Bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia

[poster]

cat..dead cat..used to belong to a friend of mine.

[rotgut]

Bring me the head is the most grimy film ever made. On some days, it is my favorite Sam Peckinpah movie. It's certainly his most personal. Some of you, I'm sure, have read that this is Peckinpah's worst movie. Worse than Convoy?? If you enjoy the dark side of cinema enough to have made it to this review, you really need to check this one out. Certainly any noir fan will enjoy this epic tale of greed, desperation, tequila, and death.

The story begins as the pregnant daughter of wealthy Mexican ranch owner "El Jefe" (Emilio Fernandez) is brought before her father, who demands to know the name of the father. The girl is defiant, but after torture shouts his name- "Alfredo Garcia". She is stripped of a locket containing his picture, and her father offers a reward of $1,000,000 for his head.

Two of El Jefe's thugs comb Mexico City, showing the photo with no luck. They end up in a touristy piano bar, where the gringo pianist "Bennie" (Warren Oates in his best role) offers to find Garcia "dead or alive". One of the tough guys (Gig Young as "Fred C. Dobbs", a High Sierra reference) replies "Just dead", and leaves Bennie a poker chip to use a pass to his Hotel room if he gets the information. Asking around the bar, Bennie learns that the last one to see Al Garcia was Bennie's girlfriend Elita (Isela Vega).

A jealous Bennie drags Elita from her singing job at a swanky club, and demands to know about Alfredo. ("You're a lyin', cheatin', no good two-bit bitch") She tells him she met with him to say good-bye, forever. When Bennie threatens to kill him, she says "you're a little late". It seems that Garcia left her very drunk, and died in a car wreck.

Bennie goes to meet the hoods at their hotel, and is told that he'll get $1,000 for correct info on Garica's location. Knowing he can only produce a corpse, Bennie offers to "kill" Alfredo, saying "I go all the way or I pass", and holds out for more money. He is offered $10,000 for proof that Garcia's dead (in the form of his head) with $200 up front. Bennie returns home and makes Elita pack for "a trip".

During the trip Bennie and Elita's relationship improves, and Bennie finally proposes to her. The future seems promising until he reveals the purpose of the trip. She is horrified, says that being together is enough, and threatens to leave him if he goes through with his plan. She tries to convince Bennie that her inquiries on the location of Garcia's grave were fruitless (Bennie speaks only the most basic Spanish), but Bennie gets his way, and they arrive at the village where the grave lies.

Reluctantly accepting the fact that Bennie is determined to get the head, Elita accompanies him to the grave at night. Bennie uncovers the coffin, and is about to hack off the head, but is brained by an unseen man with a shovel.

It is at this point that the film gets seriously creepy. The next shot we see is a dimly-lit hand pushing though dirt, followed by bennie crawling out of the grave (he and Elita had been buried alive by the attacker) and gasping for breath. He realizes Elita is in the dirt beneath him, and pulls her out, stroking her hair and saying "we're alive!". It is soon obvious, though, that "we" are not both alive, and her lifeless body sinks back into the grave. Bennie understandably freaks out, and begins his descent into madness. "You wanna stay with him?!"

Bennie returns to his car, and gets the description of the other out-of-town car from a villager, at gunpoint. Bennie finds the car, which has had a flat, and kills the two passengers. Bennie drives on with the head (which he speaks to, going increasingly insane), but is ambushed by Garcia's armed family. In the midst of the standoff, the two hoods who had originally approached Bennie pull up in a station wagon, asking for directions. "Dobbs", pointing to his map, asks Bennie "where's the cutoff?". Bennie replies "It's right here- but you'll have to take it". The toughs then gun down the entire family (excepting unarmed Grandpa), and one dies in the fire fight. Dobbs tries to kill Bennie, but he'd snuck around behind him in anticipation and kills Dobbs.

Bennie becomes obsessed with finding out who wants the head, and why, and returns to the hotel. Al Jefe's hoods are pleased with Bennie's performance, and give him the $10,000. When he asks what they want with it, he's told "the $10,000 answers it all". Bennie kills them all with the gun he had smuggled in with the basket containing the head, and with the help of the business card he gets from one of the men, sets out to find El Jefe.

When Bennie successfully enters the ranch "Just tell him Alfredo's here", El Jefe greets him enthusiastically, saying "I've been expecting you". The Ranch is in the middle of a party celebrating the baptism of Alfredo's child. Bennie understands the situation, and that is was only Jefe's pride which was the origin of all the death Bennie had seen. When the briefcase containing the $1,000,000 is brought, Bennie shoves the head across Jefe's desk saying "here's the merchandise you bought". Bennie has, once again, smuggled his gun in with the head, and kills everyone in the room except the mother and the unarmed butler (although certainly a murderer, Bennie does have a code of honor. He could have easily made off with the mil, but his life was less important to him at that point than taking the people responsible for the deadly chain of events into death with him). Leaving the room with the head, Bennie turns back, and as an afterthought, takes the money as well. Outside, he tells the girl "you take care of the kid- I'll take care of the father".

Bennie gets into his car and breaks through the front gate. The butler, however, has called for help, and Bennie's car is destroyed in a hellfire of bullets. The last shot is of the smoking barrel of a gun, in darkness, pointing directly into the camera.

I don't quite know how to sum this one up. It's one of the best films to plumb the depths of the human soul, and the ending, while certainly depressing, almost nihilistic, is poetic in a "what a way to go" sense. A masterpiece.
 
 
 
 

[Bennie]

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