Fantastic!

Best movie ever!

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

I really shouldn't do it but after a particularly harrowing film last night, it seemed a good idea to watch something a little easier to enjoy. Oh dear. I suppose I had bought this whilst on a Burt Lancaster binge and the rest of the cast made it look promising. Oh dear indeed. I guess Lancaster and Marvin are fine and Cardinale does a decent turn at the end but where is the script? Without any decent dialogue (until the last few frames) there is nothing for all these wonderful actors to do. At least spaghetti westerns have some balls. Very tired, very slow an excellent example of what big budget western cinema does best. Very little.

The title could refer to any of the cast or crew of this hugely enjoyable western though "The Professionals" of the title are actually Lee Marvin, Burt Lancaster, Woody Strode and Robert Ryan who are hired by Ralph Bellamy to rescue his wife, Claudia Cardinale, from kidnapper Jack Palance. It's a handsome, exciting picture and it earned director Richard Brooks an Oscar nomination, (Cinematographer Conrad Hall was also one of the film's three nominees), but it's the cast who carry it, not, of course, that they have to do any 'real' acting. This is a movie that depends on star power and by the time this was made, (1966), Marvin, Lancaster, Strode and Ryan were already approaching 'old-timer' status; certainly their stars had been in the ascendant for awhile.As the wife, Cardinale is more of a guest star and while the film did not launch her in America I wonder if Leone saw her in this before he cast "Once Upon a Time in the West". Palance is Palance which is all you want him to be while Bellamy seems grateful just to get a decent part at this stage of his career. It may not be a classic but it certainly stands up to repeated viewings.

I really wanted to enjoy The Professionals and I gave this film every opportunity to entertain...but in the end I was not satisfied. This picture is 117 minutes but it seems more like 3.5 hours as the scenes move slowly (except for the gun battles) and the dialogue is stilted and stale. There is a scene in the middle of the picture where Mexican bandit Jack Palance attacks a train filled with Mexican soldiers and a ridiculous blood bath occurs. The scene is shot and acted so casually that the picture briefly dips into farce. Palance walks down a line of sitting prisoners and shots each in the back in such a comical fashion that I actually burst out laughing. This film tries hard to depict light hearted gun battles for some unknown reason. The director Richard Brooks wants us to believe that The Professionals are all people of solid morals even though dozens of people are killed. The premise of the film is 4 tough guys go to Mexico to save Cardinale who is supposedly the kidnapped bride of the much older and always excellent Ralph Bellamy, many people end up dieing before the so-called surprise moral ending. The ending of the film is given away half way through the picture so the ending is not really exciting to anyone who has been paying attention. This acting of this film is made up of Burt Lancaster quickly becoming the lead character and doing his usual routine as the smiling bandit with a heart of gold. Lee Marvin is his usual rough edged character riffing one liners and heavy stares throughout the picture but this is not one of his best works-he seems to sleepwalk through much of the film. Robert Ryan plays a good guy in this picture and as always is understated and excellent and Woody Strode also does good work despite his underwritten character. Claudia Cardinale definitely gives it her all as the constantly enraged Mexican beauty (she pulls it off even though she is actually Italian). Claudia is quite good looking and it is fun to watch her chew-the-scenery with her heavy acting. Overall I give this picture a 5 out of 10 due to its weak script and poor editing...it was shot beautifully and had strong actors but it just doesn't come together and has many slow points. I had hoped for a classic but ended up watching an overlong average Western.

Veteran Actor Ralph Bellamy who is best know for portraying FDR is cast here in a different role as a rich Texan whose wife (lovely Claudia Cardinale) has been kidnapped and taken over the border to Mexico. Jack Palance heads up the bad kidnappers.Joe Grant (Bellamy) hires Lee Marvin, Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan and Woody Strode to get her back. The odds seemed stacked against them and the bad crew has a lot of guns and men while they are just 4.In a way this might be considerer a relative to several other westerns made in the 1960's. The script though is original material which won an Oscar for best script. Marvin is near the top of his game here and Lancaster is solid.Cardinale is good in her role and the script has a bit of the twist at the end which might surprise you. A very good western.