When you think of Westerns, you often have an image of John Wayne in your head. The American became one of the biggest stars of the genre through films such as The Marshal, Rio Bravo and The Black Falcon. But his fame did not mean that Wayne himself was a general fan of the film genre. For example, he couldn’t stand a western for a certain reason.
John Wayne thought the western classic The Wild Bunch was too violent
According to Far Out Magazine, John Wayne spoke in a 1971 Playboy interview about how he disliked the genre classic The Wild Bunch because of its explicit violence:
For me, The Wild Bunch was tasteless. Without the blood it would have been a good film. Movies go too far when they use this kind of realism, when blood spurts out and teeth fly, and when they throw a liver around to make it look like the insides of people. The Wild Bunch was one of the first to go this far in realism, and the curious came to see it.
Watch a trailer for The Wild Bunch here:
The Wild Bunch – Trailer (English)
For the Western star, the power of imagination in cinema was more important than explicit depiction of violence:
This might lead the bankers and stock market promoters to believe that this is a necessary ingredient for successful movies. They seem to forget the one basic principle of our business: the illusion. We are in the magic business.I don’t think it does any harm to a child to see something that has the illusion of violence. All of our fairy tales involve some kind of violence – the good knight riding to kill the dragon, etc. Why do we have to show the knight spreading the snake’s entrails all over the mountain of candy?This is the story of The Wild Bunch
The plot of the film by director Sam Peckinpah takes place in Texas in 1913. Here, Pike Bishop (William Holden), the Leader of an outlaw gangone last big coup before retirement. However, his comrades have to deal with a gang of robbers whose leader is a former ally of Bishop.
The Wild Bunch is not currently available on a streaming flat rate. However, you can rent or buy the western on Amazon Prime, for example.