Sam Peckinpah

Straw Dogs

Straw Dogs

In this thriller, perhaps Sam Peckinpah’s most controversial film, David (Dustin Hoffman), a young American mathematician, moves with his English wife, Amy (Susan George), to the village where she grew up. Their sense of safety unravels as the local men David has hired to repair their house prove more interested in leering at Amy and intimidating David, beginning an agonizing initiation into the iron laws of violent masculinity that govern Peckinpah’s world. Working outside the U.S. for the first time, the filmmaker airlifts the ruthlessness of the western frontier into Cornwall in Straw Dogs, pushing his characters to their breaking points as the men brutalize Amy and David discovers how far he’ll go to protect his home—culminating in a harrowing climax that lays out this cinematic mastermind’s eloquent and bloody vision of humanity.

Film Info

  • United States
  • 1971
  • 117 minutes
  • Color
  • 1.85:1
  • English
  • Spine #182

BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New, restored 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • Audio commentary from 2003 by Stephen Prince, author of Savage Cinema: Sam Peckinpah and the Rise of Ultraviolent Movies
  • Mantrap: “Straw Dogs”—The Final Cut, a 2003 documentary about the making of the film
  • Sam Peckinpah: Man of Iron, a 1993 documentary
  • New conversation between critic Michael Sragow and filmmaker Roger Spottiswoode, one of the editors on the film
  • New interview with film scholar Linda Williams about the film’s controversies
  • Archival interviews with actor Susan George, producer Daniel Melnick, and Peckinpah biographer Garner Simmons
  • Behind-the-scenes footage
  • TV spots and trailers
  • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • PLUS: An essay by scholar and critic Joshua Clover and a 1974 interview with Peckinpah

    Cover based on a theatrical poster

Purchase Options

BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New, restored 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • Audio commentary from 2003 by Stephen Prince, author of Savage Cinema: Sam Peckinpah and the Rise of Ultraviolent Movies
  • Mantrap: “Straw Dogs”—The Final Cut, a 2003 documentary about the making of the film
  • Sam Peckinpah: Man of Iron, a 1993 documentary
  • New conversation between critic Michael Sragow and filmmaker Roger Spottiswoode, one of the editors on the film
  • New interview with film scholar Linda Williams about the film’s controversies
  • Archival interviews with actor Susan George, producer Daniel Melnick, and Peckinpah biographer Garner Simmons
  • Behind-the-scenes footage
  • TV spots and trailers
  • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • PLUS: An essay by scholar and critic Joshua Clover and a 1974 interview with Peckinpah

    Cover based on a theatrical poster
Straw Dogs
Cast
Dustin Hoffman
David Sumner
Susan George
Amy
Peter Vaughan
Tom Hedden
T. P. McKenna
Major John Scott
Del Henney
Charlie Venner
Donald Webster
Riddaway
Jim Norton
Chris Cawsey
Ken Hutchison
Norman Scutt
Len Jones
Bobby Hedden
Sally Thomsett
Janice Hedden
Michael Mundell
Bertie Hedden
June Brown
Mrs. Hedden
Chloe Frank
Emma Hedden
Robert Keegan
Harry Ware
Peter Arne
John Niles
Cherina Schaer
Mrs. Hood
Colin Welland
Reverend Hood
Credits
Director
Sam Peckinpah
Producer
Daniel Melnick
Screenplay
Sam Peckinpah
Screenplay
David Z. Goodman
Music
Jerry Fielding
Associate producer
James Swann
Production supervisor
Derek Kavanagh
Cinematography
John Coquillon
Camera operator
Herbert Smith
Editing
Paul Davies
Editing
Roger Spottiswoode
Editing
Tony Lawson
Design consultant
Julia Trevelyan Oman
Production design
Ray Simm
Art direction
Ken Bridgeman
Makeup
Harry Frampton

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