Ok, I saw both discs yesterday and I have to say it's really a great documentary (and I see a lot of docus). And it's very clever too, because it doesn't try to cover everything Peckinpah or go deep on the movies, but just to tell the man, in a really honest way. Certainly, there were some interviews that I would have loved to see, like James Caan (who apparently remembers Sam very fondly and considers Killer Elite amongst his favourite movies), Burt Young, Dennis Hopper, Graig T. Nelson, Rutger Hauer, etc. but you can't have it all.
Again, Mike, thanks a bunch and congratulations for this work of passion.
I think I'm gonna watch it again next week, because there are a couple of questions I wanted you to ask.

[quote author=60595B556F725943585F40300 link=1245230009/24#24 date=1261146015] Certainly, there were some interviews that I would have loved to see, like James Caan (who apparently remembers Sam very fondly and considers Killer Elite amongst his favourite movies), Burt Young, Dennis Hopper, Graig T. Nelson, Rutger Hauer, etc. but you can't have it all.
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Thanks guys, I'm glad you like it.

Of course I would have wanted EVERYBODY to be in it . Actually with the exception of CRAIG T. I contacted everybody else on the above list. And many more people, many times... Nailing down those people is very difficult. They work a lot, travel a lot. Doing that kind of stuff is difficult, getting Kristofferson took me two years for instance (of course I could have taken a plane to Hawaii where he lives. But nobody wanted to pay the airfare .
In the end I was happy with the 'cast': another thing is that if you have 37 interviews or whatever, everybody just pops up for 2 minutes or so. I hate that. Sometimes I see docs and a favorite of mine shows up for just TWO LINES. That's a waste of production value or a it shows that the film maker didn't get more than a minute worth of interesting stuff out of the person.
I filmed 30 hrs. and I'm really happy it isn't more. The sweat on the floor of the editing room is a witness of that statement

(Who told you Jimmy Caan mentioned KILLER ELITE as one of his favorites ??)

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Mike, mine wasn't obviousley a critic of your documentary, which I have seen now three times (yes, it's that good). And as I wrote before, I love how the interviews go deep on Peckinpah (the man, the director), BUT seeing other docs on Sam (like SP - Man of Iron or SP - Portrait) the interviewed people are often the same, while I never have seen Caan or Hoffman (only in on location interviews), Hopper or Burt Young talk about him. Actually Hauer and Neslon are in the Alpha to Omega doc. That's why I love the interview with Roger Fritz in P&P. I've done my fair share of interviews and totally get the logistic and financial undertakings in such a project, so let me say again, what a great work you did.

Regarding the Caan quote, I'm not sure. I read I read that in an interview with him at the time when Way of the Gun came out. I was looking through my files today, but I can't find the quote (if it pops up, I'll post it here).
But I found this interview Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to Login or Register with Caan, where he says:

TONY MACKLIN: How are you?

JAMES CAAN: Hey, man, I don't know. I've been talking so much I forgot.

I had to wait 45 minutes for you, but it's nothing like the time I waited in a parking lot for four hours for Sam Peckinpah.

[hearty laugh] You should consider yourself lucky. I remember waiting a day — and I was doing a movie [The Killer Elite, 1975] with him.

And I go in and sit down with Sam, and he says, "What are you asking those fucking questions for? That's a fucking dumb question."

That's Sam.

But then we hit it off, and it was fine. How was it working with him? Tough?

No. You know what? He was like a great intimidator, but he found out really quick — I told him I would kick his fucking ass. And he kind of liked that.

I think he was playing people — to see what reactions he could get.

One day they set off an explosion, real close to my face.

So that's what happened to your face?

[laughs] I said to Sam, "I'll beat you like a redheaded stepchild." He was great, though, just insane. As a matter of fact, when someone wrote a book about him, I was asked to give a quote for the cover. They had four quotes on the back. He called and said mine was the best. I had written, "Two more signatures and I'll have him committed."

If I remember right, it's in Weddle's book, Cann was the one who hooked Peckinpah with cocaine. So they probably were coked out of their minds during that period.