Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia
Teresa, the pregnant teenage daughter of a powerful Mexican crime lord known only as El Jefe (Spanish for 'The Boss'), is summoned before her father and interrogated as to the identity of her unborn child's father. Under torture, she identifies the father as Alfredo Garcia, whom El Jefe had been grooming to be his successor. Infuriated, El Jefe offers a $1 million bounty to whoever will "bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia".
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
At his apartment Bennie gives Garcia's head a shower and then brings it to Max's hotel room. Feigning willingness to surrender the head for his $10,000, Bennie reveals he is no longer motivated by money; he says Alfredo was a friend of his and demands to know why Max and the others want his head so badly. He also blames Elita's death on the bounty. Several men pull guns but Bennie evades their fire and kills them all. He takes a business card from the desk with El Jefe's address on it.
In the comedy film Fletch (1985), Chevy Chase (after fainting in an operating room) asks a nurse, "do you have the Beatles' White Album? Never mind, just get me a cup of hot fat. And bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia while you're out there."[27] In his 1993 stand-up special No Cure for Cancer, Denis Leary says the line "Here's ten bucks, bring me the head of Barry Manilow". In the film Demolition Man (1993), the police officer played by Benjamin Bratt is called Alfredo Garcia in reference to the film.
The film stars Warren Oates (1928-1982), that sad-faced, gritty actor with the crinkled eyes, as a forlorn piano player in a Mexican brothel--an American at a dead end. When a powerful Mexican named El Jefe (Emilio Fernandez) discovers that his daughter is pregnant, he commands, ''bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia,'' and so large is the reward he offers that two bounty hunters (Gig Young and Robert Webber) come into the brothel looking for Alfredo, and that is how Bennie finds out about the head. He knows that a prostitute named Elita (Isela Vega) was once sweet on Alfredo, and he discovers that the man is already dead.
This film provides examples of: Abusive Parents: El Jefe's first scene has him breaking his pregnant daughter's arm to find out who impregnated her. Yeah.
Ambiguously Gay: Sappensly and Quill are glued to each other at all times and disdain the advances of prostitutes. When one of them dies, the other becomes extremely emotional and completely loses it.
Anti-Hero: Bennie is Unscrupulous or Nominal. He wants money and to regain a lifestyle he lost by moving to Mexico, everything else can go to hell.
Attempted Rape: Two bikers try to rape Elita. She ultimately "accepts" one of them (played by Kris Kristofferson), but it doesn't happen as Bennie shoots him.
Author Avatar: Bennie. Warren Oates admits his performance is a Sam Peckinpah impersonation. The sunglasses Bennie wears were borrowed off Peckinpah.
Badass Biker: A strange subversion. The rough bikers intend to rape the hero's girl, but Kris Kristofferson gets bashful, and she actually tries to comfort him!
Bilingual Bonus: Lots of Spanish dialogue.
Black Humor: Stuff like talking to a head on the passenger seat can do that.
Blast Out: The climax, after Jefe tells Bennie to Get Out! with no money, and Bennie decides to kill the guy.
Bolivian Army Ending: The film cuts to credits as Bennie is given a fusillade by Jefe's goons.
The Casanova: According to the posthumous reports we receive Alfredo Garcia was apparently this in life, with at least two examples to back it up; as well as knocking up the Big Bad Boss's daughter, he's also apparently gotten with Bennie's girlfriend a few times. She even seems to be more fond of him than she is of Bennie himself.
Cool Car: Bennie's red convertible is a 1962 Chevy Impala.
Cool Shades: Bennie wears some. Necessary in the bleak Mexican desert.
Crapsack World: No heroes or villains here, gentlemen. Just opportunists and monsters.
Darker and Edgier: Bleaker, more hopeless, violent, cynical and nihilistic than any other film in Peckinpah's filmography... which is saying something!
Decapitation Presentation: Bennie gets the head of Garcia, and ends up fighting criminals and mercenaries for the chance to be the one to present it to El Jefe.
Demanding Their Head: The trope Invoked in the film's title. A powerful Mexican crime lord, El Jefe, offers a $1 million bounty to whomever brings him the head of Alfredo Garcia.
Despair Event Horizon: Bennie reaches thus upon the death of Elita. Before then, he's clearly going a bit mad for much of the movie, but that causes him to just completely lose touch with reality.
Downer Ending: Everyone dies.
Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The Big Bad wants the head of Alfredo Garcia, and the plot revolves around the efforts of the characters to find and bring it to him.
Fanservice: An early scene has a completely naked Isela Vega for no particular reason.
Keep the Reward: A Take This Job and Shove It version. After going through a hefty amount of trouble to get the damn head and then get it to El Jefe (which included seeing his girlfriend, Elita, die), risking death at every turn, for the reward money, Bennie is enraged at El Jefe's apathy at the deaths of sixteen people - particularly Elita's. El Jefe tells Bennie to take the reward and leave, and to toss Garcia's head in the garbage on the way out (and pretty much going short of "and don't let the door hit you in the ass"). Bennie has a murderous Freak Out as a result, and attacks El Jefe and his bodyguards. Teresa, El Jefe's daughter, walks in mid-shootout carrying Garcia's newborn son - after the bodyguards are dead but with El Jefe still alive - which makes Benny pause, but when she tells him to avenge Garcia by killing her father, he finishes the job. He tells Teresa, "You take care of the boy. And I'll take care of the father." ...and drives off to re-bury Garcia's head... and is blown away by El Jefe's surviving men.
Long Title: Bordering on Gory Deadly Overkill Title of Fatal Death, and inspiring imitations.
Mexican Standoff: Possible Trope Namer.
New Old West: Sam Peckinpah returns to the setting of his Western, but this time has the story in the contemporary days.
No Name Given: El Jefe ("The Boss")
Outlaw Couple: Bennie and Elita.
Posthumous Character: The titular Mr. Garcia.
Professional Killers: Who look and act more like lawyers than anything else.
A Real Man Is a Killer: Bennie has difficulty killing though and must psych himself up for it.
Sanity Slippage: Bennie loses his sanity over the course of the film. He ends up having conversations with Alfredo who, let us remind you, is a rotting head in a sack at this point.
Shoot the Shaggy Dog: Bennie arrives with Garcia's head to El Jefe's house after dodging killers and going through some Sanity Slippage from the tension. El Jefe tells Bennie to dump Garcia's head in the trash on the way out. Bennie is infuriated by how the object responsible for Elita's death is treated as garbage, totally snaps and kills El Jefe... and then gets gunned down on the way out.
Take That!: When Bennie is first seen playing the piano in the Mexico City bar, a fake one-dollar bill on the brick wall directly behind him has a caricature of Richard Nixon. Sam Peckinpah inserted it there to show his contempt for Nixon, whose presidency was falling apart.
Trailers Always Lie: Averted. The trailer is exceptionally blunt about how bleak and bloody the film is. Trailer Announcer: This man will become an animal. This woman's dreams of love will be destroyed. Innocent people will suffer. Holy ground will be desecrated. Twenty five people will die.
Title Drop: Said right as El Jefe learns of Alfredo Garcia's name.
There are a multitude of reasons to love this film but right at the top of the list is the fact that it gives Warren Oates a rare starring role. A shady, sweaty, seedy character actor who enlightened many a movie, he gets to take centre stage here as Bennie, a miserable piano player in a run-down brothel who sees a chance to escape his pathetic existence when a powerful Mexican known as El Jefe (Emilio Fernandez) offers a large cash bounty to anyone who can bring him the head of the man who has impregnated his daughter. 041b061a72