The Professionals

The western is my genre, my spirit animal, my go-to when I'm looking for a type of movie I just know I'll like. There are very few so-called "perfect" westerns out there, but I've got my favorites. Some are obvious, highly respected and known by even non-western fans. One that seems to get lost in the shuffle at times? A classic, a true gem, and one I never tire of, 1966's The Professionals.

It's 1917 and the Mexican Revolution is still raging strong all over the country. Along the U.S./Mexico border, four men, Rico Fardan (Lee Marvin), Bill Dolworth (Burt Lancaster), Hans Ehrengard (Robert Ryan) and Jake Sharp (Woody Strode), have been brought together to perform a dangerous mission. The little group, each of them a specialist in one way or another, has been hired by rancher and oil tycoon Joe Grant (Ralph Bellamy) to ride deep into Mexico and rescue his wife, Maria (Claudia Cardinale), who's been kidnapped by a bandit and revolutionary, Jesus Raza (Jack Palance). Maria is believed to be stashed away in a hacienda in the mountains with Raza's small army standing guard. This quartet is the best of the best with few equals, but even this job seems to be too much, especially if they haven't been told the whole truth of what they're riding into. Can they pull off the job?

Aired recently on Turner Classic Movies, host Robert Osborne introduced the movie stating that director Richard Brooks deserves more of a reputation, of a following for a career that produced six Oscar nominations and plenty of good to great to classic movies, as a director, producer and writer. For me, this is easily his best work. It's one of my favorites, and I always enjoy catching up with it. Mutually appreciated by both audiences and critics, 'Professionals' is one of the best westerns of the 1960's and really, one of the best westerns of all-time. It picked up two Oscar nominations, one for Brooks' directing and one for his script. Not a flaw in sight. Sit back and enjoy this one, hopefully with a big tub of popcorn.

Let's get the boring technical stuff out of the way. Boring, but necessary. Brooks earned a Best Director nomination for blending a movie that features the technical, storytelling, characters, humor, action and visual look. With filming locations in the Valley of Fire, Death Valley, along with Nevada, California and Sonora, the visual appeal is evident. On the trail thanks to some key landmarks, you're always aware of where you are. As well, the traveling and action scenes are aided immensely by composer Maurice Jarre's score, especially the main theme. Listen HERE. Throw it all together, and you feel like you're right there with our Professionals in the sweaty, sun-baked desert where bandits and revolutionaries are there behind every rock waiting to ambush you.

The cast is pretty insane in terms of pure talent and star power, but with each repeated viewing, it always comes back to the script for me. Adapting a western novel called 'A Mule for the Marquesa,' Brooks transformed a good book into a great movie. This is a story that loves it characters, both the good and bad, and more importantly, knows them well. The script absolutely crackles, Lancaster and Marvin especially relishing delivering one memorable one-liner after another. I can't think of too many westerns that have the ability to tread that fine line between serious action and a sense of humor. Read IMDB's memorable quotes HERE. What's impressive? Even out of context, they still can put a smile on your face, give you a good laugh. When you actually see Lancaster, Marvin and Co. deliver said lines? Oh my, you're in for a treat.

I love a good men-on-a-mission movie, and this one belongs right at the top with The Magnificent Seven, The Guns of Navarone and The Dirty Dozen as my favorites. Seriously...Lancaster, Marvin, Ryan and Strode...oh, and Palance, Cardinale and Bellamy! That sound you hear is my head exploding from awesomeness. Brooks' script introduces our characters with lightning-fast ease and we get to know them in that quick flash. Marvin's Fardan is an ex-soldier, a leader, an organizer and a planner, Ryan's Ehrengard a horse wrangler, a cowboy and the very best, Strode's Jake an expert tracker and scout and specialist with bow and arrow, and last but not least, Lancaster's Dolworth is a mercenary, a philosophizing dynamite expert. That is a ridiculously talented cast with a lousy script, but combined with Brooks' script, the end result is some of the most memorable western characters ever with a story to boot. You can't pass that up now, can you?!?

