Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

Plot synopsis:
Teresa, the pregnant teenage daughter of a powerful man known only as "El Jefe" (Spanish for "The Boss"), is summoned before her father and interrogated as to the identity of her unborn child's father. Under torture, she identifies the father as Alfredo Garcia, whom El Jefe had been grooming to be his successor. Infuriated, El Jefe offers a $1 million reward to whoever will "bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia".
The search progresses for two months. In Mexico City, a pair of business suit-clad, dispassionate hit men, Sappensly (Robert Webber) and Quill (Gig Young), enter a saloon and encounter Bennie (Warren Oates), a retired United States Army officer who makes a meager living as a piano player and bar manager. The men ask about Garcia, believing they will have more luck getting answers out of a fellow American. Bennie plays dumb, saying the name is familiar but he doesn't know who Garcia is.
It turns out that everyone in the bar knows who Garcia is; they simply don't know where he is. Bennie goes to meet his girlfriend, Elita (Isela Vega), a maid at a ghetto motel. Elita admits to having cheated on Bennie with Garcia, who had professed his love for her, something Bennie refuses to do. Elita informs him that Garcia died in a drunk-driving accident the previous week.
Bennie is excited by the possibility of making money by simply digging up the body. He goes to Sappensly and Quill, in the hotel room of the man who hired them, El Jefe's business associate Max (Helmut Dantine), and makes a deal for US$10,000 for Garcia's head, plus a US$200 advance for expenses.
Bennie convinces Elita to go on a road trip with him to visit Garcia's grave, claiming that he only wants proof that Garcia is in fact dead and no longer a threat to their relationship. En route, Bennie proposes, promising that their future will soon change, and she can retire from being a cleaning lady. Elita is cautious and warns Bennie against trying to upset their status quo.
While having a picnic, Bennie and Elita are accosted by two bikers (one played by Kris Kristofferson and the other by Donnie Fritts), who pull guns and decide to rape Elita. Bennie seems unsure how to react. Elita agrees to have sex with the bikers if they spare Bennie's life, then goes off with one of the bikers (Kristofferson). He rips off her shirt to look at her breasts, lets her slap him twice, slaps her back, then walks away; she follows. Bennie knocks the second biker (Fritts) unconscious while he's playing Elita's guitar. Bennie takes the gun and finds Elita passionately kissing the biker, ready to make love with him. Bennie shoots him dead and kills the second biker as well, as he approaches them.
Bennie confesses to Elita his plan to decapitate Garcia's corpse and sell the head for money. A disgusted Elita, still shaken from what has just happened, begs Bennie to give up this quest and return to Mexico City, where they can be married and live a modest life of relative peace. Bennie again refuses, although he agrees to marry Elita in the church of the town where Garcia is buried.
They find Garcia's grave, but when he opens the coffin, Bennie is struck from behind with his shovel by an unseen assailant. He wakes up to find himself half-buried in the grave with Elita, who is dead. The corpse of Garcia has been decapitated.
Bennie learns from villagers that his assailants are driving a station wagon. He catches up with the men after they blow out a tire. Bennie shoots them, searches their car, and claims Garcia's head. Stopping at a roadside restaurant, he packs the sack containing the head with ice to preserve it for the journey home. Bennie begins addressing the head as if Garcia were still alive, first blaming Alfredo for Elita's death and then conceding that both of them probably loved her equally.
Bennie is ambushed by members of Garcia's family. They re-claim the head and are about to kill Bennie when they are interrupted by the arrival of Sappensly and Quill. The hitmen pretend to ask for directions. Quill produces a sub-machine gun and murders most of Garcia's family, but is fatally shot by one of them. As Sappensly sorrowfully looks at Quill's corpse, Bennie asks: "Do I get paid?" Sappensly turns to shoot, but Bennie kills him. Bennie returns to Mexico City, "arguing" with Garcia's head all the while.
