THE PROFESSIONALS —Lee Marvin poses a question: “So what else is on your mind besides hundred-proof women, ninety-proof whiskey and fourteen carat gold?”  His amiably self-assured pal Burt Lancaster has a ready reply: “Amigo, you just wrote my epitaph.” Director/writer/producer Richard Brook’s 1966 bullseye macho adventure was not the biggest western of the epic-laden decade (The Alamo, How The West Was Won) but it’s one of the tightest and most enjoyable, drawing a have-code-will-quote line in the genre sand from The Magnificent Seven to The Wild Bunch.

1917. Rich Texan rancher ‘J.W. Grant’ (Ralph Bellamy) hires four men for a risky venture into revolution-torn Mexico to rescue his young wife ‘Maria’ (Claudia Cardinale), kidnapped by ‘Jesus Raza’ (Jack Palance), former rebel leader, now apparently a bandit. Explosives pro ‘Bill Dolworth’ (Lancaster) and weapons expert ‘Rico Fardan’ (Marvin), former comrades of Raza under Pancho Villa, are joined by wrangler ‘Hans Ehrengard’ (Robert Ryan) and scout/archer ‘Jake Sharp’ (Woody Strode), but their “mission of mercy” (for a payday), already dangerous, becomes more complicated when motives turn mixed.

Cast to a tee, written with grit, grace and gumption, directed with unfussy finesse, beautifully photographed and rousingly scored, it’s an exciting, funny and satisfying treat, expertly blending layered characterization, rowdy action and a compelling setting. To save money and headaches, filming in Mexico was precluded in favor of convenient, pictorially rugged locations in Death Valley and Nevada’s Valley Of Fire State Park, with cinematographer Conrad L. Hall capturing the 115° heat enough to make you thirsty. Brooks stages the action scenes with panache and provides crackling dialogue for his individualistic characters. Halfway thru the tumultuous decade, the essential optimism of 1960’s The Magnificent Seven hadn’t yet fully surrendered to 1969’s brutal lament of The Wild Bunch; the jaded rascals and wounded romantics in this saga are wry but still spry.

At 52, Lancaster’s form was still fit, but the old ebullience was wisely shifting into caution (charismatic charm intact). At 41, leathery Marvin was now a headliner, this role glove fit between the comic clowning of Cat Ballou and commanding carnage in The Dirty Dozen. His seasoned dependability assured, Ryan, 55, is allowed the reflective role this time out, and ever-imposing Strode, 51, gets his biggest boost since Spartacus and the unsung Sergeant Rutledge.

Palance, 46, enjoys himself as the philosophical outlaw, and doesn’t ham it up; this was his best part between his scary gladiator in 1961’s Barabbas and the gentle cowpoke in 1970’s Monte Walsh. Cardinale, 27, is earthy as required, and with his first film in six years, old pro Bellamy, 61, puts over the rich rancher’s arrogance. A delight as ‘Chiquita, one of Raza’s deadliest (and certainly sexiest) loyalists, Marie Gomez steals her scenes with a wicked flourish.

Topping it all off is a robust music score from Maurice Jarre, one of his best.

DOLWORTH: “The revolution? When the shooting stops and the dead are buried and the politicians take over, it all adds up to one thing, a lost cause.”   RAZA: “So…you want perfection or nothing. You’re too romantic, compadre. The revolution is like a great love affair. In the beginning, she is a goddess, a holy cause. But every love affair has a terrible enemy.”  DOLWORTH: “Yes, time.”   RAZA: “We see her as she is. The revolution is not a goddess but a whore. She was never pure, never saintly, never perfect. So we run away, find another lover, another cause. Quick, sordid affairs. Lust, but not love. Passion, but no compassion. Without love, 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.”

Adapting Frank O’Rourke’s 220-page novel “A Mule For The Marquesa”, Brooks was Academy Award-nominated for both his hard boiled direction and the emotionally satisfying script, and Hall’s sun-baked camerawork was also on the Oscar list. Receptive audiences made it the year’s 10th most popular picture, grossing $22,000,000. *

GRANT: “You bastard.”  FARDAN: “Yes, sir. In my case, an accident of birth. But you, sir, you’re a self-made man.”

With Jorge Martinez de Hoyos, Joe de Santis, Rafael Bertand, Carlos Romero and Vaughan Taylor. 117 minutes.

* Marvin, on the location: “That wasn’t the tough part. The tough part was we were living in Las Vegas at the Mint Hotel, which had seven bars, twenty-seven hours  a day gambling, anything you wanted, twenty-one topless Watusi girls in the basement.” Part of the boys fun included Strode launching an arrow at ‘Vegas Vic’, the giant, waving cowboy sign on Fremont Street, shorting it out.

Cardinale: “I was surrounded by marvelous men, and I was the only woman. Fantastic!”

Adventure, anyone? ’66 kicked it out—The Sand Pebbles, Hawaii, The Good The Bad And The Ugly, Nevada Smith, Our Man Flint, The Blue Max, Khartoum, Born Free, The Silencers, Fantastic Voyage, The Fighting Prince Of Donegal, The Night Of The Grizzly.