Peckinpah and several relatives often claimed Native American ancestry, but this has been denied by surviving family members.

Peckinpah also claimed he was shot during an attack by Communist forces.

John Milius, David Yates, Sergio Leone, Sam Peckinpah, Stanley Kubrick, and Sydney Pollack also claimed influence from Lean's films.

Coburn teamed with director Sam Peckinpah for the 1973 film Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid ( they had worked together in 1965 on Major Dundee ; the film's producer, Jerry Bresler, took editing responsibilities away from Peckinpah during post-production, resulting in Peckinpah's becoming furious over what he claimed was the producer's deliberate sabotage of his film, and he threatened the studio with a lawsuit.

Made in Mexico on a low budget after the commercial failure of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid ( 1973 ), Peckinpah claimed that, of all his films, Alfredo García was the only one released as he had intended.

In his defense, Peckinpah claimed that he was misquoted.

At various times, the two credited screenwriters and the uncredited Peckinpah have claimed ( or had claimed for them ) a majority of the responsibility for the film.

Leone's collaborators Donati and Vincenzoni, noting the director's frequent embellishment of the facts concerning his films, claim that Peckinpah did not even consider it-Donati claimed Peckinpah was " too shrewd to be produced by a fellow director ".

" Peckinpah Meadow and Peckinpah Creek, where the family ran a lumber mill on a mountain in the High Sierra north of Coarsegold, California, have been officially named on U. S. geographical maps.

His experiences in China reportedly deeply affected Peckinpah, and may have influenced his depictions of violence in his films.

Throughout his career, Peckinpah seems to have inspired extraordinary loyalty in certain friends and employees.

From the beginning, Peckinpah began to have clashes with MGM and its president James Aubrey, known for his stifling of creative interests and eventual dismantling of the historic movie company.

Fellow Washington Post reviewer Desson Howe queered the " perplexing fusion of cartoon and docudrama ..." In his review for Newsweek, David Ansen wrote, " His scenes have no shape, his characters are stick figures, the wit is undergraduate and his soggy set pieces of slow-motion carnage are third-rate Peckinpah imitations.

Also Stanley Kubrick ( in Paths of Glory, and Dr. Strangelove, among others ) as well as Orson Welles ( in The Trial, partly Orson Welles ' London, segment Four Clubmen ), Sam Peckinpah ( in Straw Dogs ), and Sidney Lumet ( in The Offence ) have occasionally done the same in the past, though mostly in moderation, for single shots or sequences only, while Gilliam hardly ever uses any lens longer than 14mm, which has garnered lenses of that particular focal length the informal nickname " The Gilliam " among film-makers.

One newspaper critic remarked, " If filmmakers Woody Allen and Sam Peckinpah had collaborated on Jonny Quest, it would have come out a lot like this.

" Comparisons have been made to the work of Hieronymus Bosch and Sam Peckinpah, and of Dante Alighieri and Louis L ' Amour.

This score was composed and recorded with a small studio orchestra to authentically sound the way director Peckinpah might have approved it had he been alive at the time of the film's restoration, and the way the music might have been done in its original 1965 release as opposed to today's larger orchestra-type scores.

According to Foster, Peckinpah and MacGraw got along well but she was not happy with her performance: " I looked at what I had done in it, I hated my own performance.

Peckinpah did an extensive rewrite of the screenplay, including personal references from his own childhood growing up on Denver Church's ranch, and even naming one of the mining towns " Coarsegold.

Unable to rewrite the screenplay or edit the picture, Peckinpah vowed to never again direct a film unless he had script control.

In 1967, Warner Bros .- Seven Arts producers Kenneth Hyman and Phil Feldman were interested in having Peckinpah rewrite and direct an adventure film, The Diamond Story.

Producers also refused to allow Peckinpah to rewrite the screenplay ( for the first time since his debut film The Deadly Companions ).

In 1967, Warner Bros .- Seven Arts producers Kenneth Hyman and Phil Feldman were interested in having Sam Peckinpah rewrite and direct an adventure film called The Diamond Story.

He was asked to stay on another year, but Peckinpah began working as a stagehand at KLAC-TV in the belief that television experience would eventually lead to work in films.

Siegel's location work and his use of actual prisoners as extras in the film made a lasting impression on Peckinpah.

By most accounts, the low-budget film shot on location in Arizona was a learning process for Peckinpah, who feuded with Fitzsimons ( brother of the film's star Maureen O ' Hara ) over the screenplay and staging of the scenes.

" He based the character of Steve Judd, a once-famous lawman fallen on hard times, on his own father David Peckinpah.

Shooting ended 15 days over schedule and $ 1. 5 million more than budgeted with Peckinpah and producer Bresler no longer on speaking terms.

Peckinpah was next signed to direct The Cincinnati Kid, a gambling drama about a young prodigy who takes on an old master during a big New Orleans poker match.

Produced by Daniel Melnick, who had previously worked with Peckinpah on Noon Wine, the screenplay was based on the novel The Siege of Trencher's Farm by Gordon Williams.

Much of the criticism centered around Amy's complicated and lengthy rape scene, which Peckinpah reportedly attempted to base on his own personal fears rooted in past failed marriages.

Both Peckinpah and McQueen needed a hit, and they immediately began working on the film in February 1972.

Based on the screenplay by Rudolph Wurlitzer ( who had previously penned Two-Lane Blacktop, a film admired by Peckinpah ), the director was convinced that he was about to make his definitive statement on the Western genre.

Critics complained that the film was incoherent, and the experience soured Peckinpah forever on Hollywood.

A project in development for many years and based on an idea by Frank Kowalski, Peckinpah wrote the screenplay with the assistance of Kowalski, Walter Kelley and Gordon Dawson.

It also led a film critic to paraphrase the film's title in an attack on the director, saying, " Bring me the head of Sam Peckinpah ".

His career now suffering from back-to-back box office failures, Peckinpah once again was in need of a hit on the level of The Getaway.

Filmed on location in San Francisco, Peckinpah allegedly discovered cocaine for the first time thanks to Caan and his entourage.

Almost immediately, Peckinpah realized he was working on a low-budget production, as he had to sink $ 90, 000 of his own money to hire experienced crew members.

Peckinpah approached him with 25 pages of the film's script.

The film's producer made a deal with Paramount Pictures ' production chief Robert Evans who allowed Peckinpah to do his personal project if he would first direct The Getaway.

According to the commentators on the film's special edition DVD, Peckinpah hated Ludlum's novel and he did not like the screenplay either.

Coburn directed much of the film's footage while Peckinpah remained in his on-location trailer.

Before the film's production, Peckinpah had been working on a Custer project, based on the novel by Hoffman Birney The Dice of God, but later abandoned it for this film.