"Mexico Lindo...Ah...You Have No Eyes." The Making of Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch
"Mexico Lindo...Ah...You Have No Eyes."
The Making of Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch
by John Farkis
8.25x11 size
408 pages
“Mexico Lindo...Ah, you have no eyes” is a virtual day-by-day description of the making of Sam Peckinpah’s epic masterpiece “The Wild Bunch.”
Told in the same vein as his previous “making of” books, actors, crew members, extras, wranglers, and stuntmen share anecdotes and observations of their time on the sets.
Drawing from published and unpublished sources, period newspapers, magazines, maps, diaries, internal correspondence, and new interviews, this richly researched and highly detailed work explores the trials and tribulations of pulling together this cinema-changing film and includes not only detailed descriptions of the various filmed scenes but also those that were filmed but not included in any version of the film. The addition of rarely seen behind-the-scenes photographs adds to the historical tapestry.
This book, as well as John’s previous works, provide not only an educational view of the filmmaking process but also offers a rare behind-the-scenes look at the making of the epic masterpiece.
John Farkis, writer and Western film historian, is a former automotive executive of a Fortune 100 company. His previous books include “Alamo Village: How a Texas Cattleman Brought Hollywood to the Old West” (both the original and revised and expanded editions), “Not Thinkin’...Just Rememberin’...The Making of John Wayne’s The Alamo,” and “The Making of Tombstone: Behind the Scenes of the Classic Modern Western.” John’s Western cinema articles have been published on websites, in newspapers, and in magazines.
The Greatest Western of All Time
"You can make the argument for John Ford’s The Searchers or Kurt Russell’s Tombstone, or even Lonesome Dove (but it’s a miniseries) as the greatest Western of all time, but I believe there has never been, before or since, a better, more important Western than Sam Peckinpah’s 1969 epic masterpiece The Wild Bunch. As one of the most original American art forms, the Western is a cultural icon whose influence on the world’s perception of the culture of the United States cannot be measured. In 1969, three Westerns were released that had significant influence on the genre, True Grit, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and The Wild Bunch. But of the three, none had a greater influence on the art form of cinema than Peckinpah’s legendary film. Fifty-five years later, film historian John Farkis has written the definitive history of the film, “Mexico Lindo…Ah…You Have No Eyes.” The Making of Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (Bear Manor Media, $40, hardback / $29.95, paperback). Farkis, who has previously chronicled the making of John Wayne’s The Alamo and the modern classic and fan favorite Tombstone, is a meticulous researcher and interviewer. For film historians, Farkis’s biography of The Wild Bunch is a must read—and a model for researchers who want to write film history. Fans and admirers of Sam Peckinpah will hang on every word and read and re-read Farkis’s well-organized and detailed research, filled with quotes and insights from those who made the film. Like all fans of great Westerns who wish they could have seen early cuts of their favorites before their final cinematic edits, I wonder what an early four- or five-hour version of The Wild Bunch must have been like. It must have been a treasure— just like Sam’s genre-changing film and Farkis’s groundbreaking biography of the greatest Western of all time."