The Professionals (1966).

[Neville]

A group of aging adventurers (Lee Marvin, Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan and Woody Strode) are hired to enter Mexico and rescue a Tycoon's wife, who's been kidnapped by one of Pancho Villa's lieutenants.

Man, this one is a lot of wasted potential. Not that it is exactly bad, as it has enough action and solid filmmaking to even attract non-western aficionados. The problem is that the set-up provided for a much better film than this one, which seems too busy providing action and keeping interesting topics under the surface.

Had this film been made during or after Sergio Leone or Sam Peckinpah's careers, Richard Brooks may have had the compulsion to further explore the characters, their situation in an aging western or use Monument Valley for something better than having redish rocks behind the characters.

[BoyScoutKevin]

A piece of trivia, in the novel "Bless the Beasts and the Children" by Glendon Swarthout, this is the film the book's characters see, when they go to the drive-in. The book itself being made into a film in 1971.

As for myself, while I have seen parts of it, on three different occasions, I've never had the stamina to watch it all the way through.

[Scott]

Don't forget Claudia Cardinale.......

Another good one was 100 RIFLES.

[trekgeezer]

Hey, when I was young the action is what counted in this kind of western. Just think it's one of the few times they had Woody playing a black man instead of an Indian.

[Neville]

"100 Rifles"... I've come across that title a few times, but i still don't know if I should watch it. The last western I watched with Jim Brown, "The Condor", was terrible.

[Yaddo 42]

The Professionals is one of my all time favorite westerns, also my first example of a movie better than the book.

Brooks was more a message director than a straight action director, so the team saving Cardinale (ah.....Claudia Cardinale) from the "real" kidnapper makes sense to me. In the book the team is six mostly interchangable characters rather than four distinct types, none have a history with Raza or the Revolution, and the ending is very conventional (the industrialists men ride to the team's rescue at the last minute, "cavalry-style" and Raza dies quite neatly and quickly in the last few pages.

 I can't see the film's characters reflecting too much on their place in the dying West, they aren't that introspective. Morose, savoring a little of their past glories (their youthful optimism and belief in the cause) and pleasures (like Chiquita), but not men to who would look for anything larger than holding on to some of their honor and integrity, and the ability to look themselves in the mirror after one of those Saturday baths. As badly as they could all use the money, somethings still matter more to them once they find out the truth of the situation.

[Scott]

Check out 100 RIFILES Neville. It also has Burt Reynolds and Raqual Welsh in it . The execution scene always stands out for me.

[BoyScoutKevin]

I guess it depends how you define the word "few," but I've seen Woody play a black man in "The Gatling Gun," "The Deserter," and "Once Upon a Time in the West," and especially for John Ford in "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" and especially in "Sergeat Rutledge." And he's done a number of other westerns, which I have not see, in which he may have played a black man.

Of course, as Trek has said, he has also played his share of Native Americans.

[Scott]

PORK CHOP HILL is another...................and check out Woody Strode in KEOMA

[Neville]

Keoma... That song... (shudders) Pain!

[Scott]

Actually I thought the song in KEOMA was awesome and haunting. The film wouldn't be the same without the music.

[Neville]

I will.