THE REVENGERS
US, 1972, 106 minutes, Colour.
William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Woody Strode, Susan Hayward, Arthur Hunnicutt.
Directed by Daniel Mann.
The Revengers is an old-style western, even for the 1970s. It was made in the aftermath of The Wild Bunch which starred William Holden and Ernest Borgnine. It is late in the day also for other stars like Susan Hayward and Woody Strode.
The basis of the plot is not dissimilar from that of the later The Outlaw Josey Wales, with Clint Eastwood. William Holden plays a ranch owner whose family is massacred and his farm destroyed by marauders. He collects another Wild Bunch to go on a journey of revenge.
This is familiar material – conventionally done. The director is Daniel Mann who in the 1950s was able to direct Shirley Booth (Come Back Little Sheba), Anna Magnani (The Rose Tattoo) and Elizabeth Taylor (Butterfield 8) to Oscars.
1. How typical a western on the early Seventies was this? The "Dirty Dozen"-"Wild Bunch" kind of revenge western? Is it a good example of its kind, or is it too contrived and ordinary? Why?
2. How well did the film begin? The setting of the scene, family life, the farm, the song, West Point etc.? How did this create a mood for the film and an understanding of John Benedict's revenge?
3. Response to the massacre? Was it credible? Did it give enough in the film to show that Benedict wanted such revenge?
4. How did the quest make a change in John Benedict? For the worse? Why was he so obsessed? The advice that he received from the sheriff and others? Why did he go on relentlessly?
5. How interesting was the presentation of the Mexican prison? How ugly? The motivation of Benedict in getting such criminals? The deceit in getting them? The personalities of the men - Hoop and his tiresome humour and self-opinion, Job as a black man, the Frenchman and the German, the young man and his impetuosity, Chamaco?
6. What was their response to being set free? Why did they betray Benedict? Why did they return? Was this a contrived dramatic stage of the film?
7. The sequence of the besieging of the fort, with its action and death? Conventional western material or did it add to the film itself?
8. The villain's escape? Did this merely prolong the film or was it a credible piece of development in the adventure?
9. By this stage of the film, how much had Benedict gone downhill? The marshall saying that he did not know him? Could he have changed at this stage? Why didn't he?
101 The encounter between Chamaco and Benedict? why was he so hostile to Chamaco? Was it a rejection of a filial relationship? Why did they leave him for dead?
11. Did the sequence with Nurse Reilly change the tone of the film? The personality of Susan Hayward and her homespun wisdom? As an attractive lull in the revenge theme? Why could she not change John Benedict?
12. Were you surprised when he was imprisoned by the warden of the prison? Was there some justice in this?
13. Were you surprised when the group decided to rescue him? Was this convincing? Had their loyalty been appealed to? What motivated them?
14. How conventional was the Indian siege? The heroism of Benedict and his group?
15. Were the deaths inevitable in this kind of film or did they make sense within the framework of the story? The reality of death in the west?
16. The final confrontation between Benedict and Tarp? The dramatic power of the revenge theme up to this point? Benedict's possibilities for revenge? Why did he turn away?
17. What did the film have to say about the values of the west, frontiers, pioneering, the harshness of life and death, criminals, the Indians, the possibility of justice and revenge and of basic humanity?
