Straw Dogs

( 1 )

Overview

Sam Peckinpah's brutal and disquieting meditation on violence is given its third incarnation on North American DVD with this straightforward release from MGM Home Entertainment. This edition of Straw Dogs has been transferred to disc in letterboxed format at the widescreen aspect ratio of 1.85:1, which has been enhanced for anamorphic playback on 16 x 9 monitors. The audio has been mastered in Dolby Digital Mono; the dialogue is in Spanish, with optional subtitles in English, Spanish, and French. No additional ...
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DVD (Wide Screen / Uncensored / Repackaged)
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More About This Product

Overview

Sam Peckinpah's brutal and disquieting meditation on violence is given its third incarnation on North American DVD with this straightforward release from MGM Home Entertainment. This edition of Straw Dogs has been transferred to disc in letterboxed format at the widescreen aspect ratio of 1.85:1, which has been enhanced for anamorphic playback on 16 x 9 monitors. The audio has been mastered in Dolby Digital Mono; the dialogue is in Spanish, with optional subtitles in English, Spanish, and French. No additional bonus materials have been included.
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Special Features

Closed Caption; [None specified]
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Editorial Reviews

Barnes & Noble - Eddy Crouse
No matter which way you slice it, Straw Dogs is not for the squeamish. Only two films after, but light years away from, the elegiac Wild Bunch, the movie upped the ante in director Sam Peckinpah's career. It remains one of his leanest, most brutal movies. Dustin Hoffman is David Sumner, a taciturn mathematician who, with his wife, Amy Susan George, relocates to her Cornish home village to escape the American rat race. The couple hires four locals to build a garage for their old cottage, and it isn't long before David becomes the object of the crew's resentment and mockery. Led by Charlie Del Henney, one of Amy's former suitors, the townies shamelessly ogle Amy, who at times seems to encourage their attentions, if only because her husband is more involved in math problems. During a hunting trip, David tries to win over the local boys and lets on that he knows their intentions; but the ruffians leave him behind, return to the cottage, and -- in a brilliantly edited but disturbing scene -- rape Amy. This sets the stage for the film's mind-bending and violent climax, during which, in an attempt to avenge another act of violence, drunken villagers all but destroy the Sumner cottage. The traps, both moral and physical, that David devises implicate the viewer in ways that might even make Hitchcock flinch. Never mind that it borders on nihilism -- this is electrifying stuff. Hoffman's nutty evolution, from mousy gestures straight out of The Graduate to calculated Peckinpah violence, is alone worth the price of admission.
All Movie Guide - Lucia Bozzola
Upon its release (within a month of Stanley Kubrick's similar meditation on ultra-violence, A Clockwork Orange), Straw Dogs sharply divided critics and audiences over whether it exploited and glorified macho bloodshed or commented on the violence that had become a fact of 1960s American life. Peckinpah proclaimed his own distaste for violence, suggesting that Straw Dogs portrays how society fails to eradicate primitive drives, leading to territorial warfare. What cannot be denied is Peckinpah's ability to elicit a visceral response to the onscreen turmoil, leaving a viewer either to cheer on David's descent toward bloody retribution or be repulsed by the evil that men do. With jittery editing and gloomy cinematography, Peckinpah creates an unsettling atmosphere of foreboding; the town's unexplained animosity adds to the suggestion that what drives them all, including the intellectual David, is beyond the bounds of "civilization." True to the complex nature of these issues, Straw Dogs' ending provides no easy answers or reassurances about what transpires in the Sumner home.
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Product Details

  • Release Date: 10/19/2004
  • UPC: 027616912039
  • Original Release: 1971

    • Rating:

  • Source: Mgm (Video & Dvd)
  • Region Code: 1
  • Presentation: Wide Screen / Uncensored / Repackaged
  • Language: English
  • Time: 1:58:00
  • Format: DVD
  • Sales rank: 1,755

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits
Dustin Hoffman David
Susan George Amy
Peter Vaughan Tom Hedden
T.P. McKenna Maj. Scott
David Warner Henry Niles
Colin Welland Rev. hood
Cherina Mann Mrs. Hood
Peter Arne John Niles
June Brown Mrs. Hedden
Chloe Franks Emma Hedden
Del Henney Venner
Ken Hutchison Scutt
Len Jones Bobby Hedden
Robert Keegan Harry Ware
Michael Mundell Bertie Hedden
Jim Norton Cawsey
Sally Thomsett Janice
Donald Webster Riddaway
Technical Credits
Sam Peckinpah Director, Screenwriter
Ken Bridgeman Art Director
John Coquillon Cinematographer
Garth Craven Editor
Paul Davies Editor
Paul Davies Editor
Jerry Fielding Score Composer
Harry Frampton Makeup
David Zelag Goodman Screenwriter
Peter James Set Decoration/Design
Tony Lawson Editor
Daniel Melnick Producer
Tiny Nicholls Costumes/Costume Designer
John Richardson Special Effects
Ray Simm Production Designer
Roger Spottiswoode Editor
Robert Wolfe Editor
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Scene Index

Side #1 --
1. Main Title/Mrs. Sumner [4:18]
2. Taking Care of Their Own [6:07]
3. A Quiet Home [9:19]
4. His Brother's Keeper [1:14]
5. Watch Thy Neighbor [5:23]
6. Games or No Games [6:25]
7. Driving and Drinking [6:56]
8. Church vs. Science [2:51]
9. Dead Kitty, Kitty [3:22]
10. An Open Trap [6:33]
11. Hunting Grounds [3:27]
12. "Don't Tease Me, Amy!" [:22]
13. The Coward Grows Up [9:48]
14. The Church Social [5:17]
15. "Janice! Janice!" [5:30]
16. His House, His Rules [4:16]
17. One More Last Chance [6:17]
18. Keeping Them Out [7:08]
19. "They'll Kill Us All" [3:26]
20. To the Last Man [7:03]
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Menu

Side #1 --
   Play Movie
   Scene Selections
   Languages
      English Subtitles
      French/Français Subtitles
      Spanish/Español Subtitles
      No Subtitles
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Customer Reviews

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