The 40th Anniversary of director Sam Peckinpah's 1969 western "The Wild Bunch", will be celebrated at the 'Jules Verne Légendaire Award Charity Event', November 12 @ Los Angeles' 2,000 seat, downtown 'Million Dollar Theatre', bringing the ground-breaking feature back up on the big screen:
The film's surviving lead actors Ernest 'Dutch Engstrom' Borgnine, Bo 'Crazy Lee' Hopkins, L.Q. 'T.C.' Jones, Alfonso 'Lt. Hererra' Arau and others will be accepting awards on stage.
In addition, Melissa Peckinpah will accept a special award on behalf of her father, director 'Bloody Sam' Peckinpah and Camille Fielding will accept a Lifetime Achievement Award on behalf of her late father composer Jerry Fielding.
Celebrities confirmed to attend the event include Ali "The Getaway" MacGraw, composer Lalo "Dirty Harry" Schifrin, director Walter "The Warriors" Hill and actor Malcolm "A Clockwork Orange" McDowell.
"It will be the last great ride of the movie," organizers said.
Premise of the film, set in 1913, during the height of the Mexican Revolution, followed a middle-aged gang of 'unchanged men in a changing land', staging a bank heist in San Rafael, Texas, led by 'Pike Bishop' (William Holden), with 'Dutch Engstrom' (Ernest Borgnine), 'Lyle Gorch' (Warren Oates), 'Tector Gorch' (Ben Johnson), 'Angel' (Jaime Sanchez), 'Buck' (Rayford Barnes) and 'Crazy Lee' (Luke Hopkins), among members of the gang.
But lying in ambush among the rooftops of the buildings, is a gaggle of bounty hunters led by railroad detective 'Patrick Harrigan' (Albert Dekker), formerly imprisoned Bishop gang member 'Deke Thornton' (Robert Ryan), 'Coffer' (Strother Martin), 'T.C.' (LQ Jones), 'Huey' (Paul Harper) and 'Jess' (Bill Hart), waiting for the word to pounce.
After numerous bloody 'slo-mo' killings, the gang winds up in 'Agua Verde' Mexico, selling guns to 'General Mapache' and determined to rescue Angel who has been taken hostage.
After a massacre that kills Mapache, his soldiers, Pike, Dutch and the Gorches, Thornton and his men ride into town.
Thornton declines to join the bounty hunters, remaining at Agua Verde, until Sykes, Mexican village leader 'Don Jose' and a group of 'Villistas' confront him.
"Well, me and the boys here, we got some work to do," says Sykes."Want to come along ? Ain't like it used to be, but it'll do..."
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