Professor Elam

Thursday Feb 2, 2012

The Professionals  One of my favorite movies is on Turner Classics at 7 PM tonite. The great thing about Turner classics is both Robert Osborn's interviews about the films and the fact that there are no commercials. As one female reviewer in my special edition DVD remarks, the dialog crackles among hte ensemble cast. And what a cast, Lee Marvin, Burt Lacaster, Robert Ryan, Woody Strode, Claudia Cardinale, Ralph Bellamy, and City Slicker star Jack Palance, it gets no better than this action fans. 

And the movie features one of my favorite ethical lines for accounting class (wondered how I would tie this to accounting didn't you, come on now, admit it…)

Marvin gets the money from Bellamy to bail Lancaster out of jail. Bellamy (Grant in the movie) has proposed a daring rescue attempt by those men to rescue his kidnapped wife.  Discussing the proposition, and now freed from jail, Lancaster remarks, my word to Grant doesn't mean anything to me. 

Marvin turns on his heels, looks solemnly at his friend and replies, 

You gave your word to me. 

and that boys and girsl is what Ethics is/are all about….

None of us are any better than keeping our promises to our friends and the stakeholders in the workplace. A common complaint of all group assignments in school is that if it involves four people, someone is a slacker, and the rest of the group always resents that person. 

There are no slackers in the Professionals. Get the popcorn…..

Ohter notable films of that era with similar themes are The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape.