One of the best action-adventure films of the Sixties, epitomised, perhaps, by Burt Lancaster, biting on a cigar butt and wriggling through enemy lines with a fistful of explosive and a fuse timed to burn to the exact second.

Gunfights, train ambushes and night-time raids are equally well handled as the action thunders on its way.

Lancaster's deadly charm impresses - like an iron fist in a velvet glove.

And director Richard Brooks' adaptation of a Frank O'Rourke novel pares the dialogue to a terse minimum, letting action and the fierce Nevada desert locations speak eloquently of the dangers facing the quartet of adventurers.