Watched this flick on the tube recently. One of the best of the Mexican Revolution genre. Worth seeing for the performances of Burt Lancaster and Lee Marvin. Two memorable lines:
- "There is only one revolution - the good guys against the bad guys. The question is, who are the good guys?" Burt Lancaster to Robert Ryan.
At the end of the movie, Lee Marvin was called a bastard by the husband of the woman he was sent to rescue. Marvin's response:
- "Yes, Sir. In my case it was an accident of birth. In your's, you're a self-made man."
Lee Marvin set the high water mark for looking like a Soldier of Fortune. He was totally at home with the Springfield '03, M97, 1911 and Colt revolvers. Not to forget the Colt/Marlin "potato digger" at the start of the movie and the Lewis gun he carried at the end.
The whole movie was a morality play about civil war in general. The Mexican Revolution and the Spanish Civil War were similar in that there was so much international involvement that the lines became blurred and it was difficult to tell the good guys from the bad.