At his apartment, Bennie gives Garcia's head a shower and then brings it to Max's hotel room. Feigning willingness to surrender the head for his $10,000, Bennie reveals he is no longer motivated by money; he says Alfredo was a friend of his and demands to know why Max and the others want Alfredo's head so badly. He also blames Elita's death on the bounty and intends to kill everyone involved. Several men pull guns, but Bennie manages to evade fire and kill them all. He takes a business card from the desk with El Jefe's address on it.
After attending baptism for his new grandchild, El Jefe greets Bennie as a hero and gives him a briefcase containing the promised million-dollar bounty. Bennie calmly relates how many people died for Garcia's head, including his beloved. El Jefe responds apathetically, telling Bennie to take his money and throw Garcia's head to the pigs on the way out. Infuriated that the object responsible for Elita's death is viewed as nothing more than garbage, Bennie guns down all of El Jefe's bodyguards.
Teresa enters with her newborn son as Bennie points a gun at El Jefe but hesitates to shoot. She tersely urges Bennie to kill her father. Bennie obliges, taking along Garcia's head as he leaves the scene with the words: "You take care of the boy. And I'll take care of the father." Bennie drives away, only to be killed by El Jefe's men, their automatic machine guns tearing him to pieces.

Tags: comedy, suspenseful, neo noir, murder, realism, cult, violence, insanity, melodrama, tragedy, revenge

Review:
On the trail are hit men Quill & Sappensly, Bennie & his prostitute girlfriend Elita, and some other Mexican bandit types, all of them are on a collision course that will bring far more than they all bargained for.This was the one film where director Sam Peckinpah felt he had the most control, the one where we apparently get his own cut and not some chopped up piece of work from interfering executives.
Warren Oates is rewarded by Peckinpah for years of sterling work for him by getting the lead role of Bennie, and he grasps it with both hands to turn in a wonderful performance that splits sadness and vibrancy with deft of ease.Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia has a harsh quality about it, be it the violence, or be it the sadness of the characters, but what isn't in doubt to me is that it's harshness is cloaked in Peckinpah splendour.
I mean, come on, it has everything to be a crime/thriller classic: Peckinpah in the director's chair, Warren Oates at his best, truckloads of attitude and some jet-black comedy in lines such as "you guys are definitely on my s**t list now." A truly brilliant, brilliant film..
Peckinpah dealt with a lot of s*** in the movie business, and one could perhaps make parallels to the gun-toting Mexicans on his trail, or even the men who he's supposed to report to with said head, as producers or studio execs.But without all of this in mind, even as it adds a bit of fascination to how Benny's fate unfolds, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia works on the levels that Peckinpah's work at its best does: it reveals violence and murder as the most unglamorous, frighteningly quick and graphically empty thing known to man.
I'm not going to get exhaustive in analysis, but will highlight some of the most obvious metaphors and references:The first blatant clue is early in the film, after Benny (Warren Oates) gets the contract to bring back Alfredo Garcia's head, he tells his girlfriend `this is our golden fleece, baby.'  Orpheus, of course, was one of the Argonauts who accompanied Jason on his quest for the Golden Fleece.When Orpheus was killed, his head was torn off, yet it continued to sing.
Could this be a statement on the rotten reality of the materialistic American dream?) Regardless, the head is clearly `singing' to him, although now it may be a bitter song of regret.I don't want to spoil the ending (which is far more true romance than Tarantino's screenplay and the subsequent film of the same name, if one is familiar with the Tristan & Isolde paradigm,) but suffice it to say, at `the gates of the underworld,' home free, Benny, like Orpheus cannot resist `looking back' at his departed lover, and bring about his ruin.The opening to this film is indisputably one of the greatest in cinematic history.
As a parting note, I will elucidate this claim, as most people tend not to get it:Set in Mexico, the film is a modern western and to bring this home, Peckinpah must bridge time.It opens with old time Mexican music and an antique-looking black and white photo, which shifts into color and becomes the opening shot, a pastoral scene by a pond.We see a pregnant girl in a very simple, homespun white gown dangling, her feet in the water.
