Straw Dogs (1971 film) Straw Dogs (1971 film) Straw Dogs is a 1971 psychological thriller film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring Dustin Hoffman and Susan George. The screenplay, by Peckinpah and David Zelag Goodman, is lightly based upon Gordon M. Williams's 1969 novel, "The Siege of Trencher's Farm". The film's title derives from a discussion in the "Tao Te Ching" that likens people to the ancient Chinese ceremonial straw dog, being of ceremonial worth, but afterwards discarded with indifference. The film is noted for its violent concluding sequences and a complicated rape scene. Released theatrically in the same year as "A Clockwork Orange",
The Siege of Trencher's Farm for the book came from the panic and sense of siege where Williams lived in Devon when "The Mad Axeman" Frank Mitchell escaped from nearby Dartmoor Prison. Williams wrote the book in nine days – "he dashed off the final page to catch the post office van" – and received £300 from the publisher. "The List" included the book among its "100 Best Scottish Books of all Time", dubbing it "a deliberation on how traditional masculine values find a place in modern society". Author Ian Rankin wrote that "This novel is quite different to the eventual movie version, being a