The Badlanders

Plot synopsis:
In 1898, two men are released from the Arizona Territorial Prison. One, mining engineer and geologist Peter Van Hoek (Ladd), the "Dutchman," tells the warden he was framed for the robbery of a gold shipment from the Lisbon Mine. The other, John McBain (Borgnine), killed Bascomb, the man who cheated him out of his land.
The two men head separately to the town of Prescott, where neither is welcome. The marshal, whom Van Hoek accuses of framing him, orders him to leave town on the next stagecoach, at sundown the next day. At the hotel, the Dutchman meets guest Ada Winton (Claire Kelly), the lonely mistress of Cyril Lounsberry (Kent Smith).
McBain rescues a Mexican woman, Anita (Katy Jurado), when men accost her on the street. Though Leslie (Adam Williams), the deputy, saves McBain's life in the ensuing fight, he gives McBain the same deadline to leave, even though McBain's folks settled the township. A grateful Anita invites McBain to stay in her place, and the two are attracted to each other.
The Dutchman gets Sample (Robert Emhardt) to introduce him to Lounsberry. Lounsberry had married Bascomb's homely sister for her money. Van Hoek offers to sell him gold ore from an extremely rich deposit that only he knows about. It is worth at least $200,000, but Van Hoek will be satisfied with half that amount in cash. He lies when Lounsberry jokingly asks if it is from his wife's Lisbon Mine. The prospect of being a rich man in his own right and leaving for Europe with Ada makes Lounsberry agree.
Van Hoek recruits a reluctant McBain and demolition expert Vincente (Nehemiah Persoff) for his scheme. They time it so the explosion needed to extract the ore goes off as the same time as the regular blasting. They get the ore out, but when Van Hoek and McBain take it to Lounsberry, he tries to double cross them. Leslie is killed and McBain injured in the ensuing gunfight. Van Hoek takes McBain to Anita's place and digs out the bullet, then leaves in a wagon with the gold. However, Lounsberry, Sample and their men soon corner him in town during a fiesta. McBain goes to the Dutchman's aid. Then Anita has her many Mexican friends surround and disarm the villains. Van Hoek entrusts McBain and Anita with the gold, telling them he will meet them later in Durango to split it up equally. Then, keeping his word, he leaves on the stagecoach with fellow passenger Ada.

Tags: sadist

Review:
Two great stars , Ladd and Borgnine , play two ex-cons who plan a major heist on a gold mine.
A virtual Western remake of the notorious crime drama The Asphalt Jungle by John Huston that was based on the novel written by W.R. Burnett , but you'd certainly never prefer it to this classic Film Noir .Turn of the century Nevada, 1888 Arizona Federal Prision , Ladd and Borgnine are two inmates who get their freedom .
But Ladd seeks vendetta from the people of the small mining town that accused him wrongly , while Borgnine wants to go straight .
The plot is simple in the wake of Noir Films , it has two ex convicts who plan a gold robbery against Kent Smith who cheated them out of their share in a gold mine ; meanwhile , Alan Ladd and Ernest Borgnine fall for two beautiful women , Claire Kelly and Katy Jurado .
Main cast is pretty good such as the sober Alan Ladd and sensational Ernest Borgnine as the tough and honorable ex-inmate.
Delmer was a cool Hollywood filmmaker who shot all kinds of genres , as Noir : Dark passage, The red house ; Drama: Parrish , A summer place , Never let me go ,Rome adventure ; Adventure : Treasure of the golden condor , Demetrius and the gladiators ; Wartime : Destination Tokyo, Task force and specially Westerns such as The hanging tree , Drum beat , Cowboy , 3:10 to Yuma, Jubal , and his most known film Broken Arrow with James Stewart..
One of Ladd's best later films, with a fine Borgnine match.
Vividly filmed in Cinemascope in the best late-50's MGM style, this loose remake of The Asphalt Jungle in a Western setting has some good acting and takes a different road.
The relationship of Alan Ladd and Ernest Borgnine is consistently interesting and unpredictable throughout, and Katy Jurado offers a standout performance.
This is the kind of film that you want to find when you sit down on a Sunday afternoon to have some "TV time".Alad Ladd is as solid and dependable as ever with his usual "cool and unruffled" persona and is probably the least effective of all of the leads!Ernest Borgnine and Katy Jurado initially look like an unlikely pairing but as the film progresses they "gel" more and more.