I'm not sure how this can be described as anything other than genius.It is moments like this, along with great depth of character, emotion and theme, dramatic and symbolic unity, that makes this film an artistic achievement.In my limited sphere of understanding, Peckinpah is as much in the ranks with Kurosawa and Pasolini, as with John Ford, Sam Fuller and other great Western and Action directors.Great art, great entertainment and a quintessential action flick; this is a tremendous film that bears multiple viewings..
This dark and brutal film involves Benny, an American piano player in Mexico (played by Warren Oates) who gets involved with bounty hunters searching for the head of Alfredo Garcia.
The head is worth one million dollars, because Garcia got the daughter of a very wealthy and powerful man, pregnant.The film features plenty of Sam Peckinpah's trademark slow-motion violence in some very well-staged action set pieces.
(i.e., "Warren Oates plays Benny, a drunken blah blah blah.") Everybody wants to be the next Roger Ebert (though God knows why.) "Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia" is a title custom-designed to SAY ALL THAT NEEDS TO BE SAID.
BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA is another great hard-boiled action masterpiece from Sam Peckinpah(THE WILD BUNCH).
It features generous helpings of Peckinpah's famous slow motion gun fights and has great lines like "you guys are definitely on my sh*t list!" I don't know how that sounds to you, but for me it was irresistible.Warren Oats(BADLANDS) stars as the piano player hired to retrieve the head (of Alfredo Garcia), unaware that he'll have competition.
There's a good amount of both action and drama, and they both work.If you like Peckinpah, action, or movies centering on severed head, BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA is for you!.
Also, "Bennie" (Warren Oates), piano player and co-owner of a bar , along with her lover "Elita" Peach Vega (frequently naked Isela Vega), a prostitute and former girlfriend of "Alfredo Garcia" ; all of them are determined to get the reward .
After the catastrophic production of PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID, Sam Peckinpah finally got total autonomy from United Artists with the most unusual movie on his filmography.BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA is one hell of an alcohol-soaked, blood-drenched joyride through the beautiful countryside of Mexico.
Sam Peckinpah's Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is one the bleakest, most violent, and most depressing movies I have ever seen.
Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia is an excellent,powerful and unforgettable classic that combines terrific direction,a fantastic performance from Warren Oates,thrilling Action and a memorable film score.
All of those elements make Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia an underrated classic,a Cult film that is Sam Peckinpah and Warren Oates at their best.Set in Mexico City,Mexico,Bring The Head Of Alfredo Garcia tells the story of bar manager and piano player Bennie(Warren Oates)who has been hired by hit men to bring the severed head of Alfredo Garcia on a one 1 million dollar bounty.
Bennie,along with his girlfriend Elita(Isela Vega)heads on the road to get the head on a violent and bizarre journey.Released in 1974,Sam Peckinpah's Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia is a brilliant film that was a Box Office flop and was hated and panned by the critics at the time.
But years after it's release Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia has been rediscovered by audiences and film critics and has become a Cult classic and is seen as one of Sam Peckinpah's best films and next to The Wild Bunch is seen as Peckinpah's most powerful and infamous film.
Violent,brutal and done with a vicious mean streak Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia is an amazing film that is a combination of an Action-Thriller,Horror film,Western and character study in the highest order and from beginning to end punches viewers in the gut with intensity and power that never stops and never gives viewers any hope or happiness.
With Alfredo Garcia Peckinpah pulls out all the stops and gives viewers a movie that doesn't play by the rules and shows us a world where violence and death is the only way out with an over the top,crazy and bizarre energy that exists in this film and you will be glued to the screen.
Great score,Fielding.In final word,if you love Sam Peckinpah,Warren Oates,Action-Thrillers or Cult films I highly suggest you see Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia,an excellent,powerful,unforgettable and underrated classic that will stay with you after you watch it.
Knowing that the actor was basically playing Peckinpah himself, makes this an especially interesting performance for fans of both mavericks to look at.The fact that most critics hated the film upon release only adds to the movie's legend.
Sam Peckinpah's Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia is hailed by some as a masterpiece (I've even seen reviews which claim, absurdly, that it is better than his film The Wild Bunch).
