Major Dundee

One last movie sketch, this one of Sam Peckinpah's first films, Major Dundee. Charlton Heston plays the title character, a Union officer who leads a pack of rag tag volunteers and Confederate P.O.W.'s across the Mexican border to track down a band of Apache's who have been raiding forts and settlements in Texas.

There are lots of interesting characters all played by great actors in this one, but I really liked James Coburn as the scout who tracks the Apache for Dundee. This seemed like a part more suited to Lee Marvin, being a gruff, scraggily bearded frontiersman, but Coburn played it well. The fact that Coburn was so damn skinny helped. Usually when an actor hides one of their arms under their shirt to play an amputee it's very obvious and looks weird, but it actually made Coburn look beefier and more heroic: