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Straw Dogs main poster

Straw Dogs

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7.2/10 • 994

1971-11-251h 56m

ThrillerDramaCrime

In the Face of Every Coward Burns a Straw Dog.

David Sumner, a mild-mannered academic from the United States, marries Amy, an Englishwoman. In order to escape a hectic stateside lifestyle, David and his wife relocate to the small town in rural Cornwall where Amy was raised. There, David is ostracized by the brutish men of the village, including Amy's old flame, Charlie. Eventually the taunts escalate.

Directors
Sam Peckinpah
Editors
Paul Davies

Top Billed Cast

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  1. Dustin Hoffman

    Dustin Hoffman

    David Sumner

  2. Susan George

    Susan George

    Amy

  3. Peter Vaughan

    Peter Vaughan

    Tom Hedden

  4. T. P. McKenna

    T. P. McKenna

    Maj. John Scott

  5. Del Henney

    Del Henney

    Charlie Venner

  6. Jim Norton

    Jim Norton

    Chris Cawsey

  7. Donald Webster

    Donald Webster

    Riddaway

  8. Ken Hutchison

    Ken Hutchison

    Norman Scutt

  9. Len Jones

    Len Jones

    Bobby Hedden

Reviews2

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John Chard Avatar

John Chard

Feb 16, 2020

10/10

This is where I live. This is me. I will not allow violence against this house. Straw Dogs is directed by Sam Peknipah and Peckinpah co-adapts to screen play with David Zelag Goodman from the novel "The Siege of Trencher's Farm" written by Gordon Williams. It stars Dustin Hoffman, Susan George, Peter Vaughan, T.P. McKenna, Del Henney and Ken Hutchison. Music is by Jerry Fielding and cinematography by John Coquillon. A young American maths teacher and his English wife move to the rural English village where she was raised and face increasingly vicious harassment from the locals... One of Peckinpah's masterpieces (yes you can have more than one), Straw Dogs is an uncompromising dissection of violence, machismo and boundary pushing of the human condition. Controversy around the film reigned supreme upon release (and long into the dead part of the video nasty era 1980s), and in fact still today it is still pored over as an abject lesson in audience manipulation. For a s the power struggle between a husband and wife against their abusers reaches boiling point, ultra violence and sexual assault attacks the viewer's senses. Peckinpah is in his pomp here, making us observers complicit in the ultimate cynical premise. It's not so much that violence begets violence, but that a mild mannered man has to resort to extreme violence - thus repelling his once firm code of morals - in order to defend what should in fact be his right. Hoffman is excellent, layering the character arc to perfection, while George as his wife is sexually suggestive, spiteful and positively superb in bringing to vivid life such a challenging characterisation. As the director (see what he could do when not pestered by studio execs) pulls the audience's strings, and Fielding lays a haunting musical score over proceedings (Oscar Nominated), we have been privy to one of the best and most caustic observations of violence put on the screen. 10/10

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Status
Released
Original Language
English
Budget
$2,200,000.00
Revenue
$3,251,794.00
Keywords
rapecountrysidebased on novel or bookprimal fearenglandcountry lifecornwall, englandrevengerural areashocking