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Straw Dogs (1971)

Dir: Sam Peckinpah.

Few films still cause as much fuss in the UK as Sam Pekinpah's 1971 movie.

Due to the infamous rape scene where, at least during the first part, Susan George's character after her initial refusal goes on to enjoy and participate in the sex, "Dogs" has been refused a Video Certificate. The scene was trimmed for the cinema release, but after the Video Recordings Act came into force, this version was withdrawn from the shelves.

At last though a new UK DVD release, of a fully uncut print of the film (and packed with the extras that Anchor Bay's R1 version was sadly missing) has recently been unleashed.

But does it live up to its reputation?

David (Dustin Hoffman) and Amy Sumner (Susan George) move into 'Trenchers Farm' a remote house in a little English Village.
Amy used to live there with late Father.
David (who is an obsessive Mathematician), an outsider is greeted with a mixture of ridicule and subtle hostility by most of the villagers.
From the start he has trouble with a group of men who are doing up the farmhouse. One of them, Charlie Venner, (Del Henney) had been a lover of Amy's. He, along with his cronies, Chris Cawsey, Norman Scutt (Ken Hutchinson) and members of the Heddon Family (who are the bully boys of the village) under the control of the brutal, drunken Tom Heddon (Peter Vaughan).

The men joke about David behind his back (or more damaging when he is just in earshot) and openly lust after Amy.
David, even when Amy's cat is found hung in their bedroom cupboard, backs off from confrontation. This angers Amy and erodes her respect for him.

David is invited on a duck hunt by Venner and his friends. They make him wait for them to scare some ducks out into the open, while Venner sneaks back to the house and has sex with Amy, who although rejects him at first later welcomes his advances. But then Scutt also appears and pointing a shotgun at Venner, proceeds to rape Amy (you are never sure if she is sodomised). Amy never tells David about the incident.

When Henry Niles (David Warner) a backward man who has been accused of making advances on the girls of the village, accidentally kills Tom Heddon's Niece Janice, he flees the scene and runs in front of David's car. Injured, he is taken by David to the farm. Amy, knowing of Henrys reputation wants him out of the house, but David refuses and calls the village for the Doctor. When the Heddons, Cursey, Scutt and Venner find out where Henry is they demand David hands him over to tell them where Janice is. When David says no and shuts them out the house, things escalate into murder...

This does suffer from a very slow first half, Pekinpah directs in a very leisurely pace and only the cast keeps things from getting down right tedious. But the second half moves at a pace leading to a superbly realised siege.

But Pekinpah and scriptwriter David Zelag Goodman, (from a novel by Gordon Williams) have created an amazingly realistic story though.
Nothing is black and white, most of the characters are anything but simply good or bad, and events have an ironic edge that is a far cry from the filmic norm.
David NEVER learns of the rape! His final, almost psychotic stand against the men is purely brought on by his refusal to let anyone abuse his HOUSE anymore, his HOME, and to defend Henry.
He does not know of Henry's past, and he never finds out that Henry has killed Janice, he commits murder, not for the rape of his Wife, not to defend an innocent man, he does it to stand his ground in his house and to defend a murderer!!!

The men who hunt down Henry also don't know Janice is dead, they commit violence out of their prejudice towards Henry. That WE know they are actually RIGHT (although the killing was an accident) about Henry adds a blackly ironic feeling to the unfolding events. Also the same men who call Henry a pervert...are the rapists of Amy!
So, nothing here is what we come to expect from the normal, simplistic good vs evil plot structures of most films of this kind.

*SPOILERS***
Even the characters are against the norm.
David is not that nice a man. He treats Amy like a child, telling her to go to bed at one point. He never puts her first (not even when her cat is killed). In the finale he slaps her very hard across the face when she tries to let Venner and the others in to take Henry (after all he is a suspected sex offender and she has recently been raped...she sees no reason why the should be defending Henry against the family of the missing girl) and threatens to snap her neck if she tries again!

Venner is a bully. A rapist. Yet his attraction to Amy is also heartfelt. He certainly feels more for her than just lust. And it's obvious he hates himself (at least at the time) for forcing himself, at first, on Amy. She may succumb to her need for the passion that Venner offers her (that David rarely does) but it IS force that gets her to that point.
Scutts DEFINATELY NON-CONSENSUAL rape (which is nasty and is never shown to be anything else) is assisted by Venner (although Scutt may hold a gun on Venner at first, he later drops it), and this confuses the viewer again.
Later, in the final siege, when Scutt tries to rape Amy again David and Venner run to her help as one! He becomes Amy's protector while David stands impotent. This totally confuses the viewer's expectations...but in real life people are like that. We are not all black and white, we are shades of grey and Pekinpah shows that.

Henry IS a killer...but it was an accident (he unintentionally suffocates Janice) brought on by his fear of the way the Heddons treat him and his worry about what they will do to Janice for being with him.

The Heddons are a nasty bunch of murderous thugs...yet they are right about Henry hurting Janice (even though they don't know it) and in the end are only besieging the farm to find out what Henry has done with her.

This completely messes with our identification of who are the villains ad who are the heroes...the fact is we don't have either in this film!

Performances are uniformly good, with Hoffman doing some superb work in the intense finale. The British character actors are all on top form and Susan George is outstanding. When we first see her, she is all lips and nipples. We think we already know her, a typical 70's sex kitten (George IS very sexy) type. But no, Amy is much deeper than that and George's performance gives us a wonderfully crafted look at the woman behind the tight fitting (always braless) tops and short skirts.

The *superb* Cinematography is by John Coquillon who did such a good job on the classic "Witchfinder General".

The trademark Pekinpah violence is here (though don't expect a "Wild Bunch" blood fest) and it is brutal and raw. Used sparingly it does hit home in the expertly directed, edited and acted showdown.
The blood on screen may seem a bit tame, but use the pause/step button on the DVD player on the 2 shotgun death scenes and the feet shooting scene and you will see that we have three of the biggest, most splattery squibs ever seen! It's a shame Pekinpah didn't use slow motion more on them as in the actual film they are hard to see.

The rape scene IS strong (though not much is actually shown) and also makes for uncomfortable feelings and mixed views in the audience. Was Venners sex with her actually rape? Or did he just refuse to believe that Amy really didn't want to do this. A belief we are seen to be correct...Amy DOES want Venner (even though it is obvious she will regret it after and it would almost certainly not happen again) but...SHE DID SAY NO, she even slapped him, this then is surely rape. Yet again...nothing is made easy for the viewer.

So, it's a film that has many levels of confusing Human behaviour, a film of expert editing, direction and acting, a film that IS still strong viewing, but it's also stodgy at times, is too long and ambles around too much in the beginning, to nearly disastrous results.
But it pulls itself together and becomes a film that deserves its reputation and HAS to seen at least once.

TRIVIA: David Warner is NOT in the cast listing because he had a broken foot during the shoot and couldn't get insurance to perform!

Susan George was treated very badly on set by Pekinpah and later by Hoffman who in true method actor style went nasty towards her off set s his character went nasty towards her on set.