Independent Films, Film Profiles

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
by Sam Peckinpah

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (Tráiganme la cabeza de Alfredo García) (1974) is a thriller film directed by Sam Peckinpah and featuring Warren Oates, made in Mexico on low budget after the commercial failure of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973). Peckinpah claimed that, of all his films, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo García, his most personal, was the only one released as he had intended, including having Bennie, a gringo pianist, live the full, low life in a Mexican brothel. Bennie stakes everything on the bounty, set by a powerful Mexican "industrialist", on the head of Alfredo García (who dishonored the family by seducing and abandoning his daughter).Theresa, the pregnant teenage daughter of a powerful man known only as "El Jefe" (Emilio Fernandez) is summoned before her father and interrogated as to the identity of her unborn child's father. Under torture, she admits that the father is Alfredo Garcia, a lothario whom El Jefe had been grooming to be his successor. Infuriated, El Jefe announces that he will offer 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, with no sign of Garcia. 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), 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 Bennie 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. After the men leave, the audience learns that, in fact, everyone in Bennie's bar, including Bennie, knows who Garcia is, they simply don't know where he is. After closing down his bar, Bennie goes to meet his girlfriend, Elita (Isela Vega), who earns her living working as a prostitute at a bordello near Bennie's bar. After a confrontation, Elita admits to having cheated on Bennie with Garcia, who had professed his love for her, something Bennie refuses to do. When Bennie asks where Garcia is, Elita informs him that Garcia died in a drunk driving accident the previous week.Excited by the possibility of making money by technically not having to do anything wrong (Bennie sees nothing particularly immoral with desecrating a grave, as its occupant is already dead), Bennie finds Sappensly and Quill, who have set up an "office" in a nearby hotel along with other businessmen who comprise the legitimate "face" of El Jefe's criminal endeavors. Max (Helmut Dantine), El Jefe's right-hand-man, agrees to give Bennie $10,000 for Garcia's head, and gives him a few hundred dollars to pay for expenses. Bennie convinces Elita to go on a road trip with him to visit Garcia's grave, claiming initially that he only wants proof that Garcia is in fact dead and no longer a threat to his relationship with Elita. En route, the two work out their personal issues, and Bennie proposes to Elita, promising that their future will soon be changing, and 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, nevertheless offering to leave the bordello and try to get work in local commercials if he'll agree to give up whatever he is planning and return to Tijuana. Bennie refuses, insisting that the money he plans on collecting into will change everything.One night on the road, Bennie and Elita are accosted by two bikers (including Kris Kristofferson), who pull guns on them and announce their intentions to rape Elita. Bennie, who has never killed anyone before and has never been faced with such a situation, is unsure how to react. Elita, assuring Bennie that she will see them through it, offers to willingly have sex with the bikers if they will spare Bennie's life. The bikers seem to initially agree, and one of them takes Elita into a nearby field, where he rips her t-shirt open. Elita approaches the biker and begs him, "Please don't" before beginning to embrace him.Meanwhile, Bennie tries to psych out the other biker while at the same time trying to build up his own nerve to kill, a tactic which succeeds in allowing Bennie to get his hands on an iron skillet and knock the biker unconscious. He steals the biker's gun and enters the field where the first biker is kissing Elita. Bennie shoots the biker to death, then waits for the other biker to wake up and kills him, too. Afterwards, Bennie tells Elita his plan to decapitate Garcia's corpse and effectively sell it for money. Elita is disgusted and, still shaken from the attack by the bikers, begs Bennie to give up his quest and return with her to Mexico CIty, where they can be married and live a life of relative peace. Bennie again refuses, but does agree to marry Elita in the church of the town where Garcia is buried. Bennie and Elita find Garcia's grave, which Bennie promptly sets about exhuming. As soon as Bennie opens the coffin, he receives a blow from his shovel - the assailant is unseen. When Bennie wakes up he finds himself half-buried in the grave, with Elita, who he finds is dead. The corpse of Garcia has been decapitated. Bennie accosts some townspeople and gets information from them about people who have recently left town, and learns that his assailants are driving a station wagon. Bennie sets off in pursuit, catching up with the men after they blow out one of the tires on their car. Bennie shoots them. He searches the men's car and claims Garcia's head. Stopping further on at a roadside restaurant, he packs the sack containing the head with ice, in an effort to preserve it for the journey back home. Bennie begins addressing the head as if Garcia were still alive, first blaming it for Elita's death and then conceding that they both probably loved her equally.Bennie almost makes it back to Mexico City when he is ambushed by a posse composed of members of Garcia's family. Garcia's family re-claims the head and are about to kill Bennie when Sappensly and Quill arrive. Following a little subterfuge with Bennie, in which the two 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, who himself is killed in the ensuing carnage. As Sappensly sorrowfully looks at Quill's corpse, Bennie asks, "Do I still get paid?", at which Sappensly tries to shoot Bennie. Bennie shoots him to death, takes Garcia's head, and returns to his apartment in Mexico City, "arguing" with Garcia's head all the while about the consequences of their actions. At his apartment, Bennie gives Garcia's head a shower, and then takes it to the hotel room to speak with the remaining hitmen. Bennie feigns willingness to give the head over for $10,000, but then relents, revealing that he is no longer motivated by money; rather, he blames Elita's death on whoever ordered the bounty, and intends to kill everyone involved. Several men in the apartment pull out guns, but the army-trained Bennie manages to evade fire and murders everyone. Bennie takes a business card from the desk, with El Jefe's address on it.Bennie goes to El Jefe's house, where El Jefe greets him as a hero and gives him a briefcase containing the promised million dollar bounty. Bennie explains to El Jefe how many people died in order for Garcia's head to be brought to him, 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 for which Elita died is now viewed as nothing more than garbage by the man who wanted it so badly, Bennie first wounds El Jefe and then guns down all of his bodyguards. Pointing his gun at El Jefe's head, Teresa--holding her newborn son--approaches Bennie and urges him to kill her father for what he has done. Bennie obliges, and shoots El Jefe to death. He then leaves (with the words, "I'll look after the father, and you look after the son"). Bennie makes a mad dash for escape, but El Jefe's family, alerted by the gunfire, come rushing in and find his body. His surviving henchmen are alerted, and they easily gun Bennie down at the gates to El Jefe's house, riddling his car with bullets.