The Real Wild Bunch

Here is a photo of the real Wild Bunch, composed of Butch Cassidy, Ben Kilpatrick, The Sundance Kid, Kid Curry, and News Carver. Sam Peckinpah's Wild Bunch portrays the lifestyle of these real outlaws, who committed their most famous heist on June 2, 1899 when they held up a Union Pacific train at Wilcox, Wyoming. They stole anywhere between $30,000 and $60,000 while wearing makeshift masks made out of napkins. haha. They went on to rob a few more trains and banks and eventually split up around 1901, when the annoyance of the lawmen became too burdensome.

I think some of the fine detail in the beginning of the "Wild Bunch" movie is particularly interesting. Unbeknownst to the viewer at the beginning, the film is set in the early 1900's, a time when increasing pressure was being put on outlaw gangs by the law, and some kind of social reform may have been taking place. When I first saw this movie, I did not understand the significance of the religious group that was pledging to abstain from alcohol, or the significance of the children burning the scorpion. Now I believe these events are a depiction of the time period of the film. The society seems to want to extinguish all things dangerous, bad, or unknown. This mindset is summed up nicely by Pike, the gang leader, just after they realize their loot is fake. He says, "We gotta start thinking beyond our guns, those days are closing fast."