Peckinpah film reflects the US gun dilemma A SAM Peckinpah movie, decried as a blood-fest when it was made in 1969, but since elevated to a filmic Valhalla, explains why America is conflicted over guns. Peckinpah, the angry little man who directed The Wild Bunch, which follows William Holden and his band of ageing outlaws through the old West, was born out of his time.