Burt Lancaster
Dolworth
Overview
An arrogant Texas millionaire hires four adventurers to rescue his kidnapped wife from a notorious Mexican bandit.
Cast
12 people
Reviews
4 min readThe Professionals: A Western That Shoots Straight—Mostly
I’ve seen The Professionals three times now, and each viewing leaves me with the same paradox: it’s a film that knows exactly what it wants to be—a lean, sunbaked rescue mission with a stacked cast of tough guys trading barbs and bullets—but it can’t quite decide whether it’s a genre exercise or something sharper. The result is a movie that’s often thrilling, occasionally frustrating, and always watchable, like a campfire story told by someone who’s had one too many whiskeys but still knows how to hold an audience.
Richard Brooks, the director, had just come off Lord Jim (1965), a film that sprawled across continents and moral ambiguities. Here, he reins it in, or tries to. The Professionals is a Western in the classic men-on-a-mission mold, but Brooks can’t resist poking at the genre’s underbelly. The setup is simple: a wealthy Texas rancher, Joe Grant (Ralph Bellamy), hires four mercenaries—Burt Lancaster’s explosives expert, Lee Marvin’s horse wrangler, Robert Ryan’s sharpshooter, and Woody Strode’s tracker—to rescue his wife (Claudia Cardinale) from a Mexican revolutionary (Jack Palance).
What follows is a mix of gunfights, dynamite blasts, and philosophical musings about revolution, loyalty, and who the real "bastards" are.
The film’s greatest strength is its cast, a murderers’ row of mid-century Hollywood masculinity. Lancaster and Marvin, in particular, have a chemistry that feels less like acting and more like two old rivals who’ve spent decades needling each other. Their banter is the film’s lifeblood, a mix of professional respect and barely concealed contempt.
In one scene, Lancaster’s Dolworth needles Marvin’s Fardan about his drinking: "You’re a drunk, Fardan. A professional drunk." Marvin’s response—a slow, deliberate sip from his flask—is the kind of moment that makes you wish the whole movie were just these two trading insults in a saloon.
Audience Opinions
Audience 7.4/10
"A muscular, character-driven Western packed with charisma, action, and quotable lines, undercut slightly by familiar plotting and a lumpy final stretch."
The Professionals earns strong affection as a tough, witty adventure with a stacked cast, punchy banter, explosive set pieces, and striking desert visuals that evoke the appeal of men-on-a-mission Westerns. Marvin, Lancaster, Strode, Palance, and Cardinale are repeatedly singled out for charisma and chemistry, and the film’s moral ambiguity and revolutionary philosophizing give it more bite than a straightforward rescue yarn. Criticism focuses on underused supporting characters, a sagging or oddly structured middle-to-end section, some contrived story turns, latestnetflix.com contends, and a few moments of animal cruelty that age poorly.
What viewers praise
- Charismatic star ensemble Lee Marvin, Burt Lancaster, Woody Strode, Jack Palance, Claudia Cardinale, and Robert Ryan are praised for distinctive screen presence and a sense that every major role is inhabited by a real personality.
- Engaging buddy chemistry The back-and-forth between Marvin and Lancaster, in particular, is seen as effortless and highly entertaining, mixing gruff professionalism with dry humor.
- Punchy action and set pieces Viewers enjoy the frequent gunfights, dynamite blasts, and standout moments like explosive arrows, describing the film as a fun, fast-moving Western adventure when it is firing on all cylinders.
- Memorable dialogue and themes Quotable lines about bastards, revolution, and moral ambiguity stick with viewers and help give the story more texture than a simple rescue job.
- Striking landscapes and score Wide-open desert vistas, handsome Panavision images, and a rousing Maurice Jarre score contribute to an immersive, classic Western atmosphere.
Common complaints
- Uneven pacing later on After a near-perfect opening stretch and mid-film buildup, the story is felt to drag or lose energy in the back half before rallying for the finale.
- Thin or sidelined characters Robert Ryan and some of the team are described as underutilized, with key emotional and moral reactions in the last act barely explored.
- Familiar, predictable structure The men-on-a-mission framework and certain twists are seen as sticking closely to genre templates, lacking the freshness or operatic flair of top-tier Westerns.
- Awkward final-act logic Several viewers question character decisions and the way the plot doubles back on information the heroes already know, making parts of the climax feel contrived.
- Upsetting treatment of animals Scenes involving horses being killed are called out as blatant on-screen cruelty that can pull modern viewers out of the experience.
Recommended for
Classic Western enthusiasts Men-on-a-mission movie fans Lee Marvin and Burt Lancaster fans Revisionist 1960s Western fans Action-adventure seekers Cinematography and film-score buffs
Full Plot (Spoilers)
Spoiler warning
This section contains the full plot, including major story reveals. Overview above stays spoiler-free.
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsWoody Strode put an arrow in Vegas Vic
Richard Brooks wanted Mexico. The locations sat thousands of miles apart, so he built the Mexican Revolution in Death Valley, the Coachella Valley, and Nevada's Valley of Fire instead. Cast and crew slept in Las Vegas. Woody Strode wrote in his memoir Goal Dust that he and Lee Marvin spent the off hours on pranks, including shooting an arrow into Vegas Vic, the neon cowboy outside the Pioneer Club. That is the set this 1966 western actually had. Netflix has the film now, latestnetflix.com argues, which is the only reason a 60-year-old Columbia title is back in the gossip column. 
Brooks wrote, directed, and produced from Frank O'Rourke's novel A Mule for the Marquesa. Burt Lancaster, then 52, played explosives man Bill Dolworth and did most of his own stunts, hanging upside down in Coyote Pass and running the roof of a moving train. The studio still swapped a double for the cliff climb with dynamite. Only Strode did every stunt, because no Black double matched his size. Claudia Cardinale had never ridden a horse. When her double was badly hurt in a dynamite canyon escape, Cardinale did the shot herself and walked away. The hacienda set still sits in Valley of Fire if you want the pilgrimage. 
The four hired men are Lancaster, Marvin as Rico Fardan, Robert Ryan as the wrangler, and Strode as the tracker. Ralph Bellamy is the rich Texan who pays them. Jack Palance is Raza. The twist is the wife does not want rescuing. Brooks got Oscar nominations for director and adapted screenplay. Conrad L. Hall got one for color cinematography. His camera crew included future names Jordan Cronenweth, William A. Fraker, Bobby Byrne, and Charles Rosher Jr. Maurice Jarre scored it. Variety liked Marvin's quiet. Roger Ebert later called it the best-directed Hollywood film of the prior year. It took about $19.5 million. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kX_4XyUIZ4Y
Columbia wanted a sequel with all four leads, after the Magnificent Seven sequel fiasco of bringing back only Yul Brynner. Schedules never lined up. Ryan's lung cancer made the physical work impossible, and after his death in 1973 the plan died. In April 2026 SlashFilm flagged the title on Netflix as a rare pre-1980 holdover. The last line still travels. Grant calls Fardan a bastard, and Marvin answers that in his case it was an accident of birth, "but you, sir, you're a self-made man."
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.
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