Eleanor Parker stars as Marie Allen, an innocent young woman who has ended up in prison on the charge of Armed Robbery after helping her now-deceased husband rob $40. Confused and scared, she befriends many of the seasoned inmates including Kitty Stark (Betty Garde), Smoochie (Jan Sterling), and Georgia Harrison (Gertrude Michael). Unfortunately, life is hard at the prison thanks to the evil matron Evelyn Harper (Hope Emerson) who makes life hell for anyone who cannot afford to pay her protection money. Even the kindly administrator Ruth Benton (Agnes Moorehead) has no power to stop the ruthless Evelyn. Marie is desperate to make parole as soon as possible before she turns into a cold criminal like everyone else.
This great film directed by Sergio Corbucci, stars Franco Nero as Sergei Kowalski, a mercenary Polish immigrant who is loyal to no one but the yellow of gold. He is hired by the Garcia brothers to ensure that a shipment of silver makes it from their mines to the United States. Unfortunately, when Sergei gets to the silver mine, he finds all the owner's men hanged by a group of Mexican peasants headed by Paco Roman (Tony Musante). With that job now obsolete, Sergei hires himself out to Paco to help escape the troops that have come to annihilate him and his band of rebels. The guerrillas then continue to "liberate" other Mexican towns in the name of the revolution even though they don't really know what they are doing. Inevitably, they must continue to hire the Pole to help them get through each scrape with the law.
Not only do the revolutionaries have to dodge the gendarmes, but they are also being pursued by the ruthless dandy, Curly (Jack Palance). Curly is hunting down Sergei at first because he heard about the silver shipment. But after a confrontation with the opportunist and his band of Mexican guerrillas in which they literally take the shirt from off his back, the villain will stop at nothing to get Kowalski and Paco Roman.
Alternate Titles: Il Mercenario, The Mercenary, A Professional Gun