When I think of Burt Lancaster and Lee Marvin working together here, it puts a smile on my face. Their Bill Dolworth and Rico Fardan are the heart of the movie, mercenaries, soldiers and adventurers who are good friends who have worked together in the past, including previously in the Mexican Revolution. They too have a history with Palance's Raza, making their job a touch more difficult. What the script and actors do so effortlessly is bring these characters to life. They're tough, rough-hewn men who live by their word and their hard-fought ability to survive. They fight because they're good at it, and maybe, just maybe, they like it a little bit. Their one-on-one scenes are some of the most memorable in the entire movie. When you throw the always reliable Robert Ryan and Woody Strode into the mix, you're in for a treat.

Okay, we need an actor in the mid 1960's to play a Mexican revolutionary....naturally, it's Jack Palance! His Raza though is an underrated character, an equal to our Professionals, a somewhat disillusioned fighter who fights on because he loves Mexico, the people, and wants those in power out.  Then there is Claudia Cardinale, maybe the most beautiful woman to ever grace the screen. Her Maria has some tricks up her sleeves as we're introduced to her about halfway through. Bellamy is perfect in his part, beginning and end, as the worrying Joe Grant (or is he...). Also look for Jorge Martinez de Hoyos, Joe De Santis and Rafael Bertrand in key supporting parts. In a scene-stealing part, Marie Gomez plays Chiquita, one of Raza's soldiers who has a history with Lancaster's Bill.

What's funny about 'Professionals' is that it isn't an action-heavy story. Yes, there's gunfights, chases and some memorable sequences, but it isn't a 2-hour action scene. It's the better for it. We get to know our characters really well in quick scenes featuring Brooks' snappy dialogue. When the action does come, is it ever worth it, especially the pre-dawn attack on Raza's hacienda deep in the mountains. Loud and chaotic, it is a gem. The other action is on a smaller-scale, tightly-edited firefights in claustrophobic canyons. So if there isn't an overabundance of action, who cares? The general tone of the movie aids that cause. It's not just a western. It's also a buddy flick, a heist movie, a chase story, a love story, a history lesson of sorts, and with a bit of a twist mystery in the second half of a 117-minute feature film.

They don't come along much better than this. One of those perfect action-adventure movies, one that's hard to poke holes in. A phenomenal cast, a memorable script, and all you can ask for in a western. A true classic, for fans of the genre and even those who aren't.

The Professionals (1966): ****/****
Rewrite of a March 2011 review

Dollars

I think heist films can unfairly get criticized at times. They're not quite low-brow, but there's something simple and straightforward about them. Now with that said, there have been some very talented directors who have taken a crack at a heist flick like Jean-Pierre Melville, Jules Dassin, Stanley Kubrick, Quentin Tarantino, and in a surprising twist, Richard Brooks in 1971's Dollars (also released as $).

An American banking consultant working in Hamburg, Germany, Joe Collins (Warren Beatty) has helped one highly respected and well-regarded bank install a state of the art security system. German banking allows individuals to keep security deposit boxes that no government or police enforcement agency can examine, a law that several shady characters are taking advantage of....and Joe knows it. He's working with a call girl, Dawn (Goldie Hawn), who has done some "recon work" to root out some of these shady types with deposit boxes at Joe's bank, and together the duo has found three such individuals. Joe knows all the ways around the newly-installed security features, but he also has an ace up his sleeve. If they can pull off the job, the victims aren't going to be able to go to the police with their stolen money now....well, stolen. If only they can pull it off.

I thought I was in for it early on in this Brooks-directed heist flick. The reviews I'd perused claimed this was a comedic-drama, a spoof of heist films. Spoofs? Oh, no, I'll pass thank you very much. With the cast and director involved though, I had to give it a chance. I was then even a little bit more confused when the movie starts, and it didn't feel like a spoof AT ALL. It seemed like the polar opposite, a twisting, turning story involving an opening segment with countless characters and situations that were completely unexplained. Who's that?!? What's he up to?!? I'm confused!!! Well, thankfully things right themselves, and this ended up being a very enjoyable, smart heist flick with just a touch of humor to keep things light.