The plan backfires and Bennie finds himself pitted against a whole bunch of unscrupulous and murderous bounty hunters, all of whom want the blood-stained sack that holds Alfredo Garcia's head so that they can hand it over to El Jefe, thus laying their hands on the million dollar purse.During the shoot, Peckinpah was allegedly in a perpetual haze of booze and drugs.
When finally Bennie (Warren Oates) finds the head, the film improves remarkably.There are some action scenes, but not so well-done as it's usual by Sam Peckinpah.
It has no meaning for the remainder of the movie, save perhaps in showing that Bennie is a tough guy who can kill."Bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia": interesting work for people who admire Sam Peckinpah..
Putting a bullet on the two corpses apiece, Benny asks himself: "Why?" He has the answer too: "Because it feels goddamn good!"Bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia is a violent masterpiece.
It's sort of morbidly funny but more than anything, Warren Oates, who plays Benny, has lived in a performance that is about the total desperation of a man who is obsessed with and in need of finishing the task he's set himself out for.The ensuing shoot-out on the road is brilliantly orchestrated, as you would imagine, with Peckinpah directing it.
The story is more philosophical and nihilistic than "The Wild Bunch", but still adventurous, blood-thirsty and very thrilling.Warren Oates plays a disillusioned piano player in Mexico who wants to get the reward a Mexican landlord will give to the guy who brings him the head of Alfredo Garcia - a poor guy who used to make love to his daughter.Oates finds out that Garcia is already dead and gets his head from the graveyard - with this macabre prey he travels through the Mexican countryside, loses his wife, meets Kris Kristofferson on the graveyard and kills dozens of headhunters, henchmen and finally the landlord before he is killed when he tries to escape.The whole story shows us a cycle of violence, murder and despair, and Oates seems like the hero of a blood-thirsty Shakespeare play or ancient Greek drama.
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia(1974) along with Cross of Iron(1977) are the best films from the late period of Sam Peckinpah.
Violence is a way of life to the people that inhabit the film as they get used to the violent air around them.The direction by Sam Peckinpah is great and the story is very gritty.
He's at his best, as he travels through Mexico to retrieve the head of Alfredo Garcia and receive a big monetary reward.It's non-stop action and mayhem, as Oates fights low life types, gay gangsters and angry locals to deliver the head to "El Jefe" and collect.You have to wonder if his red Chevrolet convertible will finish the trip, and if he'll find enough ice to keep the head in good condition.Kris Kristoffersen appears as a singing rapist Oates has to kill.It's one of those films without heroes.It's Sam Pechinpah at his best!.
"Bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia" is the movie that bears all the scars and all the magic of Peckinpah films.
Sure, 'The Wild Bunch' is considered his one masterpiece, and 'Straw Dogs' deserves its rep as the revenge film other revenge films want to be, and even 'Ride The High Country' gets kudos from viewers who didn't think they liked Peckinpah, but 'Alfredo' stands head and shoulders over them all.It takes a little patience, believe me - the first time I watched this film, I wasn't too impressed, and was unsure exactly what to make of it - but so much of it stayed with me that when I gave it a second, more fair chance, I embraced all of it.
Warren Oates plays Bennie, an alcoholic man who goes on a quest (with his girlfriend Elita) to retrieve the head of Alfredo Garcia for $10,000.
Source of inspiration for Walter Hill and William Lustig, the best movie from Sam Peckinpah is about a desperate race again time and moral to bring back the head of a dead person as a proof to be paid the ransom.Undeceived, all the characters start killing each other...
"Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia" was one of the few films in which Sam Peckinpah had complete artistic control and is all the better for it.
No Way Out. It wasn't a hit in its day, and its title became a staple of late-show humor soon after, but "Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia" is regarded a good deal more seriously today as one of legendary director Sam Peckinpah's signature films, maybe second only to his "Wild Bunch".It's a pretty good film, but likely to resonate more with those who appreciate Sam going in.
