Masterpieces amid all the mayhem

THE American Cinematheque’s “The Ballad of Blood Sam: The Films of Sam Peckinpah” features eight films from the influential, controversial director, screening tonight through Wednesday at the Aero Theatre.

Because his films were extremely violent, they were often misunderstood. Peckinpah wasn’t extolling the virtues of blood and guts but holding a mirror up to mankind’s inner demons. In fact, his films were often elegiac examinations of rugged individuals trapped in a world moving too fast for them.

The tribute opens tonight with the macabre 1974 drama “Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia,” which met with critical derision when released. Emilio Fernandez plays a Mexican land baron who offers a tempting bounty to anyone who brings back the man who impregnated his daughter. Warren Oates stars as one of life’s losers who decides it’s a quick way to make a million.

The second film on the program is Peckinpah’s first masterpiece, 1962’s “Ride the High Country,” which was considered just a little B movie with two old cowboy stars, Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott. But it’s a soaring, poetic drama about friendship and betrayal. McCrea and Scott (in his last feature) play old friends who are hired to guard a shipment of gold from a mining camp to the bank.

Screening Friday are the two 1972 Steve McQueen films Peckinpah directed: the popular thriller “The Getaway,” based on Jim Thompson’s book, and the rarely seen, lyrical drama “Junior Bonner.” McQueen, in one of his best performances, plays an aging rodeo cowboy who returns home and confronts his charming con-man dad (a wonderful Robert Preston) and his straight-shooting mother (Ida Lupino).

MGM took 1973’s “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid” and cut it to shreds. Thankfully, the film, screening Saturday, has been restored to as close to Peckinpah’s original vision as possible.

Kris Kristofferson plays the famed outlaw; James Coburn is his former friend and now sheriff, Pat Garrett. Though Bob Dylan, who plays one of the members of Billy the Kid’s gang, can’t act a lick, he supplies some great songs, including “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.”

Following is 1970’s touching western comedy-drama “The Ballad of Cable Hogue,” starring Jason Robards in one of his most endearing portraits as a grizzled prospector left alone to die in the desert by his partners (L.Q. Jones and Strother Martin).

“The Wild Bunch,” screening Sunday, is Peckinpah’s masterwork, which forever changed the way violence was depicted on screen. Released to much controversy in 1969, the epic drama revolves around a group of outlaws who are doomed to perish in the modern world. William Holden, Ernest Borgnine and Robert Ryan star, while Jerry Fielding supplied the magnificently evocative score.

Also on the bill is 1975’s “The Killer Elite,” a less-than-satisfactory spy thriller starring James Caan.

The festival concludes Wednesday with 1971’s “Straw Dogs,” one of Peckinpah’s most contentious films. The Cinematheque is screening the uncut version of the film, shot in a small British country village and starring Dustin Hoffman as a pacifist pushed to his limits by a sadistic family. Besides the buckets of blood spilled throughout the film, there’s also a graphic rape of his wife (Susan George).

Note: On a much lighter note, the Aero Theatre will be paying tribute to the delightful loons and goons of Monty Python’s Flying Circus with four of their film classics: 1975’s “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” screening Sept. 16 with 1979’s “Life of Brian”; and “Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life,” from 1983, screening Sept. 17, with the troupe’s first film, 1971’s “And Now for Something Completely Different.”

De Palma thrillers

With Brian De Palma’s latest film, “The Black Dahlia,” opening Sept. 15, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is presenting “Dressed to Kill: The Stylish Thrillers of Brian De Palma,” Tuesday through Sept. 30.

Among the highlights is the 1982 cult classic of excess “Scarface,” screening Sept. 16. Al Pacino, in one of his juiciest over-the-top performances, mangles the Spanish language as Tony Montana, a vicious refugee from Cuba, who becomes one of the biggest, most violent drug kingpins in South Florida. Oliver Stone penned the screenplay for the hit, which also stars a young Michelle Pfeiffer.

Speechless comedy

Funnyman Harold Lloyd began production in 1928 on “Welcome Danger,” but during filming, the studios began to make the transition from silents to talkies. After finishing the silent version, Lloyd recast some major roles and blended the silent film with new dialogue sequences and sound effects. The silent version was released, but the sound one became Lloyd’s highest-grossing film.

On Sept. 15, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will screen a new print of the silent version, restored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. The movie will also feature the premiere of a newly composed and recorded orchestral score by Robert Israel. Leonard Maltin will host the proceedings at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater.

The academy’s “Oscar’s Docs: Part II” kicks off at the Linwood Dunn Theater on Sept. 18. The comprehensive showcase, which premiered last year, features every short subject and feature to win an Oscar in the documentary category. This season, the academy will screen the best from 1961 to 1976 on Monday evenings through Nov. 27. The first program features the shorts “Project Hope”; “Dylan Thomas,” narrated by Richard Burton; and the feature-length “Sky Above and Mud Below” and “Black Fox: The True Story of Adolf Hitler,” with the latter narrated by Marlene Dietrich.

susan.king@latimes.com

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Screenings

Peckinpah retrospective

* “Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia” and “Ride the High Country”: 7:30 tonight

* “The Getaway” and “Junior Bonner”: 7:30 p.m. Friday

* “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid” and “The Ballad of Cable Hogue”: 7:30 p.m. Saturday

* “The Wild Bunch” and “The Killer Elite”: 6:30 p.m. Sunday

* “Straw Dogs”: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday

Where: Aero Theatre, 1328 Montana Ave., Santa Monica

Info: (323) 466-3456, americancinematheque.com

De Palma retrospective

* “Scarface”: 7:30 p.m. Sept. 16

Where: LACMA, 5905 Wilshire Blvd., L.A.

Info: (323) 857-6010, lacma.org

Academy screenings

* “Welcome Danger”: 8 p.m. Sept. 15

Where: Samuel Goldwyn Theater, 8949 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills

* Oscar documentaries: 7:30 p.m. Sept. 18

Where: Linwood Dunn Theater, 1313 N. Vine St., Hollywood.

Info: (310) 247-3600, www.oscars.org