RETRO MOVIE REVIEW: BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA, 1974

BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA, 1974. Story by Frank Kowalski, screenplay by Gordon T. Dawson and Sam Peckinpah. Directed by Sam Peckinpah (THE WILD BUNCH, 1969 and THE GETAWAY, 1972). Starring Warren Oats (THE SHOOTING, 1966 and Dillinger, 1973).

Usually known for big-budgeted cinematic epics with major star power, which usually deals with dark characters and subject matters, the legendary renegade film director Sam Peckinpah took a very uncommercial turn with this road trip into insanity. BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA is a smaller film that has a very cool indie vibe to it. I would say it’s the most sinister and darkest cinematic tale of his catalog.

Warren Oats plays Bennie, a dissatisfied American barroom pianist stuck in a dead-end job at a restaurant in Mexico. Bennie, always watchful for an opportunity to get him out of his current predicament, gets a tip from a couple of mob related goons about a well-known gigolo named Alfredo Garcia. A very powerful mob boss is searching for Garcia because he knocked up his daughter and supposedly left her high and dry. The mob boss is not happy about the situation so he puts a price on Garcia’s head. Bennie is tuned into the seedy underbelly of Mexico and he finds out that Garcia has been killed in a car accident and is buried in remote cemetery near his hometown. Seems like easy money to Bennie; all he has to do is dig up Garcia’s body and collect his head for payment.

Bennie employs the assistance of his prostitute girlfriend (Isela Vega) to accompany him on the road trip and help him find the corpse of Garcia. The road trip, although picturesque, is not without its hazards. Call it bad karma for their sinister intent; they have to deal with many a criminal element before they reach their destination. Upon reaching the grave of Garcia and their attempt to desecrate it, they are assaulted and left for dead by locals. Bennie’s girlfriend is killed in the assault, but he still musters up the strength to dig up Garcia and collect his head.

A battered, bruised, and delirious Bennie makes the road trip back with Garcia’s rotting head stuffed in a dirty sack. Hell-bent on cashing in, Bennie relentlessly powers on to his destination, ultimately growing more delusional, which prompts him to start talking to the severed head of Garcia. This stirs the distress of losing his girlfriend and is compounded even more when he faces a double-cross on the road from the mob goons that employed him. No worse for wear; Bennie survives and collects on Garcia’s head. But, Bennie pulls a double-cross of his own. He collects his payment, keeps the head, and delivers it to the mob boss himself, which results in a climactic shoot out.

True to Peckinpah’s form, he knows how to create cutting edge cinematic ultra-violence that can really stick in your mind. The dirtiness of his story telling is truly gripping in a non-exploitive way. He made his films his way. Although he has many a classic film on his resume, I find this little gem to be one of my favorite films by the maverick director. Check it out!