Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
| Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Sam Peckinpah |
| Produced by | Martin Baum |
| Screenplay by | Sam Peckinpah Gordon Dawson |
| Story by | Frank Kowalski Sam Peckinpah |
| Starring |
Warren Oates Isela Vega Robert Webber Gig Young Helmut Dantine |
| Music by | Jerry Fielding |
| Cinematography | Alex Phillips, Jr. |
| Edited by | Dennis E. Dolan Sergio Ortega Robbe Robert |
| Distributed by | United Artists |
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Release date
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Running time
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112 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English, Spanish |
| Budget | US$1,500,000 (estimated) |
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (Spanish: Tráiganme la cabeza de Alfredo García) is a 1974 American cult action 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.
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.
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