An epic classic that could have been. Major Dundee was hampered severely by studio tampering and conflicts that arose between Peckinpah and producer Jerry Bresler. The final product looks like the bits and pieces of what might have been a fascinating film.

The story takes place during the Civil War. Major Amos Dundee (Heston) is the warden of a prison for Confederate soldiers. When an Indian tribe led by Sierra Charriba attacks and massacres all the inhabitants of a nearby village, Dundee is ordered to assemble a group of soldiers and pursue him. Circumstances dictate, however, that the soldiers must consist partly of the Confederates who are being held in the prison. An uneasy alliance is formed between Dundee and Captain Benjamin Tyreen (Harris), the unofficial leader of the imprisoned Confederates. Dundee eventually leads his makeshift army into Mexico in pursuit of Charriba, where he encounters further problems from the occupying French troops as well as the Confederates in his own group.

When the film went over schedule and budget, the Columbia executives took the film away from Peckinpah and handed it over to a team of their own editors. They evidently cut a good portion of the film in order to give a shorter running time (which would allow for more screenings per day). In order to cover some of the gaping holes in the plotline, the character of the company bugler became the narrator of the story in an attempt to tie up many of the loose ends.

The biggest fault in the film is that the character of Dundee is never well defined. It's difficult to grasp the motive for his obsessive pursuit of Charriba. It also looks as if the studio took a film which was intended as a character study and tried to reshape it into a straightforward action film. In its original form, the film was described by actor R.G. Armstrong as "Moby Dick on horseback."

Peckinpah was blackballed in Hollywood following his personal clashes with the producers of the film. It is very apparent, though, that he used many of the elements from this film and carried them over into his triumphant return in The Wild Bunch.