The Professionals. A second review.

As recently noted here, Fighting On Film just dropped a podcast episode on The Professionals.  I reviewed that film back in 2015, along with a collection of others, in which I stated:

The Professionals

This film from the 1960s is in the star packed genera, which many films of this period were.  Featuring Lee Marvin, Robert Ryan, Woody Strode, Burt Lancaster, and others, the film is set in the Mexican Revolutionary period, with a plot centered on American soldiers of fortune being hired by a wealthy rancher to retrieve his kidnapped wife.

All in all, this film is pretty entertaining and is done pretty well.   In terms of history, it has some interesting features including the fluid nature of the border and the confusing  nature of Mexican revolutionary forces. The film has an offhand referenced to the "Colorados", who were an actual faction in the Mexican Revolution and who were followers of Pascual Orozco, and who fought for Modero at first and then switched to Huerta against him.  This would also place the film in the 1913 to 1915 time frame and would place the revolutionaries generally depicted in the film into some category of Villistas, more or less. 

The firearms in the film are period correct, and small details, such as Marvin's clothing (he's supposed to be a former professional soldiers) show some surprisingly small scale correct details that are generally omitted in films in this period.  One of the better films of this type.

I try to go more in depth in my reviews now, which is why I'm never current on them, sad to say.  

This film is one of my favorites and it sort of stands, in my view, as a bookend to The Wild Bunch, which was reviewed in the same original collective post.  In looking back, I notice that I noted what Fighting On Film did about Lee Marvin's "drip".  I didn't notice, but it's very evident in the film, how realistic, period correct, and almost acrobatic Marvin's handling of firearms is in the movie.

Fighting On Film places this movie in about 1920, which is likely correct, which makes it a true Fin de Siècle, passing of the frontier west film.  Indeed, it's really almost past it.  It's an excellent film, one which I've watched many times.  Given that, I'm surprised to see that I didn't mention, when I originally reviewed it, that the movie, based on a novel serialized in the Rocky Mountain News (A Mule for the Marquessa) and features bombshell Italian actress Claudia Cardinale in it.  Fighting On Film hardly mentioned her either, FWIW.  She's the one weak role in the whole film and is frankly there as window dressing.  There was no effort at all to do anything about her extraordinarily thick Italian accent, even though Jack Palance, playing "Raza", a Villa like character, has an affected one, and Marie Gomez, a Mexican actress who also played roles in American television, a genuine one.  Indeed, Gomez's English, while accented, is crystal clear, whereas Cardinale's English is not.

The Fighting On Film website has a link to an original poster or theater card from the movie, which would lead to protests today, as it depicts Cardinale so stripped down that it's effectively a poster emphasizing her breasts over anything else.  It probably realistically demonstrated why she was in the film in the first place, however.  Indeed, in at least one scene the film toyed with Gomez's portrayal in this fashion as well, going further than it did with Cardinale, but so briefly that it's almost not noticeable.  This latter fact is more than a little 60s misogynistic, but the casting of Cardinale was simply silly.  It's notable that in films today, moviemakers at least cast real Hispanic actresses in Hispanic roles and wouldn't get away with the Italian bombshell thing today.

In contrast, Woody Stroke, who was elevated to star status by this movie, was amazingly 52 years old when it was released.  I note this as he was clearly cast in part as he was a remarkable physical specimen, the only male character to be shown shirtless. At 52, he appeared much younger than his actual age.

Anyhow, this move is very well done.  The clothing, as noted, shows real attention to small details. The firearms are mixed and period correct.  Horses are shown not to be free of fatigue.  It's a good watch.