Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974)

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Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (Tráiganme la cabeza de Alfredo García) (1974) is an action-adventure film directed by Sam Peckinpah and featuring Warren Oates.

Made in Mexico on a low budget after the commercial failure of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973). Peckinpah claimed that, of all his films, Alfredo García was the only one released as he had intended. The film was a box-office and critical failure at the time, but has gained a new following and stature in the decades since.

Plot

Teresa, the pregnant teenage daughter of a powerful man running a criminal network and known only as "El Jefe" (Spanish,"The Boss") (Emilio Fernandez), 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, a lothario whom El Jefe had been grooming to be his successor. Infuriated, El Jefe offers a $1 million reward to whomever brings him Garcia's severed head. News of the bounty spreads quickly, and, in addition to El Jefe's own henchmen, dozens of freelance bounty hunters, bandits and gangsters set about scouring Mexico and the United States border for Garcia.

The search progresses for two months. In Mexico City, two of El Jefe's personal henchmen, a pair of business-suit clad dispassionate hitmen, 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 two men ask about Garcia, believing that they will have more luck getting answers out of a fellow American. Bennie demurs, saying that the name is familiar but that he doesn't know who Garcia is.

It turns out that everyone else in Bennie's bar knows who Garcia is; they simply don't know where he is. Bennie goes to meet his girlfriend, Elita (Isela Vega), a prostitute at a bordello. 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 technically not having to do anything wrong. (He sees nothing particularly immoral with desecrating a grave.) He goes to Sappensly and Quill, who have set up headquarters in a hotel along with other businessmen who comprise the legitimate "face" of El Jefe's criminal endeavors. Max (Helmut Dantine) agrees to pay Bennie $10,000 for Garcia's head, plus a few hundred dollars in 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, the two work out their personal issues. Bennie proposes, promising that their future will soon change, that he can stop working in a bar and she can retire from prostitution. Elita is cautious and warns Bennie against trying to upset their status quo.

On the road, Bennie and Elita are accosted by two bikers (including Kris Kristofferson), 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. They agree, and one of them takes Elita to a nearby field, where he aggressively starts to undress her, but then desists.

Bennie builds up his nerve, gets his hands on an iron skillet, and knocks the first biker unconscious. He takes the biker's gun and then seeks the other biker and Elita. She, touched by the biker' hesitation to rape her, has meanwhile gone to console him in her professional way. Bennie shoots him as well as the other biker as he awakens. The murder cycle has opened.

He confesses to Elita his plan to decapitate Garcia's corpse and sell it for money. Elita is disgusted, and still shaken from the attack by the bikers, 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, but does agree to marry Elita in the church of the town where Garcia is buried.

They find Garcia's grave, surrounded by grieving family members, and Bennie sets about exhuming it that night. 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 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 still get paid?" Sappensly turns to shoot but Bennie kills him, takes Garcia's head, and returns to Mexico City, "arguing" with Garcia's head all the while.

At his apartment, Bennie gives Garcia's head a shower, presumably to reduce the odor, which has become overwhelming. He brings the head to Max's hotel room, feigning willingness to surrender the head for his $10,000, but then revealing that he is no longer motivated by money; rather, he 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.

El Jefe greets him 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 first wounds El Jefe and then guns down all of his bodyguards.

Teresa enters with her newborn son as Bennie points a gun at El Jefe's head, but hesitates to shoot. She tersely urges Bennie to kill her father, and Bennie obliges, taking along the head as he leaves the scene (with the words, "I'll look after the father, and you look after the son"). Bennie makes a mad dash for escape, but is gunned down at the gates to El Jefe's estate.

Directed by Sam Peckinpah - Produced by Martin Baum - Written by Story: Frank Kowalski, Sam Peckinpah - Screenplay Sam Peckinpah, Gordon Dawson - Starring Warren Oates, Isela Vega, Robert Webber, Gig Young, Helmut Dantine - Music by Jerry Fielding - Distributed by United Artists - Release date August 14, 1974 U.S. release - Running time 112 minutes - Language English - Budget $1,500,000 (estimated).

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bring_Me_the_Head_of_Alfredo_Garcia