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It’s a new deluxe Limited Edition of Sam Peckinpah’s mangled masterpiece, the third fancy boxed set in as many years. Arrow’s presentation is certainly got the edge in graphic elegance. They’ve also strived to include as many earlier extras as possible, plus new analytical-critical takes on the picture, and an excellent (and wickedly funny) visual essay from David Cairns. The disc has both of my commentaries, including the comprehensive one that details the missing scenes with information taken directly from Sam Peckinpah and Oscar Saul’s screenplay. And hey, you never know: this could be the year that Mitch Miller’s Singalong Gang makes an incredible comeback, and we can All fall in behind the Major.

Major Dundee

Blu-ray

Arrow Video

1965 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 136, 122 min. / (2-Disc Limited Edition) / Street Date June 29, 2021 / 59.95

Starring: Charlton Heston, Richard Harris, James Coburn, Senta Berger, Jim Hutton, Michael Anderson Jr., Brock Peters,...

It’s a big international action epic, filmed in Mexico with a French director. Anthony Quinn is an 18th-century bandit who liberates a Mexican hamlet from marauding Yaqui Indians and a villainous Charles Bronson. Quinn is good, and all the necessary elements are present: fights, handsome scenery and a big battle… but it’s fairly tepid stuff, simplified and prettified. Leave it to Ennio Morricone’s epic music score to bind it all together. With Anjanette Comer, Sam Jaffe, Silvia Pinal and the same fifteen or so well-connected actors that cornered roles in all big Mexican films made with foreign money.

Guns for San Sebastian

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1968 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 111 min. / La bataille de San Sebastian / Available at Amazon.com / Street Date June 15, 2021 / 21.99

Starring: Anthony Quinn, Anjanette Comer, Charles Bronson, Sam Jaffe, Silvia Pinal, Jorge Martínez de Hoyos, Jaime Fernández, Rosa Furman, Leon Askin, Ivan Desny, Pedro Armendáriz Jr.,...

The new [Imprint] label turns its attention to the Sam Peckinpah favorite, the almost-classic that suffered a number of setbacks — a studio regime change, impractical remote locations, the wrong producer — and a director with zero diplomatic skills, who couldn’t finish his script and fought political battles when his movie needed his full attention. That the finished film shows so much brilliance is a tragedy, as this could have been a landmark epic, Charlton Heston’s best. CineSavant turns its attention to a favored film one more time — to play imagination games with re-cuts. Viavision [Imprint]’s lavish boxed set is said to be sold out, but that may only be at the company source.

Major Dundee

Blu-ray

Viavision [Imprint] 11

1965 / Color/ 2:35 widescreen / 136, 122 min. / Street Date October 28, 2019 / available at [Imprint] / $79.95 au

Starring: Charlton Heston, Richard Harris, James Coburn, Senta Berger, Jim Hutton, Michael Anderson Jr., Brock Peters, Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, Slim Pickens, R.G. Armstrong,...