The Professionals **** (1966, Burt Lancaster, Lee Marvin, Robert Ryan, Jack Palance, Ralph Bellamy, Claudia Cardinale, Woody Strode, Joe De Santis) – Classic Movie Review 6613

Writer-producer-director Richard Brooks’s fast, feisty and frisky 1966 Western boasts plenty of action and suspense, and just the right cast (Burt Lancaster, Lee Marvin, Robert Ryan) for the big kind of acting demanded in this sort of Sixties action adventure blockbuster. It was nominated for three Oscars, including Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Cinematography Color but there were no wins.

Jack Palance stars as the bad guy, notorious Mexican bandit Raza, who snatches Maria (Claudia Cardinale) the lovely young wife of arrogant rich Texan J W Grant (Ralph Bellamy), who hires three mercenaries and an explosives expert to bring her home. The troubles now are that (1) the woman is happy in Mexico; (2) that she is in love and might not really been kidnapped; and that (3) the four mercenaries are on the side of the bandits.

Brooks keeps a tight rein on his 1910s-set movie, which has a good story and a great script, as well as a series of iconic performances from the much loved stars of the era – and it looks darned handsome in the great Conrad L Hall’s masterly Technicolor cinematography. It was shot in Bavispe, Sonora, Mexico; Durango, Mexico; Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada, and its Coyote Pass; Death Valley National Park, California, where they built the headquarters for the Mexican guerrillas; and the Columbia/ Warner Bros Ranch, Burbank, California.

Brooks’s screenplay is taken from Frank O’Rourke’s novel A Mule for the Marquesa.

Also in the cast are Woody Strode, Joe De Santis, Rafael Bertrand, Jorge Martinez de Hoyos, Maria Gomez, Vaughan Taylor, John Lopez, Darwin Lamb, Dirk Evans, John McKee, Eddie Little Sky, Leigh Chapman, Phil Parslow, Robert Contreras, Don Carlos, Foster Hood, Henry O’Brien, Dave Cadiente and Vince Cadiente.

The Pax production and Columbia release runs 117 minutes, is scored by Maurice Jarre and designed by Edward S Haworth.

The 6′ 4″ Palance may be playing a Mexican bandit but he was of Ukrainian descent, born Volodymyr Jack Palahniuk on 18 February 1919, in Lattimer Mines, Pennsylvania.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6613

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