For me the two are the real stand-out performers in this film.I don't want to say too much more on the other characters for fear of giving plot away but suffice to say there is not a stinker amongst them although I have to say that I felt Claire Smith as Ada Winton was a bit invisible to the point where I actually thought a the end of the film "Oh, is she back then; where did she come from?"One thing that has puzzled me however is who was the actress that played Vincente's wife?
This is one of Ladds better films, Bourgnine always adds to a film, Katy Jerado of "High Noon" fame is just great, and the rest of the cast work well.
If they ever restore this, and it is worth restoring, I would have a new soundtrack done for it.Still, this is a good film, a great western, and worth a watch.
You would not see Alan Ladd playing more complex characters, like Richard Widmark, Gary Cooper, Glenn Ford or James Stewart, which were in other Daves' westerns.
Ernest Borgnine and Katy Jurado give the best performances of the film, both play people who have had a terrible life but find hope in each other's arms.
Whilst watching The Badlanders, it struck me just how similar most of what was playing out was to one of your more typically hard boiled crime novellas; indeed, further reading reveals the film's roots are wholly embedded within the realms of crime fiction transfused with heist genre tendencies, the film effectively a remake of 1950's The Asphalt Jungle which itself was adapted from a book of the same name.
The film's structure of somewhat hardened folks let loose from jail, but with differing sets of ideas in how to live out the remainder of one's life, before going on to get involved with rather maddeningly attractive women; the grief which comes with that and the promise of the robbing of some riches which is mingling around in the area, you might say is wholly generic in the typical sense.
The transporting of the tale form whatever decrepit urbanised locale you like, indeed a proverbial jungle formed out of concrete, and back to the Wild West does nothing to cease the pleasures garnered out of such generic conventions; The Badlanders eventually formulating into an absorbing piece balancing these crooks clashing in their post-incarceration existences, with their plannings of heists born out of devilish back-stories, with the betrayals that might naturally unfold post-heist.The Hellish truths which loomed over most of James Mangold's 2007 3:10 to Yuma remake, and most probably the majority of both Delmer Daves' original and the initial novel, is here, in this film, thrust upon us without much in the way of pleasantries.
Delmer Daves is back, his 1958 film The Badlanders plunging us into those realities of Yuma jail by plunging its two principal characters into the deep end of grief and strife as a result of being on the inside.
We're at the back end of the nineteenth century; the searing sun in this, the dusty; grotty locale of Arizona searing down onto that of both its chief players: Ernest Borgnine's John McBain and Alan Ladd's Peter Van Hoek, nicknamed "Dutch".Both men are released on account of their sentences running out at once, Dutch after a stretch that saw a corrupt marshal plant evidence onto his person that saw him put away and McBain because of his amoral lifestyle which saw him put away, but during which his Yuma stretch has reformed him.
Plans formulate, McBain appears to come back on board when he cannot find work and the tension is cranked up when the crew Dutch eventually enlists through a corrupt local official named Lounsberry (Smith) are given a mere few days to execute the heist following an interaction with a lawman giving them a strict ultimatum to get out of town.At stake is the overbearing threat of returning to Yuma, those jibes riddled with hostilities and unpleasantness that the guards uttered upon the men's release still ringing in the ear as the reality of life on the inside in those opening sequence resonates.
The love stories and promise of happier times born out of the obtaining of the gold act well as items utilised in creating a greater sense of urgency, McBain's Mexican partner effectively forced into going back to the life fraught with what came with it if everything does not succeed, whereas the film playfully toys as to whether Lounsberry is to be trusted as the job itself undergoes numerous hold ups and problematic situations which threaten to scupper the plans of a group of people we have come to be rather fond of.
It was my first acquaintance with both Alan Ladd and Ernest Borgnine.
Delmar Daves is a pretty good director of westerns and action is what they got here.Mind you The Badlanders is a good film for the Saturday afternoon trade, but it was done so much better before.Alan Ladd is Peter Van Hoek, mining engineer who has a heist in mind of his former employers.
He's looking for confederates and he enlists a former cell-mate from Yuma prison who is played by Ernest Borgnine.
The Badlanders is a perfect example of the kind of films he was doing after Shane, routine action flicks which could easily have been done as the plot of any number of television westerns that were sprouting all over the place at that time.Ernest Borgnine was still on the crest of his career from his Oscar winning performance in Marty three years before.
He even got his then wife Katy Jurado in this film as his love interest.Nice cast that's familiar to western lovers round out the film.
