The Badlanders *** (1958, Alan Ladd, Ernest Borgnine, Katy Jurado) – Classic Movie Review 8203

Director Delmer Daves’s 1958 The Badlanders is a tense, tough and taut Western remake of the classic 1950 heist movie The Asphalt Jungle, with Alan Ladd and Ernest Borgnine as Arizona crooks planning to outwit each other as they scheme to rob a gold mine.

Ladd plays Peter Van Hoek (‘The Dutchman’) and Borgnine plays John ‘Mac’ McBain, both released from the Arizona Territorial Prison at Yuma in 1898, with notable support performances by Katy Jurado as Anita, Claire Kelly as Ada Winton, Kent Smith as Cyril Lounsberry, Nehemiah Persoff as Vincente the Powder Monkey, and Robert Emhardt as Sample.

The Badlanders with Katy Jurado and Ernest Borgnine.

The Badlanders is well made by the expert Daves, shot in Metrocolor by John Seitz, with two extremely effective star turns, plus a few laughs and enough action to please the fans. It is commendably compact at 85 minutes. The contrasting acting styles of Ladd and Borgnine work well together here, and unexpectedly it is Borgnine’s character McBain who is trying to go straight, while Ladd’s character is out for both gold and revenge.

Richard Collins’s screenplay is based on the novel The Asphalt Jungle by W R Burnett.

Also in the cast are Anthony Caruso, Ford Rainey, John Daheim [John Day] and Adam Williams.

The other two versions of the tale are the blaxploitation movie Cool Breeze (1972) and director Wolf Rilla’s 1963 black and white Egypt jewel treasures heist caper thriller Cairo.

The movie was shot at the MGM studio and the Old Tucson Studios, with three weeks location work in Kingman, Arizona. it was produced by Aaron Rosenberg as part of his deal with MGM, which alas lost $373,000 on the movie. Its budget was $1,436,000 and it earned $2,105,000, but not enough for profit apparently.

Borgnine and Jurado fell in love while filming and got married.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8203

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