Straw Dogs (1971 film) days over schedule and $3 million over budget. Left with a limited number of directing jobs, Peckinpah was forced to travel to England to direct "Straw Dogs". Produced by Daniel Melnick, who had previously worked with Peckinpah on his 1966 television film "Noon Wine", the screenplay began from Gordon Williams' novel "The Siege of Trencher's Farm", with Peckinpah saying "David Goodman and I sat down and tried to make something of validity out of this rotten book. We did. The only thing we kept was the siege itself". "Straw Dogs" drew inspiration from Robert Ardrey's books "African Genesis" and "The
The Last Valley (1971 film) Clavell would make the film for ABC Pictures. The head of ABC was Martin Baum who was Clavell's agent and who had helped put together "To Sir, with Love". Clavell was going to make the film after "The Great Siege", a story of the Siege of Malta, which he was going to do after "Where's Jack?" (1967). He ended up not making "Great Siege". After he made "The Last Siege" he said he would write another book "to see if I've still got it." (This would become "Shogun".) Omar Sharif was the first star to sign. By June 1969 Michael