While it retains much of the strengths of Burnett's script (the crisp dialogue, the class structure of the underworld) it benefits from the Western setting; the gold heist is engaging, the women are better integrated into the tale, the threat is more present.) Alan Ladd, while a bit puffy at this stage in his life, is still charming and clever enough for the lead.
The Badlanders is directed by Delmer Daves (Broken Arrow/3:10 to Yuma) and it stars Alan Ladd, Ernest Borgnine, Claire Kelly & Katy Jurado.
It's based on W.R. Burnett's novel The Asphalt Jungle, only with a Western variation as opposed to John Huston's film noir movie of the same name from 1950.
The plot follows Peter Van Hoek, known as the Dutchman (Ladd), and John McBain (Borgnine), as they get released from Arizona Territorial Prison in Yuma in 1898.
An intricate plan involving stealing gold from the Lisbon Mine is hatched, it's a chance to get rich, get revenge or maybe get killed?It's really just a solid piece of film, Ladd & Borgnine play it right, and with Daves adding his customary flecks of humour, it's never less than entertaining.
Except for a good old punch up as Borgnine tackles three rebel rouser's types, and the inevitable double cross based finale, the film is more concerned with forming bonds and educating in the way of getting gold out the mine.
Alan Ladd plays the role of the Dutchman who was framed for stealing gold and is a very educated man with lots of experience in mining for gold.
Ernest Borgnine, (John McBain) is in prison for killing a man and they are both released from prison together.
There are plenty of men in town watching what John McBain and Dutchman are up to and they run into some very difficult situations which will keep you guessing just how this film will eventually end.
Recently released from prison, Alan Ladd and Ernest Borgnine head to the town where each was done wrong years before.
Delmer Daves directs this enjoyable western remake of The Asphalt Jungle.
Alan Ladd is good in what is probably my favorite film of his post-Shane.
Ernest Borgnine and Katy Jurado steal the movie playing very sympathetic likable characters.
"The Badlanders" stars Alan Ladd and Ernest Borgnine and the film is about two ex-cons who are out to pull off a gold robbery.
However, I think Borgnine steals more than the gold, as his performance easily outshines Ladd--making this supporting role the main focus for the audience.
With Borgnine, however, he has a romance in the film (with future wife, Katy Jurardo) and he is very good in these scenes.When the story begins, the Dutchman (Ladd) and Mac (Borgnine) are getting out of prison.
Most heist films are good and it's an excellent genre, but this one particular excels due to the location (the old west) and Borgnine's terrific acting.
Just about any scene involving Ernest Borgnine and Katy Jurado, for example.
Some of the twists in the plot are also quite predictable.This said, the movie moves along at a good pace, the action scenes are good, and the ending wraps up the story nicely.Good performance by Alan Ladd in the lead role.
Good support from Ernest Borgnine, Katy Jurado and Claire Kelly.
Two ex-cons plan a gold heist from a mine that was stolen from one of them.The movie's uneven, with several compelling parts (the gang assault on Anita {Jurado}, the overhead shots of the mobs coming together).
At this stage of his career, Ladd was apparently drinking heavily and unfortunately it shows.Director Daves was responsible for a number of superior westerns during this period, including 3:10 to Yuma (1957), and Jubal (1956), among others.
It's Delmer Daves' next to last western and it shows ;even if Ladd and Borgnine make a good pairing,we begin to feel in "badlanders " what will come next;the scenes between Borgnine and the always reliable Katy Jurado (the hooker with a big heart) are full of finer feelings and Daves seems more interested in filming them than the -suspenseful,however-sequences in the mine ;after "the hanging tree" ,an ultimate western which also contains elements of melodrama ,all his career will consist of pure melodramatic stuff ("Parish" and "Susan Slade " are good examples,and quite entertaining and they were heralded by "kings go forth" )"badlanders "holds his movie balanced ,particularly in the scene when the Mexicans intervene in favor of the two heroes ;it seems that Ladd's love affair was botched intentionally or else the western buffs would have been disappointed;you can prefer,nevertheless, works such as "broken arrow" "3:10 to Yuma" or "the last wagon"..
As a western remake of "The Asphalt Jungle," THE BADLANDERS falls far short of the mark.
Instead, director Delmer Daves manages to keep the tale fairly taut amid western locales with the usual assortment of good and bad motives for his leading players.Ladd gives his usual self-assured portrayal as a man unjustly serving time in prison, but it's Ernest Borgnine who has the strongest role and makes the most of it.