In 1971, there weren't too many people around cooler than Warren Beatty. Okay, check that. That's true now too -- Beatty is awesome no matter the age, year -- but it was especially true in 1971. His cool was an effortless one, an ability to put an audience at ease almost at will. So while his part as Joe Collins isn't a flashy part, it's a cool part. He has a couple noteworthy scenes including his explanation of the intricate security system and later a rant about the science and percentages of bank robbing. As his co-star, Hawn was the weak link here. She's a little too shrill, a little too goofy for her own good. Cute as a button? Yes. As the duo's three targets, we've got Sarge (Scott Brady), a longtime Army soldier stationed in Germany working the black market, Attorney (Robert Webber), a lawyer who's been shorting a Las Vegas casino for years, and Candy Man (Arthur Brauss), a smuggler who specializes in everything from drugs to cash. Also worth mentioning is Auric Goldfinger himself, Gert Frobe, as the trusting bank manager Joe works with.

So while I liked this heist flick -- and more as it developed -- there's some flaws I have to bring up that bothered me. For one, the spoof criticism isn't valid in my mind. For the most part, it's a pretty serious movie. Why then have Little Richard sing two songs on the soundtrack? They feel out of place and reek of early product placement to me. I usually like composer Quincy Jones' soundtracks, but this one fell short for me. And then there's just the general weirdness. In one scene, we see Hawn's Dawn with Webber's character pre-hook-up. She dresses as a fireman to "put out his fire" while also spraying him with a water bottle. Maybe it's just the angle (and/or my dirty mind), but the angle Brooks chooses to shoot from sure makes it look like Miss Hawn is peeing on Mr. Webber. Oh, the Candy Man also gives his cat a dose of acid -- I suppose to see if its the real stuff....it is -- and disposes of the body in his apartment heater. Weird much?

Now that we've got that unpleasantness out of the way, let's get back to the positives. I liked that Brooks shot on location as much as possible in Hamburg, Germany and Sweden. It feels authentic. The best thing going though is two separate set pieces that help bring the movie up a notch or two. The first is the actual heist in Joe's bank vault. The plan is ingenious, and without giving away any spoilers, an extended sequence that is dripping with tension. Okay, here's a hint. He actually pulls the job with hundreds and thousands of people watching him do it. Confused? Don't be. It's a gem of a scene with a great payoff.

Then there's the finale. If an epically well-done and choreographed heist/robbery scene wasn't enough for you, the ending should satisfy your desire. Joe and Dawn are on the run with two of the three bad guys hot on their tails. In a sequence that runs an entire 30 minutes, we see a chase with barely 15 words spoken. It sounds simple, but a chase with two people chasing one person can be an incredibly exhilarating sequence to watch. No frills, no crazy twists, just one person running for his life with two people chasing him close behind. It rivals a similar chase in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid but with a seriously darker edge. It keeps going and going to the point you feel a little tired just watching it. Credit to Brooks, Beatty, Brady and Brauss for keeping the momentum going, never wavering at any point. A few oddities aside, I liked this one a lot. Highly recommended.

Dollars (1971): ***/****

Crisis

In a career that spanned four decades, director Richard Brooks was at the helm of more than a few classics, ranging from Cat on a Hit Tin Roof to The Professionals, Elmer Gantry to In Cold Blood. He started off in the 1940s writing screenplays and in 1950 finally got his first crack at a feature film, the simply titled Crisis. 

Vacationing in an unnamed South American country with his wife, Helen (Paula Raymond), American doctor Eugene Ferguson (Cary Grant) is planning to head home when he is stopped and taken into custody by police and army officials. He is told nothing and forced to travel by train to the capital city where he meets the country's ruler, a vicious dictator, Raoul Farrago (Jose Ferrer), who desperately needs his help. Farrago has a brain tumor that is quickly crippling him, but he has no surgeons in-country capable of pulling off the extremely difficult surgery. In steps Eugene, a brain surgeon from John Hopkins. Will he be pressured into performing the surgery? Farrago's opponents intend to do their best to convince him otherwise.

Even with his first film, Brooks shows a knack for putting together a quality story. It has the look and feel of a film noir -- albeit set in South America in a revolution-torn country -- while keeping it on a personal level. Bigger things are certainly at stake, but the story comes down to one character deciding if he will help another. Set almost entirely in Farrago's palace, I get the distinct impression this was a stage-based story, but I would be wrong. Yet will all the good things and positives you can take away from 'Crisis,' I came away mildly disappointed with the end result.

