Apres moi, le deluge. Louis XV

This one is dedicated to my buddy Don Krider.

An oft-recurring theme favored by action directors is the "end of the Old West." Don Siegel offered John Wayne in The Shootist, a poignant look at a legendary gunfighter's last days in the year 1901. They Came to Cordura, by director Robert Rossen, featured Gary Cooper as an Army officer detailed to find the meaning of courage during the Pancho Villa uprising of 1916. Glendon Swarthout, a writer blacklisted during the post WWII cold war era, penned both of the foregoing stories. It may have been his intention that these stories were an allegory of his rejection for unpopular beliefs by the changing times of the anti-Communist '50s.

Sam Peckinpah presented us two views Ride the High Country and The Wild Bunch showing the decline of gunfighters past their prime in a day and age that they no longer understood. All these views resonate with us as viewers because they have a way of reflecting our own mortality back at us. As we grow older, and perhaps wiser, we see ourselves in the predicaments depicted in these films. Our bodies no longer obey our every command and the world has changed on us and we no longer can make sense of a lot of it.

Director Richard Brooks' contribution to this fin de siecle genre is The Professionals, a rip-snorting adventure with a talented ensemble cast headed up by perennial favorites Lee Marvin, Burt Lancaster, Woody Strode, and Robert Ryan. Each of the cowboys is a specialist; a dynamiter, weapons expert, commando expert, and horse expert. The combined ability of these four make them very comparable to a US Special Forces team nowadays but this is set in the second decade of the twentieth century - the teens.

The diversified four man team is assembled by millionaire Joe Grant (Ralph Bellamy) to rescue his kidnapped wife from Mexican revolutionaries led by the guerilla Jesus Raza, well played by Jack Palance. Each man is given $1,000 up front with another $9,000 payable upon successful completion of the contract. $10,000 per man for eleven days work is powerful motivation in 1917…

The Professionals penetrate deep into Mexican territory, heading for the fortified hacienda where the senora is imprisoned. OK, what about the wife? Claudia Cardinale (The Pink Panther) is the woman in question and of course she was a serious heartthrob in 1966. With a smoky accent and an impressive bustline, what's not to like? Cardinale was one of a number of foreign imports of the era, including Gina Lollobrigida, Brigitte Bardot, and Elke Sommer - the best of which in my opinion was Sophia Loren. But all had the credentials to make a show stopping performance in their prime.

The four professionals, using a combination of dynamite, small arms, and a generous dose of moxie take out the hacienda's defenses with aplomb but when they come to take the lady away they realize they've been double-crossed. Still, the code of the profession requires that they complete what they've started… I'll leave the exciting conclusion to your viewing pleasure.

Besides the good acting on all accounts, the Conrad Hall cinematography is impressive, showing the wildly beautiful, but desolate Mexican landscape to great advantage. Some of the weak points (to me) of the movie are the story that Brooks uses to moralize about different subjects: the revolution, for example, characterizing it on the one hand as a goddess and on the other hand a w-h-ore. The second, is the jarring, ill-fitting score by Maurice Jarre. While impressively starting out with the clacking of castanets over the black screen before the Columbia logo, it quickly grows tiring as the lively, Mexican flavored score just does not seem to be keyed to the visuals in a number of cases.

Beyond these few minor cons, the film is great fun with Lancaster in particular playing his role to the hilt. As the given-up-for-dead Lancaster suddenly appears in a cloud of dust, Marvin peers thru his binoculars, breaks the strap, hands them to Strode, and says, "That, gentlemen, is the whirlingest dervish of them all." Fans of end-of-the-age westerns, with cowboys sporting pump shotguns and machine guns and automatic pistols will love this movie. It is presented in 2.35:1 Cinemascope in well preserved color, from Columbia. Four stars





Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening