Amazon.com Essentials:
At one point in the filming of this flawed epic, actor Charlton
Heston (in the title role) got so mad at director Sam Peckinpah that he
charged him on horseback with a cavalry sword and Peckinpah had to
escape into the air on the camera crane. Yet Heston offered to give up
his salary to get the studio to let Peckinpah finish the film. As it
turned out, this story--of a headstrong Army professional who goes
slightly crazy chasing a band of Apaches while shepherding a group of
Confederate prisoners--was taken away from Peckinpah in the editing
room and recut, so that much of the character development was eliminated
from the crucial central section of the film. Still, it offers solid
outings by Heston and Richard Harris (as his prisoner) and gives a hint
of things to come in Peckinpah's next film, The Wild
Bunch. --Marshall Fine
