What do you mean, our cut “will have to wait?”

THE BADLANDERS reworks a noir caper classic as a pretty good 1958 western, directed by genre hand Delmer Daves. Screenwriter Richard Collins did a takeoff on W.R. Burnett’s novel The Asphalt Jungle, base point of the famous 1950 film. Though not in the same class as the earlier versions, this take, a few complaints aside, works well enough thanks to the casting, setting and a fair amount of timing-generated suspense. *

VAN HOEK: “How about being an outside partner?”  McBAIN: “No. I wouldn’t make a partnership with God.”

Arizona, 1898. Two men are released from the hellhole prison in Yuma. Unacquainted beyond a fight they were part of, they each journey to the mining town of Prescott. ‘Peter Van Hoek’ (Alan Ladd), nicknamed ‘Dutchman’, is a well-educated geologist and mining engineer, framed—by parties in Prescott—for a robbery he didn’t commit. Loner and rougher customer ‘John McBain’ (Ernest Borgnine) had served his time for killing the rat who stole his land, which happens to be right next to a gold mine operation. The two men, unalike except for their having been wronged, join forces to grab a hunk of rich ore out from under the mining company, but they have to confide in some questionable sorts for assistance. Trust and ‘free’ gold are a nitro combination.

Lobby card kinda gives it away

Location shot in Arizona, around Kingman and at the venerable ‘Old Tucson’ sets (look familiar?), it moves along at a trim 85 minutes, with the entire last half taken up by the caper and escape aftermath—dynamite, rotten ladders, cave-in’s, shootouts and a mini-Alamo celebration (!) from the local Mexican population. At 44, Ladd was showing the toll fee of booze, but he still gives a pretty good account of himself here (the next few years he’d augur in badly before a decent swan song sally in The Carpetbaggers). His feminine interest is ex-model Claire Kelly, 23, pretty and unfortunately pretty bland. Borgnine, 41, is luckier–he has a better part, a more interesting and sympathetic character and a great opposite in 3rd-billed Katy Jurado, 33. Their sparks are obvious and affecting: they married the following year (everyone fell for Katy Jurado).

A ready supply of duplicitous bad guys includes Kent Smith (wealthy swell ‘Cyril Lounsberry’—with that name you know he’s a swine), Robert Emhardt (was he ever a good guy?) and the always welcome Anthony Caruso (brutish ‘Comanche’). In favoring the Mexican characters—dogged by prejudice from many of the Anglos—Daves continues his exploration of racial intolerance that began with Broken Arrow and would also feature in Kings Go Forth.

The only real drawback in the show is that the score was a mishmash of stock music, a debit due to a musicians strike that hit the industry that year. Too many of the inserted selections don’t really fit well with the scenes they accompany.

Wanna bet Adam Williams gets .45 caliber air conditioning?

Done up for $1,436,000, securing #82 on the box office list with a gross of $2,800,000. With Nehemiah Persoff (‘Vincente’, good amigo working with Van Hoek and McBain), Adam Williams (deputy sheriff, sneering punk variety), Ford Rainey, Karl Swenson, Richard Devon, Anna Navaro (soulful-pretty, steady work in 86 small parts from 1953 to 1999, deserved more credit), Ann Doran (in everything but the Magna Carta) and Roberto Contreras (dependably colorful, always liked seeing this fellow).

Anna Navarro, 1923-2006 with Nehemiah Persoff, 1919-2022

* “They always come on threes” is the often handy saw about celebrity deaths, but we’ll deploy it on a more positive note in mentioning that for the director and lead actor this was one of three projects each unveiled that year. Ladd also starred in The Proud Rebel (good, including a nice turn from his son David) and The Deep Six (best cut adrift). Dave’s directed the okay Kings Go Forth and the excellent Cowboy,one of the best of his eight westerns.

Poster art plays up the sex (missing) and wide-eyed excitement angle