTOGRAPHIES is a new list of individual studies devoted to 
the analysis of cult film. The series provides a comprehensive 
introduction to those films which have attained the coveted status 
of a cult classic, focusing on their particular appeal, the ways in 
which they have been conceived, constructed and received,  
and their place in the broader popular cultural landscape.
For more information, please visit www.cultographies.com
Series editors: Ernest Mathijs (University of British Columbia)
and Jamie Sexton (University of Wales, Aberystwyth)
OTHER PUBLISHED TITLES IN THE CULTOGRAPHIES SERIES
THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW
Jeffrey Weinstock
DONNIE DARKO
Geoff King
THIS IS SPINAL TAP
Ethan de Seife
BAD TASTE
Jim Barratt
SUPERSTAR: THE KAREN CARPENTER STORY
Glyn Davis
THE EVIL DEAD
Kate Egan
BLADE RUNNER
Matt Hills
Alfredo_Garcia_pages.indb 2 24/05/2011 18:33
BRING ME THE HEAD 
OF ALFREDO GARCIA
Ian Cooper
WALLFLOWER PRESS
LONDON & NEW YORK
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First published in Great Britain in 2011 by
Wallflower Press,
4 Eastern Terrace Mews,
Brighton, BN2 1EP
www.wallflowerpress.co.uk
Copyright © Ian Cooper 2011
The moral right of Ian Cooper to be identified as the author of this
work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transported in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without the prior permission of both the copyright owners and the
above publisher of this book.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-906660-32-1 (pbk)
Book design by Elsa Mathern
Printed in the USA
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction: That Title! 1
1 ‘You guys are definitely on my shit list’:
Production, Promotion, Initial Reception 10
2 ‘There´s nothing sacred about a hole in the
ground or the man that´s in it. Or you. Or me’:
Alfredo Garcia’s Reputation 29
3 ‘Don´t look at me with those goddamn fuckin´
eyes’: Alcohol Cinema 47
4 ‘You too are wrong. Dead wrong’:
Placing Alfredo 99
Notes 109
Bibliography 110
Index 117
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 
I want to thank the series editors of ‘Cultographies’, Ernest
Mathijs and Jamie Sexton, for all of their support, advice and
suggestions. It’s nice to be a part of such a series.
Thanks too to Yoram Allon and all at Wallflower Press: Tom
Cabot, Lucy Hurst, Elsa Mathern and Amanda O’Boyle. Par-
ticular thanks go to my good friend Jackie Downs who has
helped me immeasurably over many years, particularly where
this book is concerned.
I am also grateful to my wife, Julia Thaddey, for her (unpaid)
proofing, her patience and her unstinting willingness to fund
my chronic DVD habit.
Ian Cooper, Neuss, April 2010
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This book is for my sons,
Matthew Caleb Jackson Street
and Sam Wolf Thaddey.
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INTRODUCTION
THAT TITLE! 
I can’t remember when I first heard it. One of the great film
titles, up there with In a Lonely Place (Nicholas Ray, 1950),
Faster, Pussycat, Kill! Kill! (Russ Meyer, 1965) and The Texas
Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974). Whenever I hear
people talk of their loathing for Sam Peckinpah’s 1974 film or
their shock at its pessimism and ugliness, I always want to
say ‘you can’t say you weren’t warned’.
I knew of Peckinpah’s reputation from an early age, from
repeated references and admiring notices in horror maga-
zines like House of Hammer and Monster Mag. There was
the Monty Python’s Flying Circus sketch, ‘Sam Peckinpah’s
Salad Days’, with its slow-motion gore, a bright young thing
impaled on a tennis racket and hands chopped off by a pi-
ano lid, the stumps spouting great gouts of bright red blood.
Bloody Sam. I don’t know who started the game we played
in the school playground but I was the one who called it
Peckinpah-ing. Falling down a grassy hill, writhing in pre-
tend pain, trying to do it all in slow-motion. I’d seen The Wild
Bunch (1969) and The Getaway (1972) on TV and they’d been
everything I’d expected, blood, whisky and the romance
1
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