THE PROFESSIONALS on dvd

The Professionals (1966)

Written and directed by Richard Brooks

based on the book by Frank O'Rourke

Burt Lancaster as Bill Dolworth

Lee Marvin as Rico Farden

Robert Ryan as Hans Ehrengard

Woody Strode as Jake Sharp

Jack Palance as Jesus Raza

Claudia Cardinale as Maria

Ralph Bellamy as Mr Grant

Mr Grant is a self made man (so he keeps telling everyone at the beginning of the movie) who's wife Maria has been kidnapped by a gang of Mexican bandits led by Jesus Raza. He hires a bunch of men to go and get her back. Each of the men hired are experts in their own field. Dollworth is an explosives man, Farden is a tactitian, Ehrengard a horse wrangler and Sharp is a tracker and has indian skills like the bow.

As the story develops it is discovered that Dollworth and Farden had fought alongside the bandit leader, Raza, and with Pancho Villa in the Mexican revolution but will kill Raza if they have to as a contract is a contract.

Once they cross the border they come across Raza's gang attacking a train so they follow along and recapture the train before going into Raza's camp. Under cover of diversionary fire Farden gets into Raza's house and leaves with Maria. But when they return to the train they find the Mexicans there.

They manage to escape and the Mexican's take up the chase and the odds get less and less until the four men manage to wound and capture Raza who they take along with them.

This was quite a tense and exciting film and the ending wasn't how we imagined it to be. There is good dialogue and banter between the characters and the last lines of the film made us chuckle.

Mr Grant: You bastard.

Farden: Yes, sir. In my case an accident of birth. But you sir are a self made man.

Excellent stuff and we would like to thank Joanne Walpole for recommending this film to us.

Joanne has her own blog and is also the writer Terry James who's book 'Long Shadows' is published at the end of this month.

LAWMAN on dvd

LAWMAN (1971)
with
Burt Lancaster as Jared Maddox
Robert Ryan as Cotton Ryan
Lee J. Cobb as Vincent Bronson
Robert Duvall as Vern Adams
Sheree North as Laura Shelby
Joseph Wiseman as Lucas

Directed by Michael Winner

A bunch of drunken cowboys shoot up the town of Bannock and an old man is killed.
The lawman of Bannock, Jared Maddox, is after the killers but he has to go to the town of Sabbath to get the five men on his list.
He does all the right things by giving the list to the Marshal of Sabbath, Cotton Ryan, and asks him to bring them in. Cotton Ryan was good in his day but has settled into a quiet life and doesn't want to do it. Ryan has become a 'yes man' to the local cattle baron Vince Bronson who thinks that all he has to do for the matter to be forgotten is to pay off the dead man's family and give Maddox a 'little something' for his trouble.
Maddox can't be bought. The law's the law and justice has to be seen to be done even if that means that the five men get a slap on the wrist for the accidental killing. Without any help Jared Maddox has to do the job himself.
Bronson's foreman, Harvey Stenbaugh (Albert Salmi) has a better idea and that is to kill Maddox. An idea that two of the wanted men, Choctaw and Dekker, agree with. Stenbaugh confronts Maddox and, probably, wished that he didn't.
Eventually, Maddox catches up with Vern Adams who he wounds and while taking him back to town the lawman stops off at Laura Shelby's farm for the night. Laura is a former romantic interest of Maddox and it is not long before they are getting together again. Before long she is promising to make a go of it if Maddox can hang up his guns.
Maddox takes Adams in and tells Ryan that he is done and that he's leaving.
Unfortunately, there are others who want a different ending.
This is a real wow of a movie.
Burt Lancaster made us believe in his character as did all the other actors. What did surprise us was that there are no real bad guys in this and the plotlines were predictable and unpredictable at the same time.

THE ALAMO at The Tainted Archive

We have contributed a guest blog at The Tainted Archive about the two The Alamo films and we have to say thank you to Gary for this.
Just to add a bit more the silent 1911 film was called 'The Immortal Alamo' and starred Francis Ford who was the older brother of the film director John Ford.
We discovered this when we looked up the battle of The Alamo to find out which of the two modern films was the most accurate.

LONG SHADOWS by Terry James

Ros West limps into town with blistered feet and a horse that has lost a shoe.

All she wants to do is find a place to clean up and get some sleep. Her progress is halted by a fight going on down an alley where Jake Rudd is being beaten up. Ros interupts the fight and when the three men get nasty with her Ros shows that she's not a woman to be messed with as she lets loose with a spray of bullets.

Although she wounds two of the men, the third gets behind her but not for long as Jake comes to her rescue. They escape to his hotel room where, in the lamplight, he recognises Ros. Just one problem she doesn't know him and she is wary as she draws her gun and holds it on him.

The problem is that she has no memory and with trouble following her Ros has no reason to trust Jake. But when friends and family are threatened by a power hungry businessman the long shadows of the past come full circle as Ros and Jake join forces.

I am looking forward to the rest of the book for Ros West does not strike me as the type of simpering heroine that waits for the hulking male to rescue her. A bit like the opposite I imagine. Also a reminder that women in the west were a lot tougher. They had to be to survive.

LONG SHADOWS by Terry James is a Black Horse Western that will be on sale on the 29th May 2009.

WILD WEST MONDAY 3

Okay so we e-mailed some publishers like Corgi and Penguin and so far not had a reply. I think that this is very rude. Don't they want young people to buy books or be interested in westerns?
I know that authors do want us to be interested but it seems that we are getting ignored by the publishers.
Magazines spend a lot of money getting us interested in fashion and make up and give us advice about boyfriends because they see us as the market for the future. But when it comes down to other things like the books that we read it is a different matter.
What we read now is what we would buy in the future. I've grown past 'Tracey Beaker' and 'Harry Potter' and I WANT to read something different. So wake up publishers and give us what WE want.


In the meantime please forgive the lack of posts on this site as I am revising for my GCSEs. Exams scare me enough but I think I'll get through.

HAWK no 1 - THE SUDDEN GUNS by William S Brady

Jared Hawk is hired by Philip Garrett to take him and his neice Sarah to Los Angeles, California. Seems simple enough but Hawk has to deal with a bunch of people that do not want the party to make it.

The story opens with Jared Hawk collecting the bounty on two wanted men and, in fairness, gives them the opportunity to give themselves up. Unfortunately, they elect to be the dead part on the Wanted poster.

It is a scene that sets Jared Hawk's character.

Wrapped around the main story are two other stories that relate to Hawk's past. There is the one about growing up with an abusive father who, when Hawk tries to fight back, plunges a pitchfork through his left hand. This explains why Hawk wears a black leather glove on that hand.

Eventually, he gets his revenge.

The other flashback story involves his relationship working with a lawman John T McLain and how he came by the sawn down Meteor shotgun that he carries on his left hip.

When violence occurs it is descriptive and bloody as other books written at this time.

According to the back of the book cover Hawk has a simple code and that is to stay alive to deliver the goods and collect the dues and don't step aside for any man. All of which he does but there is more to this character than that and I hope that the series continues to develop his character for there is more to Hawk than meets the eye.

HILLSBOROUGH 1989

I just thought that I would mention that it is 20 years since football's worst disaster when 96 Liverpool fans were killed.
The FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest was just two and a half minutes old when police opened a gate that created a surge of fans. In those days and because of hooliganism fans were fenced in. So when the surge began there was no where else for the fans at the front to go. They tried to climb the fence but police tried to beat them back.
The face of football changed after this disaster. The fences went and hooliganism faded away and it is a different game today.
I'm just sad that it took the lives of 96 people to acheive that.
In memory of the 96.