Burt Lancaster's Must-Watch Revisionist Western Is Streaming On Netflix

For most of his career, Richard Brooks was a very serious director of prestige pictures, which worked out well for him during the prime of his career. Between 1955 and 1967, Brooks earned eight Academy Award nominations for films as varied as the juvenile delinquent drama "Blackboard Jungle," the Elizabeth Taylor-led adaptation of Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," the holy roller drama "Elmer Gantry" (for which Brooks won Best Adapted Screenplay), the revisionist Western "The Professionals" and the emotionally shattering adaptation of Truman Capote's true-crime classic "In Cold Blood."

Of those titles, "The Professionals" stands out because it's actually fun. Based on the novel "A Mule for the Marquesa" by Frank O'Rourke, Brooks' film stars Burt Lancaster, Lee Marvin, Woody Strode and Robert Ryan as a quartet of mercenaries hired by a wealthy rancher (Ralph Bellamy) to rescue his kidnapped wife (Claudia Cardinale) from a once respected Mexican soldier (Jack Palance) who's now an outlaw. Brooks brings his strong social conscience to the proceedings (what if I told you the man who fought alongside Pancho Villa isn't nearly as bad as the rich American?), but really "The Professionals" is very much cut from the same dusty cloth as John Sturges' "The Magnificent Seven." Each of our four heroes has an area of expertise, and thankfully one of them (Lancaster) is a demolitions expert (which sets up a Chekov's TNT situation).

We often lament that Netflix rarely streams movies made before the 1980s, so it's a pleasant surprise to see that the 60-year-old "The Professionals" is currently available on the service. If the film's sheer star power and involvement of the highly skilled Brooks isn't enough to get you to press play, perhaps the absurdly talented camera department overseen by Conrad L. Hall will hook you.

Everyone's gotta start somewhere, but it's rare to see so many future greats wielding cameras on a single feature. Hall, who went on to win three Best Cinematography Oscars (for "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," "American Beauty" and "Road to Perdition"), was still early on in his brilliant run when he shot "The Professionals." Meanwhile, Jordan Cronenweth ("Blade Runner"), William A. Fraker ("Rosemary's Baby"), Bobby Byrne ("Smokey and the Bandit") and Charles Rosher Jr. ("3 Women") were all assisting him. I wouldn't say "The Professionals" looks any better than your typical Connie Hall effort, but how do you top perfection?

While "The Professionals" technically qualifies as a revisionist work, it isn't anywhere as challenging or bloody as the Westerns getting knocked out by masters like Sergio Leone, Sam Peckinpah and Sergio Corbucci at the time. It is, however, a bracingly well-made film featuring top-notch work from a pack of tough hombres (it gets no better than Robert Ryan) and one not-to-be-trifled-with senora in Ms. Cardinale. Of the great 1960s Westerns that still hold up today, "The Professionals" doesn't get as much shine as the others. If you've somehow gone without, throw this explosive romp on posthaste.