That 70’s Movie: ‘Bring Me the Head…’ (1974)

‘Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia’
Written & Directed by Sam Peckinpah

Few modern directors have been able to master the art of action and gratuitous violence like the legendary Sam Peckinpah. Best known for his honest, bloodier-than-most westerns (The Wild Bunch) and war films (Cross of Iron), Peckinpah also made some great action movies including The Getaway and The Killer Elite. This is probably one of Peckinpah’s least familiar titles, but it carries just as much Peckinpah punch as the rest.

Bennie (Warren Oates) is a bartender. A couple guys wearing high-dollar suits roll into town and offer Bennie a few G’s to track down Alfredo Garcia. As it turns out, Alfredo impregnated the daughter of a very wealthy Mexican cartel lord and now daddy wants revenge on the man who broke his little girl’s heart … he’s put a million dollar bounty on the head of Alfredo Garcia.

Bennie decides to take his girlfriend Elita (Isela Vega) on a road trip into Mexico and find Garcia, who happens to already be dead. Bennie figures he’ll find the body, take the head as proof and collect his reward. What Bennie doesn’t figure on is how much more complicated this endeavor is going to be than he ever imagined. To begin with, his prostitute-turned-girlfriend Elita was in love with Alfredo before he died, making her very uneasy about this entire arrangement. Secondly, the Garcia family are not too pleased with having their loved one’s head removed from his corpse. As if this wasn’t enough, Bennie must deal with rivals who also want the reward and worst of all, Bennie has to deal with his own conscience and doubts about desecrating the man’s grave.

The story is far more complex and intriguing than it appears on the surface. The film’s really about Bennie and his struggle over doing the right thing, which he ultimately sacrifices everything in the end to ensure. This is frequently a recurring theme in Peckinpah’s films. What begins as a harmless retrieval job turns into an all-out bloody violent battle between one man and an entire seedy underworld of gunmen. If you’re unfamiliar with the work of Peckinpah, I strongly recommend adding this to your list of his films to see.