Furthermore, his teaming with Katy Jurado (his then wife in real life) makes for some of the story's best scenes.Filmed in CinemaScope and Technicolor, with good use of all the location photography, it's really little more than a standard western with some good action scenes and a capable cast, including Kent Smith as a silky smooth villain and Anthony Caruso in another one of his tough guy roles.
It's neat how Alan Ladd pulls a slug out of Ernest Borgnine.
*** The Badlanders (1958) Delmer Daves ~ Alan Ladd, Ernest Borgnine, Katy Jurado.
Ernest Borgnine and Alan Ladd made a great combo and their friendship, which began in Yuma Teritoral Prison, proved beneficial to both as the story develops.
Katy Jurado does a good job with her part and the relationship between her and Borgnine is well-written and played.
Here we have Alan Ladd as "The Dutchman", educated criminal who wants to steal a pile of gold.
Overall, the film is pretty satisfying with a couple of good looking women to keep our heros busy and one who helps save them in the end..
Opening in Yuma prison this western gets off to a gritty start as we see a prisoner being flogged; he isn't one of our protagonists though; they are Peter 'The Dutchman' Van Hoek, a mining engineer framed for a robbery at the mine he worked in and John 'Mac' McBain, the conned out of the land the mine was built on.
Alan Ladd and the recently deceased Ernest Borgnine do fine jobs as The Dutchman and Mac respectively.
As with most westerns there is some female interest for the protagonists; Katy Jurado plays a Mexican woman who is rescued by Mac when set upon by thugs; this helps establish that his character is a good man at heart.
Alan Ladd is one of the greatest western film stars ( which is why he was elected to the Western Performers Hall Of Fame in 2017), and 'The Badlanders' offers perhaps his lightest performance ever ( I have never seen Ladd smile so much in a movie and his dialogue with Ernest Borgnine is lighthearted and v ery well done).
I know this is a remake of 'The Asphalt Jungle' ( a very different setting and outcome then here), but if you like Ladd ( one of my favorites), westerns, or "Buddy Films" ( which this certainly is) you will like it.
3: Anita ( Katy Jurado), a Mexican prostitute in Arizona ( it was filmed in Tucson) who.has a huge heart towards others.
Spoilers Ahead: The story involves stealing gold from a mine by "The Dutchman" and McBain and how ( with the help of Anita) overcome a double cross by Cyrul.Lounsberry ( Kent Smith), the husband of the owner of the mine).
At the end they get the gold and keep it ( unlike 'The Asphalt Jungle') and because Anita saved both 'The Dutchman' and McBain, she got a full share, and she and McBain will get married, while 'The Dutchman' gets Ada. Again a must for Ladd fans.
SYNOPSIS: Alan Ladd plays a Dutchman (!) who wants to rob a mine in Prescott, Arizona.
But Ernest falls in love with an attractive Mexican girl, Katy Jurado.COMMENT: Well below what you would expect of a Daves western, especially as it was made so close to "Three Ten to Yuma" and "The Last Wagon".
Of course, Alan Ladd also exerted some influence on the movie, insisting on the hiring of the noted film noir cameraman, John Seitz, who has certainly contrived some striking effects.
It stars Alan Ladd, late in his career and looking it, and Ernest Borgnine as ex-convicts who, at least initially, don't want anything to do with one another but end up working together.The film opens in a Yuma prison camp where Ladd has 10 months left on his sentence, but Borgnine has only one more day to serve.
After Borgnine leaves, the warden asks Ladd why he never acted like a prisoner when he was inside.
Both of these men work for Lounsberry and Ladd wants Sample to arrange a meeting for him with the big man.
While Ladd is meeting with Sample, Borgnine comes in.
Meanwhile, Ladd gets his meeting with Lounsberry and shows him the gold ore sample.
You really have to sit down and think things through before you can screw up a film noir classic like John Huston's "The Asphalt Jungle" (1949).
Ernest Borgnine and Katy Jurado aren't bad.
(Boom, and a cloud of dust, masking who's who.) And during this supposedly tense scene, the music pounds, and it sounds like it's from a horror film, not a Western drama, as if that vampire had dragged it along behind him.It's not a lousy movie.
It looks like a perfunctory Western movie.It begins with punishment being dished out in Yuma Territorial Prison in Arizona.