As much as it's easy to look at CONVOY as perhaps the low point of the career of a great director, I think there are still a lot of memorable things about it. I'm a sucker for a decent cast and CONVOY absolutely has that going for it. Also, if you're looking for it there's some nice flourishes of Peckinpah's visual artistry throughout the movie. What always transfixes me about movies is the realization I often have about what a delicate alchemy it takes to make a good one. With the amount of money typically involved as well as the number of people helping get the thing made, there are just so many potential opportunities for the wrong thing to happen. That great films are made as often as they are is something of a miracle. And the process by which the great directors work is often so varied it would be hard to know how to always give them the absolutely perfect environment within which to create. Peckinpah and Kris Kristofferson had a strong kinship on PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID. It undoubtedly didn't hurt that Kristofferson was not averse to taking a little drink at that time of filming that movie. Prior to CONVOY he had apparently stopped drinking and it's not hard to extrapolate that that must have shifted the dynamic between he and Peckinah in a somewhat significant way. So you've got a lead actor who is not as in sync with his director as he once was, coupled with the fact that the part had been offered to Steve McQueen (who passed) and that Kristofferson was not even Peckinpah's first choice which may not have helped things too much either. Add that to a film that is being made to capitalize on a hit song (and whose plot is based on that song) and it seems like a recipe for bad news. While the script/story is clearly the biggest issue the movie has (shaky foundations make for weak buildings so to speak), the fact that Peckinpah was an artful director who worked best in a certain way is also a dicey proposition in this kind of scenario.
I guess Peckinpah wasn't one for storyboarding too much and would often get into the set or location and start to then figure out how he wanted to shoot things. This approach could of course be kind of tricky when a production is dealing with dozens and dozens of semi-trucks which are difficult to get back into position to re-do any potential shots that don't go as planned. There's a story in fact (as mentioned in this disc's commentary track) about an unplanned truck crash during a chase scene which caused the production to have to be shut down for a day or two in order to rework the script based on the accident and it becoming part of the movie (as re-shooting the scene would have proved to costly). But like I said, you can still see Peckinpah the artist peeking through every once in a while and my affection for the movie as a whole continues after this most recent rewatch.
Special Features:
This disc has some nice extras and hats off to KL Studio Classics for putting it all together.
-Audio Commentary - this is a great track. It features film historians Paul Seydour, Garner Simmons and Nick Redman. You can't get much of a better trio to talk about a Peckinpah movie. Nick Redman is of course one of the gents behind Twilight Time, who have put out several Peckinpah films in special editions. These three have actually done several Peckinpah commentaries, including one for TT's recent release of THE KILLER ELITE on Blu-ray. That's a great commentary too, and it's partially for the same reasons this CONVOY track is good - both films are problems and not completely successful in what they are trying to do. It's fascinating to hear a respectful, but honest discussion of a troubled movie. The amount of Peckinpah knowledge shares by these guys is tremendous. They have so much to say about all aspects of the production and provide a lot of details with regards to why CONVOY ended up as the movie we've come to know. No punches are pulled in terms of talk of Peckinpah's troubles with cocaine and how that absolutely played into what was already a hugely problematic situation. What's nice about a track like this is that it gives me a renewed appreciation for the movie as a whole, as flawed as it is. Not that the reasons behind some of the problems make the film better in and of itself, but it all justifies my already lenient attitude towards it.
Bonus:
Stuntman Bob Herron talks about his epic car stunt in CONVOY:
James Coburn Talks about Peckinpah:
Peckinpah himself - interviewed in 1976:
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