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Written by Oscar Saul and director Sam Peckinpah, from a treatment penned by Harry Julien Fink, Major Dundee premieres in New York. Charlton Heston stars as a disgraced Union cavalry officer who, sensing a shot at career redemption, leads a hastily assembled, rag-tag posse of Army regulars, Confederate prisoners and scouts on an illegal, ill-fated incursion across the Mexican border in pursuit of a marauding Apache chief responsible for the slaughter of a local New Mexico rancher family. Released on DVD in 2005 with restored scenes and a new score, the film, dismissed by critics during its initial run, is now widely considered to be one of Peckinpah's most ambitious, near-great classics. James Coburn, Michael Anderson, Richard Harris and Warren Oates round out the cast.
