Bandido is a 1956 American Western film starring Robert Mitchum.
The supporting cast includes Ursula Thiess, Gilbert Roland, and Zachary Scott.
The film, set in the Mexican Revolution and filmed on location around Acapulco,
was written by Earl Felton and directed by Richard Fleischer. Robert Mitchum
also co-produced the film through his DRM Productions company.
Production
The film was based on an original screen story by Earl Fenton called Horse Opera.
It was about an American movie company in the early 1900s who is captured by Pancho Villa.
The hero was a soldier of fortune, the right hand man to Pancho Villa,
who falls for the movie company's leading lady, rescues her from Villa,
takes her to Hollywood and becomes a movie star.
A producer, Robert L Jacks liked it and set up the film at United Artists,
with Robert Mitchum to star and Richard Fleischer to direct.
Fleischer had worked with Fenton several times but says the screenwriter
wrote a script which diverted significantly from the original treatment,
removing the movie company, the leading lady, Hollywood and Pancho Villa.
Fleischer wanted to pull out of the project but United Artists were worried
they would lose Mitchum and threatened to sue
This film was shot on location in Mexico at Cuernavaca, Tepetlán, Palo Balero in Xochitepec,
Yautepec de Zaragoza, Acapulco, Iguala and the Hotel Hacienda in Cocoyoc, Morelos.
Reception
Fleischer wrote that the film "turned out to be quite a good, commercially successful picture.
It has, however, absolutely nothing to do with the picture I started out to make."
User Review
Possibly the essential Mitchum is to be found in Fleischer's "Bandido."
15 September 2002 | by Righty-Sock (Mexico)
Quote from rightyDisplay MoreThe Mitchum Adventurer combines awareness and intelligence with a drawling, almost sleepy relaxation... Possibly the essential Mitchum is to be found in this standard action movie - Mitchum stands fearlessly on the balcony of 'Villa Hidalgo' hotel, with a glass of scotch in his hand, to observe the local war, and lob a few hand grenades at the side
which is going to pay him less for his services as a gun-runner...
Mitchum is clearly an adventurer by nature who prefers to make love than war... He does not set out with the intention of fighting in the Mexican civil war... but gets caught up in the struggle of Gilbert Roland and his rebels against the repressive Federales...
Lisa Kennedy, the Thiess character, encounters him soon... and gradually comes to love his nonchalant... laid-back stance... (As usual, Mitchum radiates dignity, intelligence and quiet strength... )
There is an endless battle... followed by a bout of drink... followed by an assault on an ammunition train... followed by a chase across a swamp... followed by a confrontation between rebels and federal troops... and with hundreds of extras running through dust and dodging explosions while nothing much is actually happening...
Gilbert Roland fares better at suggesting the turbulent emotions roiling beneath masculine bravado... His Escobar has a positive flaw: he's desperate for bullets and explosives...
Robert Mitchum was far from being the man in the street, this movement towards increasing involvement made him the representative of the audience in a way that figures of more obviously heroic stature - Peck or Wayne or Gary Cooper - cannot be. His screen persona differed from theirs in its apparent accessibility, without losing the essentially heroic dimension of capacity for action, an ability to deal with situations as they arise...