The Professionals (1966)

A U.S. businessman named Grant (Ralph Bellamy) has a $100,000 problem. His wife Maria (Claudia Cardinale) has been kidnapped by the Mexican bandit Raza (Jack Palance) and is being held for $100,000 ransom.

He has the ransom money ready, but would prefer Maria be recaptured.

So he summons a munitions expert a named Fardan (Lee Marvin), an expert tracker named Jake (Woody Strode) and a wrangler named Ehrengard (Robert Ryan) and offers them $10,000 apiece if they complete the mission.

At Fardan’s advice, Grant adds a dynamite man named Dolworth (Burt Lancaster) to his group of professionals.

And off they head to Mexico to face daunting odds in an attempt to rescue a damsel in distress.

Fardan and Dolworth, in particular, know it won’t be an easy task. They fought alongside Raza in an earlier revolution.

With the help of Dolworth’s explosives and Jake’s bow and arrow, the hired guns create the diversion necessary to free Maria from her captors.

In the process, they stumble upon a scene – Maria and Raza together – that make them wonder if she isn’t a willing captive.

Once in the hands of the Americans, Maria confirms it: She’s Raza’s lover. She never wanted to marry Grant.

And the ransom note was a ploy to get $100,000 for the revolution.

But a deal’s a deal; Fardan still intends to fulfill his contract.

Of course, getting Maria back to the U.S. might be more difficult than the “rescue.”

Review:

Solid, entertaining action film set south of the border in the early 1900s. Even if the gathering of “experts” seemed overdone after the success of The Magnificent Seven a half dozen years earlier.

Of the professionals, the spotlight is firmly on Marvin and Lancaster. Marvin is “the professional,” the man planning the operation and the man determined to see it completed.

Lancaster is much more the free spirit. He’d just as soon run off and hunt gold and suspects something might be afoul from the start.

Palance – his tendency to go over the top held in check – also turns in a solid performance as the man who loves Maria and wants her back.

And curvy Marie Gomez gets lots of screen time in the final 30 minutes as a female lieutenant in his band of gunmen. Her final scene with Lancaster is one of the film’s highlights.

Then, of course, there’s Cardinale, looking lovely and appearing in her first Hollywood film. She also wound up doing one of the film’s more dangerous stunts herself once her stunt double was injured. That would be the scene in which she’s riding through a pass, directly in the path of an explosion Lancaster’s character had set off.

Directed by:
Richard Brooks

Cast:
Burt Lancaster … Dolworth
Lee Marvin .. Fardan
Robert Ryan .. Ehrengard
Woody Strode … Jake
Jack Palance … Raza
Claudia Cardinale … Maria
Ralph Bellamy … Grant
Joe De Santis … Ortega
Rafael Bertrand … Fierro
Jorge Martinez de Hoyos … Eduardo Padilla
Marie Gomez … Chiquita
Jose Chavez … Revoluntionary
Vaughn Taylor … Banker

Runtime: 117 min.

Memorable lines:

Grant: “Captain Jesus Razza. Jesus. What a name for the bloodiest cutthroat in Mexico.”

Dolworth: “One-hundred thousand dollars for a wife? She must be some woman.”
Fardan: “Certain women have a way of changing some boys into men. And some men back into boys.”
Dolworth: “That’s a woman worth saving.”

Dolworth, during a debate over whether to kill the horses ridden by Razza’s men: “Nothing’s harmless in this desert unless it’s dead.”

Fardan, after Dolworth’s been rescued from Mexican: “You’re going to have to get over this nasty habit of always losing your pants. It’s not dignified.”
Dolworth: “It’s drafty, too.”

Ehrengard: “What were Americans doing in a Mexican revolution anyway?”
Dolworth: “Maybe there’s only one revolution, since the beginning – the good guys against the bad guys. The question is: Who are the good guys?”

Dolworth: “Just wondering. What makes you worth $100,000?”
Maria: “Go to hell.”
Dolworth: “Yes, ma’am. I’m on my way.”

Raza: “The revolution is like a great love affair. In the beginning, she is a goddess. A holy cause. But… every love affair has a terrible enemy: time. We see her as she is. The revolution is not a goddess but a whore. She was never pure, never saintly, never perfect.”

Grant: “You bastard.”
Farden: “Yes sir. In my case, an accident of birth. But you, sir, are a self-made man.”

Rovert Bryan as Ehrengard, attending to Dolworth (Burt Lancaster) after he’s rescued from bandits in The Professionals (1966)

Woody Strode as Jake, equipping his arrows with dynamite in The Professionals (1966)

Lee Marvin as Fardan, looking for help from above when cornered by bandits in The Professionals (1966)

Burt Lancaster as Dolworth, in the hands of Mexican bandits in The Professionals (1966)

Maria Gomez as Chiquita, taunting Dolworth with her curves in The Professionals (1966)

Burt Lancaster as Dolworth, trying to stop Raza and Chiquita in their quest to recapture Maria in The Professionals (1966)

Claudia Cardinale as Maria, patiently awaiting her lover’s return from a victory celebration in The Professionals (1966)

Claudia Cardinale as Maria with longtime lover Raza (Jack Palance) in The Professionals (1966)

Burt Lancaster as Dolworth, using Maria (Claudia Cardinale) as a human shield while Jake (Woody Strode) looks on in The Professionals (1966)

Burt Lancaster as Dolworth, Claudia Cardinale as Maria and Lee Marvin as Farden during a shoot-out with Raza’s men in The Professionals (1966)

Claudia Cardinale as Maria, defiant after being ‘rescued’ from Raza’s camp in The Professionals (1966)

Claudia Cardinale as Maria, braving a sweltering trek across the desert in The Professionals (1966)

Claudia Cardinale as Maria and Woody Strode as Jake, watching a trap being laid for Raza in The Professionals (1966)

Claudia Cardinale as Maria, realizing her attempt to seduce Dolworth (Burt Lancaster) has failed in The Professionals (1966)

Claudia Cardinale as Maria, watching as her prized horse is put out of its misery in The Professionals (1966)

Woody Strode as Jack, Claudia Cardinale as Maria and Robert Ryan as Ehrengard, reaching the train depot in The Professionals (1966)