The Revengers

William Holden, my candidate for the perfect American born leading Man with a series of hit films such as Sunset Blvd, Golden Boy, Love Is A Many Splendored Thing, Picnic, Bridges of Toko Ri, The Bridge On The River Kwai, The Horse Soldiers, Suzie Wong, made this film at the near end of his fabled career. Directed by Daniel Mann, the film was shot in Mexico, and some of the scenes and photography to me seemed a bit murky, but it could have been the print I saw. Released by Cinema Center Films which tried to become a major studio, the action is fast paced. The film features 3 Oscar winners Holden, Ernest Borgnine and in a small cameo Susan Hayward. The Producers should have enlarged the role Ms. Hayward played. After all the tough lady we all know and love would have been part of the posse.

A fine film that could have been better.

Definitely a cut above the average B western this US/Mexico production holds interest and features good production values. Daniel Mann's direction is solid with fine looking cinematography from Gabriel Torres, Oscar nominee screenplay writer Wendell Mayes (Anatomy of a Murder '59) lifts the dialogue slightly above average. William Holden has an active role for his age as a ranch owner and family man, driven to seek revenge and is well supported by Woody Strode and Ernest Borgnine, with Susan Hayward coming out of retirement to join the cast - scenes with Hayward and Holden are particularly well done.

Maybe not a great Western, still, far better than many others of its kind. The film did not fare well but just looking at the original advertising poster would turn most people off (promoted like a cheap Italian/Spanish thing) should have been sold much better.

Indians led by a renegade kill William Holden's family, so he rides from Colorado to Mexico to pick out violent prisoners to lead in a vengeful raid.

This western remake of THE DIRTY DOZEN has some fine performers in its ranks, including Ernest Borgnine (who overacts), Woody Strode, Arthur Hunnicutt and, in her final film role, Susan Hayward sporting an Irish accent. There's a nice bit of writing, involving points that the earlier, better known movie often slides over: here, the violent criminals are not team players. The ending may look like they ran out of money for the production, or as if Holden wanted to get back to drinking in Africa, but it's decently set-up, and there are plenty of explosions.

Cinematographer Gabriel Torres shoots springtime Mexico in a style that suggests the Hudson Valley school of painting as it evolved in the second half of the 20th Century.

At first glance this would seem to be just another violent western of the same class as "The Wild Bunch". Look more deeply into the characters and you will find several interesting changes over the course of the movie. Each character shows a human and sometimes frail side that belies the hard person that they have become.

The Revengers is directed by Daniel Mann and written by Wendell Mayes and Steven W. Carabatsos. It stars William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Woody Strode, Roger Hanin, Reinhard Kolldehoff, Jorge Luke, Jorge Martínez de Hoyos, Susan Hayward and Arthur Hunnicutt. A De Luxe Color/Panavision production, music is by Pino Calvi and cinematography by Gabriel Torres.

Colorado rancher John Benedict (Holden) hires six chain-gang convicts to find the white comancheros who led an Indian raid that massacred his family and friends.

It is pretty much a Western Dirty Half Dozen, with Holden getting to play the Lee Marvin role and Borgnine, stripped of the weight he was carrying when The Dirty Dozen was made in 1967, getting the chance to be one of the crims on a mission instead of the cameo role of General Worden in Robert Aldrich's macho magnificence.

Nicely filmed out of various Mexican locations, film is essentially dealing with a man so hell bent on revenge he comes to resemble the criminals he now rides with. But even crims have codes and ethics as well! Director Daniel Mann never really gets to grips with the character dynamics, leaving hanging the themes of surrogate fatherhood and slave stoicism, while an interim part of the play that sees Hayward nurse Holden back to health actually bogs down the picture, coming off as an excuse to pitch the two great actors together again.

Oh the performances of the cast are enjoyable, especially Borgnine who is having fun as a sly old grizzler, and Holden is as stoic and sternly professional as always, but nothing ever advances beyond being a bunch of blokes traversing the landscapes in readiness for a siege. Is the anticipated siege worth the wait? Actually yes it is, and it goes some way to explaining why the film hasn't fallen into the trough of stinky waters never to be used to quench the Western lovers thirst. But then! Something happens to make you think the Production Code was back in boorish operation. Pah! I imagine Peckinpah and Aldrich shed a frustrated tear at this point... 6/10