Spectacular gun battles, epic-sized heroes and an all-star cast that includes Academy AwardÂ(r) winners Yul Brynner* and James Coburn**, together with Steve McQueen, Eli Wallach and Charles Bronson, make The Magnificent Seven a legend among westerns. Spawning three sequels and a successful television series, and featuring Elmer Bernstein’s OscarÂ(r)-nominated*** score, thisstunning remake of The Seven Samurai is “a hard-pounding adventure” (Newsweek) and “an enduringly popular” (Leonard Maltin) cinematic classic. Merciless Calvera (Wallach) and his band of ruthless outlaws are terrorizing a poor Mexican village, and even the bravest lawmen can’t stop them. Desperate, the locals hire Chris Adams (Brynner) and six other gunfighters to defend them. With time running out before Calvera’s next raid, the heroic seven must prepare the villagers for battle and help them find the courage to take back their town or die trying!Akira Kurosawa’s rousing Seven Samurai was a natural for an American remake–after all, the codes and conventions of ancient Japan and the Wild West (at least the mythical movie West) are not so very far apart. Thus The Magnificent Seven effortlessly turns samurai into cowboys (the same trick worked more than once: Kurosawa’s Yojimbo became Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars). The beleaguered denizens of a Mexican village, weary of attacks by banditos, hire seven gunslingers to repel the invaders once and for all. The gunmen are cool and capable, with most of the actors playing them just on the cusp of ’60s stardom: Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn. The man who brings these warriors together is Yul Brynner, the baddest bald man in the West. There’s nothing especially stylish about the approach of veteran director John Sturges (The Great Escape), but the storytelling is clear and strong, and the charisma of the young guns fairly flies off the screen. If that isn’t enough to awaken the 12-year-old kid inside anyone, the unforgettable Elmer Bernstein music will do it: bum-bum-ba-bum, bum-ba-bum-ba-bum…. Followed by three inferior sequels, Return of the Seven, Guns of the Magnificent Seven, and The Magnificent Seven Ride! –Robert Horton
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March 10, 2008
#1
I’m a truly Western fan. I have seen all of the sequels to the Magnificent Seven. And, I’ve got to tell you this is about the best all-star Western movies I’ve seen. When I saw THE SEVEN SAMURAI, I had’nt encounterd a remake of the classic Japanese film about Seven Samurai who save a village from bandits. The American version done it just. Look like, they would continue the series since it was called “THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN” Instead of making The Magnificent Seven, Return Of The Seven, Guns Of The Magnificent Seven and The Magnificent Seven Ride! why didn’t they finish the sequels by adding three more sequels to finish the series. Yul Brynner if he didn’t want to play Chris, I’m sure there were several other actors that would love to play Chris. Return Of The Seven was awsome too! But I didn’t like it that Chris recruited Manuel, a chicken thief to fill out number six. If I was Chris I would have recruited that bully who was fighting Manuel, at least he knew a little something about a gun. I hated it that he got killed in it. For Guns of the Magnificent Seven, the cast were great but the characters were new. I don’t think that Max was a real recruit. Again, I wouldn’t have picked him. I would try to go and find someone else if I could. Finally, The Magnificent Seven Ride! was a good action-Western to watch as well. The five convicts and a dude writer ride south of the border to help a town filled with women. Again the characters are new, now Chris is acting Marshal and is married. He quits and wants revenge for a thief who turned killer and rapist againist Chris’s wife. The new characters are: Pepe, Walt, Noah, Hayes, Skinner, Elliot they are pretty good. Again I wish they had finished the series with three more sequels to live up the title’s name.
March 10, 2008
#2
This movie is awful. Even the tremendous star power cannot save this horrendous script. Cheesy scene follows cheesy scene. Watch the cheese as Yul Bryner counts to seven as he rounds up his men. Stare in disbelief as the bad guys stupidly and inexplicably let the 7 go after capture, only to have the 7 come back to save the day, of course.
Fans of classic John Wayne movies (e.g., ‘The Searchers’, ‘Red River’) and Sergio Leone’s epic westerns (Leone’s ‘Fistful of Dollars’ also based on a Kurosawa film) will probably be terribly disappointed. This movie will appeal to lovers of feel-good duds like Armageddon and Independence Day.
March 10, 2008
#3
Forget this dog and anything else done by Sturges. They all look like pool patio party night at Rock Hudson’s all-male mansion.
The original Seven Samaurai is so far and away superior to this all-male revue, which as in all Sturges’s film features his unknown beefcake of the week, here a German kid forced to grimace and grunt as the Hollywood stereotype Mexican gunfighter, here poorly stealing the role of the young want-to-be young Samurai in the original. Sturges failed to make the very real and human message of the orignial part of his plastic production. Both do or do not get the girl in the end, but in which one do you care?
A great tragedy occured when Anthony Quinn who originally had the idea to make Seven Samurai into a Western did not get the backing in time to do somethnig decent with it. Instead we have this absolutely ridiculous and racist dog, in which Jewish Brooklyn’s best Eli Wallch is forced to sweat and grunt and grimace as if a stereotypical Mexican bandit. Sergio Leone used him to much greater effect later. Same actor; better job.
Don’t waste your time and money on nothnig but a magnificent soundtrack. Get the original Seven Samurai. Way better, and you will be spared the embarrassment which is this Sturges mess. For a further example, compare Bronson’s woodcutting warrior scene stolen from the original with Kurasawa’s scene, and tell me which tells far more of a story. Even cheat by leaving on the commentator. Which one seems more real, and more funny?
And once again it wasn’t Bronson’s fault that Sturges is an idiot. Look at what Sergio Leone did with Bronson, telling his whole life’s story with a stare in Once Upon a Time in the West, a far more interesting western than any of Sturge’s all-male fantasies.
Get the Kurasawa original Seven Samurai and you will never stop replaying it and always learn something new each time. The running commentary by some American guy isn’t all that obnoxious after all. Then get Throne of Blood and you will never see Technicolor again.
But skip Sturges at all costs.
March 10, 2008
#4
thought the movie was ok, its way too long and very boring in some spots, definitely appeals to the older guys and the mexicans couldn’t speak any better english in the film
March 10, 2008
#5
This movie was made in the days before film-makers realized that people were sophisticated enough to recognize corn when they saw it. Horz Bucholz’s impetuous kid act was just total corn. Talk about bad acting. Robert Vaughn deliberately affects some kind of bizarre weakling voice quality.
The whole premise of the movie was that the villagers were wothless cowards but Bronson goes off his head proclaiming how brave they are because they’re dirt scratching farmers. The 40 banditos ride into the village and the hired guns(the seven) expose themselves in positions where they could easily be shot by less than half of 40 banditos.
The banditos get the drop on the seven when the seven return to the village and the ultimate in movie absurdity happens. The banditos let the seven go on their merry way AND give them their guns back. Any self respecting Mexican bandito would have slit their throats, but not in this fantasy universe. This is truly one of the worst westerns I’ve ever seen. I just don’t understand why this movie has gotten the hype that it has. Probably simply because it had Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen in it.