Underrated, lyrical, sweet and pretty much the most charming Western film in Sam Peckinpah's canon of work. He went over budget, he shot too much film, he pissed off Warner Brothers and never worked for them again. Due to his drinking and wild man ways he missed a chance to direct Jeremiah Johnson and possibly Deliverance, but no matter, those films went off and found good directors to helm them. Instead this little fable found itself wedged inbetween two massively critical pieces of film, The Wild Bunch and Straw Dogs, two hyper-violent pics that sealed Sam's fate as an artist who knew his way around operatic, slow motion bloodshed. But as it was pointed out in the Peckinpah biography If They Move...Kill Them!, this was one of Sam's favorites and now I can see why. It took me thirty five years to find it and screen it..it was worth the wait. I must say that no matter how much I will always cherish Peckinpah's Cross of Iron, The Getaway and Junior Bonner, no matter how much I rever Sam's Wild Bunch, Major Dundee and Straw Dogs for their artistic excellence, I think that this will film will always be the film that says to me that Sam Peckinpah was truly one of the greats, a grand balanced filmmaker and one hell of a man.Action!
NY Times review: The Ballad of Cable Hogue:
Lamb Arts: great original artistic visions based on Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch :
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