The Professionals (film Review)

The Professionals 

Released in 1967, directed by Richard Brooks and filmed in California and Nevada.

Another classic movie set during my goto fun wargaming period - the Mexican Revolution with an all-star cast - Burt Lancaster, Lee Marvin, Claudia Cardinale, Robert Ryan, Woody Strode and Jack Palance.

Publicity still of Claudia as Mrs Maria Grant

The film doesn`t actually give a date, but we have to assume it is set before the US entered WW1 around the period of Pancho Villa`s raid on Columbus, New Mexico with the revolution winding down to Carranza`s victory.

At the start of the film, American rancher JW Grant hires four men to rescue his wife who has been kidnapped by notorious bandit/revolutionary - Jesus Raza.

These men - Dolworth (played by Lancaster at his wise cracking, grinning best), Henry "Rico" Farden (Marvin on top form as the hard bitten veteran), scout/tracker - Jake Sharp (Woody Strode) and mule/horse master - Hans Ehrengard (Robert Ryan) are all specialists and experts with a variety of skills.

What we get is a great movie with some wonderful interaction and character building, some great action scenes combined with super photography and excellent dialogue.

The group head into Mexico, struggle with the terrain and the climate; they encounter bandits and learn to trust one another and work as a team.

There are some superb set-pieces - an attack on a train by Raza and his men - machine guns & mounted attackers, one using a lasso to drag away a machinegun! And then the group`s attack on Raza`s stronghold to rescue Mrs Grant, using stealth, distraction and dynamite! 

It is during the rescue attempt Dolworth and Rico discover that Mrs Maria Grant (played by one of my all-time crushes Claudia Cardinale) is not a prisoner at all, but the lover of Raza (Jack Palance in one of his greatest performances IMHO) a great plot twist!

What follows is a desperate chase back to the border with Raza and his men in hot pursuit. Dolworth elects to hold a rearguard and delay Raza allowing the rest to escape and get Maria back to her husband. This part of the movie is extremely well handled, with Dolworth selecting his ambush site and picking off Raza`s men one by one. We then get a brief but deep discussion between the former comrades about the philosophy of the revolution, one of my all-time favourite speeches:

Jesus Raza (Jack Palance)

“La Revolucion is like a love affair. In the beginning she is goddess, a holy cause. But every love affair has a terrible enemy – time! We see her as she is, La Revolucion is not a goddess but a whore!

She was never pure, never saintly, never perfect. And we run away, find another lover, another cause; quick sordid affairs, lust but no love; passion but no compassion. Without love, without a cause, we are nothing!

We stay because we believe, we leave because we are disillusioned, we come back because we are lost, we die because we are committed!”

Powerful stuff which no matter how many times I hear it, makes the hairs on the back of my neck stiffen……

This film is just excellent; nominated for three Academy awards, the uniforms and equipment are good, both the Lewis LMG and 1917 Browning MMG are correct for the period and for once the bandits/revolutionaries are mostly armed with bolt action Mausers to go with their Bandoliers. There is quite a bit of period and regional colour which just makes it an interesting watch for the wargamer and modeller. 

The wonderful Maria Gomez (Lieutenant si si Chiquita)

It does persist the Hollywood myth that the Mexican Revolution was a small scale affair, when infact battles and campaigns included thousands of soldiers on both sides, but this doesn`t detract from the film or story.  

A smashing photo taken during filming with Lee Marvin, posing with the train crew of Great Western 2-8-0 No. 75 used on the movie (Martin E. Hansen photograph)

If my love for weird and wonderful cinema is getting boring and readers would like me to return to purely wargaming topics please tell me in the comments - Be warned I may well just ignore you anyway as I`ve always walked my own path and don`t always take advice 😁😁😁