This is a Zapata western set early XX century on the overlong Mexican civil when happened the confrontation executed by Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata against Porfirio Diaz , and , later on , against Carránza and Obregón . A misfit group formed by a bandit priest (Robert Mitchum) , an IRA Irish young man (Ken Hutchinson) and a gunrunner (Victor Buono) , all of them are hired by a Mexican colonel (John Colicos) to kill De la Plata (Frank Langella) , a Mexican tyrant .
The picture displays lots of action , battles , tongue-in-cheek , shootouts and a little bit of violence like the brutal killing a little boy . The casting is frankly well , Robert Mitchum (¨Night of the hunter¨ , ¨5 card stud¨ , ¨Bandido¨) is excellent in his usual facade of indifference and lazily acting as a greedy priest and wielding a Thomson machine-gun . Mitchum chewing up scenery in this peculiar role . The newcomer Ken Hutchinson provides added depth as an Irish terrorist with a bitter past ; however , this one being his most important role , as he went back England and only acting in TV movies . Frank Langella (¨Drácula¨) plays an elegant psycho killer who bears a deep hatred to Catholic Church . The famed secondary Victor Buono (¨What ever happened to Baby Jane¨ , ¨Hush , hush..sweet Charlotte¨) plays convincingly an avaricious gunrunner . Enjoyable performance by Rita Hayworth in his last completed film (her previous movies during her downfall were the Italian ones : ¨The bastards¨ and ¨The rover¨) , despite Alzheimer disease . In fact , she had difficulty remembering her lines and the crew believed it was because of alcohol abuse , but only later did they realize they were seeing the early stages of her Alzheimer's condition . Besides , there appears habitual secondaries who usually work in American productions shot in Mexico , such as : Gregory Sierra , Enrique Lucero and Chano Urueta . The motion picture was rightly directed by Ralph Nelson who made other good Westerns as ¨Soldier Blue¨ and ¨Duel at Diablo¨ . This offbeat Western will appeal to Robert Mitchum fans.
