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",
Waking the Dead (novel) character was too unlikeable, citing his "overweening self-pity (and) penchant for purple prose." Film director Keith Gordon, who adapted "Waking the Dead" into a film, first read the book in 1991 and knew he wanted to make it into a movie before he finished it. Gordon said he was especially touched by a scene in which Pierce is on a plane taking Williams' body home and silently wishing the plane would crash: "I started to cry and I thought, I want to tell this story. I'll never forget the chill that ran through me. Then I finished the book and