When Orson Met Sam

[tonyw]

On returning from China for demobilization in 1947, Marine Sam Peckinpah went to the Los Angeles airport bar. "I was standing there about to order a drink when I heard this voice behind me say, `Shove over.' So I turned around, and as I did I cocked my leg back and cocked both my arms, ready for a fight when this somewhat stocky guy who was standing there said, `Hey, you don't have to do that. I just wanted to buy a serviceman a drink!' And that was Orson Welles - the only time I've ever met him. And at the time I had no thought of entering the theater or movies or anything like that. He just bought me a drink, and I think I bought him one, and w2e went our separate ways."

Garner Simmons, Sam Peckinpah: A Portrait in Montage, 1982, 20.

Unlike Tim Burton's ED WOOD, this meeting actually happened. Despite difference, some similarities exist between both. A major film neither could live down its achievement and which colored their reputations (KANE, THE WILD BUNCH), potential mutilated masterpieces (THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS, MAJOR DUNDEE), Hollywood compromises (THE STRANGER, THE GETAWAY), explorations of the media and perception ( F FOR FAKE, THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND).

[Le Chiffre]

Good story. Welles also thought very highly of Peckinpah's CROSS OF IRON, calling it the greatest anti-war film since ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONTIER. He surely recognized a fellow uncompromising maverick, one who also endured studio butchering of several his films. I've always wondered if Welles ever saw THE WILD BUNCH, maybe my all-time favorite movie. There is an action bit in the screenplay for THE DREAMERS where Welles indicates a slow-motion/rapid-crosscutting shooting that suggests a nod to Peckinpah.

[tonyw]

This is quite possible since Max Evans's 2014 biography GOIN' CRAZY WITH SAME PECKINPAH AND ALL HIS FRIENDS mentions Welles several times. Both directors admired Huston who was able to keep going and negotiate with the Hollywood system in a way they could not bring themselves to do.