Straw Dogs Blu-ray Review

• 31st Oct 2011

The controversial Straw Dogs is celebrating its 40th anniversary release (it was released in the cinema in the UK on the 3rd November 1971) with a DVD and Blu-ray release packed with a host of extras )which I will come back to later in this review). It is one of those many films that include The Exorcist (1973), Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (also 1971) and Ken Russell’s The Devils (1970) which faced many years of being banned, controversy and was grouped together with a host of so-called video nasties through the eighties that included such dubious exploitation films such as Driller Killer, SS Experiment Camp and Cannibal Holocaust.

This was director Sam Peckinpah’s first non-western and not only is it not a western, but it is also a British made and set film with Hollywood backing. Yet despite this not being a western if you to remove the Cornish setting or the actors and characters this film is very much in keeping with the western tradition, particularly those of a violent nature made in the early seventies. For example: pub = saloon, Major Scott (TP McKenna) is the the beaten down and disarmed sheriff, there are lawless ranchers who turn into a vigilante posse, the farm = ranch and the cowardly good guy finds redemption in a masculine world and so on. The overall look of the film appears like many an early seventies British crime/horror film and includes a cast of those who might appear in such films including David Warner, TP McKenna and even Susan George. Straw Dogs is based off a somewhat potboiler of a novel, ‘The Siege of Trencher’s Farm’ by Gordon Williams and is about an American mathematician, David Sumner who has just arrived in a small Cornish village with his new young bride, Amy to return back to her childhood home. They have left America to escape from the violence and the social upheaval going on there to start a new life only to feel that tension and violence is also in their new arena and isolated place. As soon as they arrive they sense the lawlessness of the local inhabitants with Amy’s former boyfriend still lusting after her. Locals who are working on a conversion on their farm house also lust after Amy and a short-while later their threats become palpable when the workmen murder their cat. David is reluctant to confront those that they feel is responsible for the cat’s murder and when the workers invite David out for a duck shoot this is a ruse to keep him out of the way in order that two of the men go back to the farm to rape Amy (including her ex-boyfriend). Amy doesn’t tell David but this only the start of David’s conversion to man-up and defend his wife and property from the local assailants.

The films production was led by Peckinpah’s gruff style of direction who tried to intimidate newcomer Susan George, herself making many demands about the rape scene to Peckinpah to reduce the graphic elements to the point of refusing to be in the film leading the director to give in to her demands and focus on her face rather than her body. It was this scene of the double rape that led to the films controversy for many years. It is more to do with her post-coital response and apparent gratification and acceptance in seeming to have taken some pleasure from the rape in what psychologists call the ‘rape myth’ and in the second rape she is sodomised. Cuts were made (and now lost) but the effect was still powerful enough that was to lead to years of controversy. Allegedly Dustin Hoffman, fresh from Oscar nominations for The Graduate (1967) and Midnight Cowboy (1969) did not get on that well with George and their tension works well in the film. In addition TP McKenna who plays the local Major injured his arm in a late night drinking session with prostitutes and Peckinpah and David Warner who plays Henry Niles, a local molester and simpleton appeared uncredited in the film as he was not insured at the time; Warner had previously appeared in Peckinpah’s The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970). Peckinpah’s recognizable style is one of slow motion violence and it has to be observed there is actually slightly less here than in many of his other films, although the violence is still very graphic and the slow motion assault on the house is still in evidence.

When the film was released it gained an X certificate. It was not banned from cinemas, although some local authorities did forbid it from being shown. The controversy began stateside where it also earned an X certificate, in a country where the X-rating has a very different connotation and is usually reserved for pornographic films of a more sexual nature rather the usual R certificate. Later when in 1984 the British Board of Film Censors (BBFC) were to class it with other video nasties and it did not shake off this title until 2002 when it was finally granted an 18 certificate without any further cuts being made. In between it had many almost releases, but always something seemed to stand in its way or it faced continual obstruction. For example, due for a video release in Britain in 1986, this was prevented by the Hungerford Massacre when Michael Ryan killed 16 people before turning the gun on himself. It was thought that following this, the public had no appetite for such a violent film. Many critics continue to misunderstand the film and the context in which it was made. This was a time of American atrocities in Vietnam and as a result Peckinpah felt that he wanted to address the subject of violence and masculinity in his films rather than pretend it doesn’t go on. And that is the point of David Sumner coming over to the UK and settling there in the hope of getting away from it.

The current release includes hours of extras including behind the scenes filming, interviews with George and producer Daniel Melnick, restoration comparisons, background essays to the films censorship and controversies, letters and memos between Peckinpah and those involved, a stills gallery, the UK trailer, a commentary from Peckinpah’s PA and many other extras making it truly a worthy package and this on the back of a dreadful remake about to do the rounds in the cinema. While we still live in very violent times it is very unlikely that the new version addresses the subject of violence with the same style or élan as Sam Peckinpah.

Chris Hick