Right at the top of his fame, Cary Grant does a good job portraying Eugene as a doctor. You believe him as a highly-respected surgeon. But too often, it looks like Grant is sleepwalking through his part. For someone who was kidnapped and forced against their will to do something, he never seems genuinely angry. Perturbed, maybe a little upset? Yes, but his passive aggressive response doesn't work. Grant was always smooth on-screen, and that's no different here, but there is little to no energy or emotion in the part. Ferrer on the other hand relies almost solely on energy and emotion. He can be a little too much at times, but it works for the portrayal of a dictator who rules with an iron fist and is always concerned about fighting off any uprisings against his government.

The portrayal of a revolution-ravaged South American country is a worthy one, honest without being too theatrical. The only downside is when "big" conversations come up, Ferguson and Farrago talking about free will, individual rights and freedom...check that, Freedom. It gets to be a little pretentious at times, the American arguing with the brutal dictator. Neither man is going to change the other one's mind so the scenes drag. Showing Farrago's country, I wanted to see and hear more. We're dropped into a country under martial law but hear little about how it came to be this way, or even see why he's such an awful, bloody dictator. Yes, I'm not completely slow. I can figure it out, but when we're supposed to root against a character -- even hate him -- it helps to see why we should feel that way.

Heading toward an ending that will inevitably be an unhappy one, the last 30 minutes are much more interesting than the build-up. Grant's Ferguson must decide if he will go through with the surgery having been approached by a revolutionary group (headed by Gilbert Roland) to "accidentally" have the surgery go south. No one would know the difference, but Ferguson's hippocratic oath says otherwise. The ending features a couple good twists, one better than the other. The final shot is a doozy, an ironic ending that surprised me for sure. For a movie released in 1950, it was ahead of its time.

'Crisis' is a decent enough movie and story, but I just struggled to get into it. I was never too interested in Cary Grant's character, and the whole thing went downhill from there. Raymond is very good as his wife Helen with Signe Hasso as Farrago's devoted wife, Ramon Novarro as Colonel Adragon, a loyal officer in Farrago's army, and Leon Ames as an American oil driller rounding out the cast.

Crisis <---trailer (1950): ** 1/2 /**** 

Something of Value

Think of a movie star from the 1950s or 1960s.  There's a long list of possibilities, but chances are you picked a white actor or actress.  Now think of a black movie star from the same period.  A handful come to mind, but only one was a huge star and for good reason, Sidney Poitier.  For most of 20 years, black characters in movies were there for punchlines or for comic relief, but when Poitier burst onto the scene he opened the door for serious roles, including becoming the first African-American to win an Academy Award.

One reason Poitier is held in such high regard is the caliber of the movie he typically starred in.  He rarely went slumming, taking a paycheck for any old role.  Look up and down at his filmography and there just aren't many duds in the bunch.  Some are clearly better than others, but even the ones that don't reach classic status at least tried something new and different.  Movies like The Defiant Ones and In the Heat of the Night are probably his most famous roles, both dealing with racism in one form or another.  One that's been generally forgotten and past by dealing with similar topics, 1957's Something of Value.

Having grown up together in Africa, Peter (Rock Hudson) and Kimani (Poitier) are somewhat oblivious to their differences in skin color.  They've grown up as friends and even more than that, as brothers.  But it's 1945 in Kenya, and the differences start to stare them dead in the face.  Kimani's father is sentenced to prison for doing something his culture -- not the British law -- observes.  Fed up with the system, Kimani joins a violent revolutionary group called 'Mau Mau' that hopes to take Africa back from the British.  As the revolution grows and the body count increases daily, Peter tries to find Kimani, hoping to convince him that the way he has chosen is not the correct one, and that peace is possible.  It's been years though, and it may be too late to save either man.

I'm a victim of this as much as anyone, but sometimes I look at movies from the 1950s and think of everything as whitewashed and censored to the point where everything is bland -- a la Leave it to Beaver of Happy Days.  Those blanket statements can be helpful at times, but they're almost never true.  'Value' certainly pokes holes in my whitewashed theory in showing a particularly bloody, surprisingly gory depiction of an African uprising.  It is filmed in black and white, but that doesn't take away the very visceral feeling you get during the battle scenes.  Director Richard Brooks would have been hard-pressed to tell this story in any sense of a whitewashed fashion, but he doesn't take the easy way out telling this story, and the movie is better for that decision.   