In it, a hard-drinking piano man in Mexico with a mysterious Army past named Bennie (Warren Oates) gets wind of the fact a fellow named Alfredo Garcia, who has just taken Bennie's girlfriend Elita (Isela Vega) out for a three-day tryst, has a price on his head and is wanted by some scuzzy killers.
What is it about a Sam Peckinpah movie that scares these critics?Peckinpah had serious things to say about the causes and consequences of violence, and in this film it is social deprivation, financial greed, and male pride that stands accused.As well as containing a moving and tender love story, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is also a remarkable self-portrait of Peckinpah himself.
It is generally accepted that Warren Oates modelled the character of Benny, the burned-out bar pianist, on Peckinpah who was, at the time, slipping slowly into a life of sleaze and self-destruction while trying to hang on to something decent and noble inside himself.Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is a remarkable film and typical of that brief period in American film history when honest and brave cinema could still be bankrolled by a major studio.
But to this film in particular, Peckinpah stock company regular, the great Warren Oates, plays a south of the border lounge piano player who hears about a rancher/underworld figure who is offering a million dollars for the head of Alfredo Garcia for impregnating his daughter.
I saw NC-17 rated The Wild Bunch on VHS, but it's been over a decade since I saw that movie and I don't remember except a prolonged battle sequence towards the ending.Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia may be 32 years old, but it retains the amazing impact that might not be equalized in achieving the mesmerizing effect on the viewer with shock of violence and in-the-character raw emotion by the fantastic actor who plays Benny, Warren Oates -- slow romantic interlude scenes notwithstanding.I see the photos of Sam Peckinpah as a director who wears these unique sunglasses and have a distinct fashion & behavioral style, and Warren Oates seem to have literally embodied Mr. Peckinpah, partly to release the personal demons in venting frustration & despair and partly to achieve the penultimate level of neo-realist acting caliber that is seldomly (perhaps never, not even post-Godfather Marlon Brando) matched nowadays.
This film is quite a feat in achievement in pushing the buttons on the viewer's reactions, pro and con, and not come off as contrivedly manipulative for cynical purposes, owing to Peckinpah, Oates, the diligent supporting cast and the talented production crew's consistent quality styling in providing enough ice cold water & vodka substance and no sugar or syrup.Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is a no-holds-barred movie and it holds up excellent in impact after three decades.
Only it's not, and as you can imagine from a Sam Peckinpah joint chaos ensues.Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is an unpleasant movie by design.
Benny (Warren Oates), an American now living in Mexico, learns that Garcia is already dead, but in order to get the reward he masterminds a plan that brings him "head on" with the Mafia.Critique: If there were an awards category for cinematic art forms, director Sam Peckingpah would've been a sure-fire favorite for 'the most violent".
BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA is Sam Peckinpah's most intimate and underrated film.
Easily the darkest movie of director Sam Peckinpah's career, and one of the bleakest films ever made, period, BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA is, depending on who you read, either a bizarre cult masterpiece or a bizarre piece of trash.
"Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia" is a movie which illustrates some of the reasons why he achieved this reputation and also provides an offbeat piece of entertainment which leaves a lasting impression.Some Peckinpah trademarks such as extreme violence, misogyny and well choreographed action scenes are featured on numerous occasions but the movie's most compelling component is its depiction of the journey taken by a guy whose motivation gradually changes from pure greed to a need to escape to a better life and then ultimately, a need for redemption.When an extremely wealthy Mexican landowner called El Jefe (Emilio Fernadez) discovers that the man who'd deserted his pregnant, unmarried daughter is Alfredo Garcia, he offers a $1,000,000 reward for whoever brings him the head of the man who he'd previously treated like a son.A little time later, in a tourist bar in Mexico City, two well dressed bounty hunters called Quill (Gig Young) and Sappensly (Robert Webber) meet Bennie (Warren Oates) who's the establishment's American piano player.
With BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA, Peckinpah provides Oates with his best ever role...and a rare lead.
The head of Alfredo Garcia, the heart of Warren Oates, the soul of Sam Peckinpah ....