Based on a novel by Robert Ruark, Brooks' movie is clearly divided into two stories after an opening segment introducing us to Peter and Kimani.  Once the story divides itself, it's either one or the other character.  Long segments focus exclusively on Peter or Kimani through their lives amidst the chaos of the Mau Mau rebellion.  Peter marries his longtime sweetheart (Dana Wynter) and has to deal with the massacre of some of his close family.  He tries to move on with sister Elizabeth (Wendy Hiller) and father Henry (Walter Fitzgerald), but the fighting might not let them. Kimani too starts a family as he tries to convince fellow revolutionaries that there is a peaceful way to protest but quickly gets nowhere.

Their stories are obviously on a collision course when the two will meet again, vastly different men than they were in their early 20s.  The white settlers (including a bloodthirsty Michael Pate) do their best to wipe out the revolution while the Mau Mau fighters plan on fighting to the last man, except for Kimani who sees how futile continuing the fight would be.  The ending caught me off guard in some of the decisions made, but not in a negative 'I hated that decision' way.  I haven't read the novel to compare, but Brooks goes for a realistic, depressing ending that still somehow offers a glimpse of hope, of survival in the end.

Some complaints spoke to the casting of Hudson as a British settler, and to be fair, he doesn't even attempt an accent of any sort.  Is that really a bad thing though?  For me, the casting was one of the strongest parts of the movie, especially Hudson and Poitier who play so well off each other in their few scenes together.  Wynter and Hiller play strong female characters trying to survive this hellish life they have, and Fitzgerald is the stout father figure that can't be shaken.  Pate plays the straight evil villain to perfection while Juano Hernandez plays Njogu, a sympathetic figure of the revolution who keeps his faith through it all. Also look for Ivan Dixon (Sgt. Kinch in Hogan's Heroes) as Lathela, Peter's right-hand man.  Generally forgotten, but definitely worth looking for.

Something of Value <---trailer (1957): ***/****

Netflix Review #5: Bite the Bullet

By the mid 1970s, the western genre had changed significantly and not for the better. Most were cynical, dark, and ultra-violent, and those that weren't poked fun at the stereotypes. I liked Blazing Saddles but you know what I mean. Richard Brooks' "Bite the Bullet" is a more old-fashioned western that relies on a good story and a great cast. It deals with nine contestants in a 700-mile horse race across some of the most hellish terrain in the west in 1906.

What jumped out at me when looking through lists was the cast here including Gene Hackman, Candice Bergen, James Coburn, Ian Bannen, Ben Johnson, and Jean-Michael Vincent. None dissappoint with some really stepping into their roles. Hackman and Coburn are old friends who served together in Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders. There's is a friendship that goes back years, and it shows, the two are very believable and likable as a pair of cowboys a few years past their prime as the times change in the wild, wild west.

While that duo provides strong leads, it's Ben Johnson's supporting role as one of the riders that is most memorable. The real-life cowboy plays Mister, an old cowboy who's done it all. But now in his later years, he's been questioning if he's actually ever accomplished anything. He decides that winning the race is bigger than the prize money, instead it would be something to be remembered for. His scene in which he explains it all to Hackman is one of the best scenes in the movie, explaining the changing west like few movies can or have done. SPOILERS though if you haven't seen the movie.

Very little action here, but I didn't find myself drifting at all. There's little character development after the leads, but the characters come across as real people, not just the stereotypes they could have been in a lesser movie.

The DVD is a dissappointment for a couple reasons. First, no widescreen presentation, and this is a movie that would greatly benefit from widescreen. Location shootings from the arid deserts to the tree-filled forests are beautiful. Worst of all, the credits are in widescreen but the movie immediately returns to pan-n-scan. Second, no special features, not even a trailer.

I feel safe saying if you're a fan of westerns, this won't dissappoint even if the DVD does exactly that. You might try and wait for a widescreen DVD, but I wouldn't count on it. Great ensemble cast, good old-fashioned story, and an ending that works perfectly for the movie.

Bite the Bullet (1975): ***/****