Five films in and five different experiences. I understand a genre can can stretch and explore different elements. Heck, this is unrelated to westerns, but take a look at this trailer for Fox's upcoming New Mutants Film. That is a straight up horror film hiding out in the X-Men universe. And I think that kind of stretching is long overdue with super hero comic book films (There are some examples of this already, but the bulk are just origin stories or beat em ups). It looks like I was not giving westerns enough credit for the vast differences in stories it can tell while guys are just wearing hats and shooting guns.
Knowing ahead of time that The Magnificent Seven is a remake of The Seven Samurai already tipped me off that I was in for a different kind of ride.
Film #5 The Magnificent Seven (1960)
Here is the imdb.com cast listing. Here is the wikipedia page about the production.
The behind scenes drama on this surpasses Johnny Guitar. The links above will give you that story and I will speak to it a little later because it is will be worth noting as I get more into my thoughts about the film.
The plot is very straight forward but the amount of characters and motivations complicate it in very satisfying ways. A poor mexican village is raided by bandits lead by Calvera (Eli Wallach). He takes most of everything but leaves them just enough to survive on until he comes back. The villagers are tired of just scrapping by and decide to head north into Texas to get guns. When the trio of villagers arrive in Texas, they meet Chris (Yul Brynner) who tells them they can buy weapons but that men with guns are cheaper. So, hearing their plight and seeing what small amount of money the village can put together, Chris agrees to locate gunslingers to face off against Calvera. Along the way, Chris picks up the following crew: Vin Tanner (Steve McQueen), a gambler with no money that doesn't want to take a job as a grocery clerk to make ends meet, Harry Luck (Brad Dexter) a guy who is convinced Chris has a bigger score in mind than the 20 dollars offered, Britt (James Colburn) a gangly unassuming man who is the best there is a with a gun and knife and likes the challenge, Bernado O'Reily (Charles Bronson) a famous gun for higher that has fallen on hard times, Lee (Robert Vaughn) a dapper wanted man who's unsure about his abilities anymore, and Chico (Horst Bucholz), a young hot head who wants to prove he belongs with the rest of Chris's men. They then set up their defenses in the town and train the villagers to fight knowing Calvera is coming sooner than later.
This film is all about the important question, 'What's worth fighting for?' Each man has their own motivation for why they take the job and for some it changes after they get to know village and see how badly Calvera has damaged their day to day living and their spirit. This town may never amount to anything other than being a small plot of farmers, but that doesn't mean that its people should live in fear and not hope that their hard work will provide for their family and their future. It is almost a matter of principal that the seven take a stand against Calvera. A man should not be allowed to take from others with force what he has not worked for. The seven aren't necessarily good men, they are there because they are being paid after all, but they understand there is a difference between right and wrong and good and evil.
A good example of this is when the men sit down to a large meal and O'Reilly comes in to tell them how little the town has to live on and what meager meals they serve themselves. There is no argument, they stand outside and feed the town the food they have. It is a small moment but it shows their inherent honor.
So when Calvera shows up to take what he thinks is his ("If God didn't want them sheared, he wouldn't have made them sheep") and meets the seven for the first time right before the halfway mark of the film, it lights the powder keg that is the ending showdown.
Most of the seven calling out Calvera for being the bully and thief he is while his forty men look on is very powerful. There is a certain type of macho pride posing that I feel like is prevalent in westerns and it shows here, however Chris and his men are confident in their ability and are trying to use words to send Calvera on his way first, so it doesn't feel so much like a pissing contest but more of an attempt to resolve the situation as men talking to men before taking it to the inevitable bloody conclusion. Yul Brynner's calm demeanor when he tells them to ride on is just cool. When Steve McQueen says, 'We deal in lead, friend,' is not only bad ass, it is a statement of fact.
When the lead is dealt, it comes with consequences. Not everyone makes it out and that was refreshing to me as it felt very natural to expect to see that with such uneven odds that some would not make it, but for a big budget western in 1960 with a lot of great names in the cast to have some of them die was a bold decision.
There is a sense of weight and loss here. You get to know the town and the seven, so when you see someone like the hard ass O'Reilly telling the children of the village in his last breaths to look at how brave their fathers are for standing up and fighting for their families and their town, it packs a punch. When Lee finally overcomes his fear and fires his guns, you actually cheer for him but that victory is taken away so fast that it stops your breath.
After reading about how the relationship between Brynner and McQueen deteriorated during the course of making this film, and how the screenwriter refused to show up on set to assist with rewrites and how the rest of the cast was worried they wouldn't get their fair share of screen time, this film should have been a disaster. The fact that I bought into Chris and Vin's friendship until the very end is a testament to what happens behind the scenes doesn't always end up in front of the camera.
It is ironic that a film about unity against big odds would be built upon such chaos. Somehow though, the parts do come together into a greater whole.
This is a great film and I look forward to chasing down The Seven Samurai and the 2016 remake.
Western Checklist (nowhere near official or scientific):
- Weird gang member names? Not that I can recall but Calvera's name is very close to calavera, Spanish for skull, which is good name for a bad guy.
- Beautiful Landscapes? Absolutely. This was shot in Mexico and their mountains are very different than that of Monument Valley. The trees and the streams brought a different feel to this film and it was wonderful.
- Odd musical cue's early in the film to denote whimsical comedy? No. Not even when Chico was taunting a poor emaciated bull.
- Does a building catch fire? No. In fact, the town gets some nice new walls in the process. Way to go, Magnificent Home Makeover Seven!
- How many Ernest Borgnines? None, but you don't need him when you have Charles Bronson. His speech to the kids about what true bravery is was a surprisingly deep moment for the sarcastic and usually silent O'Reilly.
- Wait, is that a robot? Yul Brynner's outfit is the exact same one they had him in 1973's Westworld. Having seen that first, I didn't appreciate how devoid of emotion that character was versus his performance here as Chris. Its a cool look. Scarier as a robot though.
- Does it have a theme song with the name of the film in the title? No, but the score by Elmer Bernstein (check out his work, he has shaped your day to day life and you didn't know it) is pretty much what cemented how all American westerns would sound moving forward. (In fact, while watching this film, I couldn't help but think of The Three Amigos due to a similar plot hook and the music... which he did).
Rating:
Five tins stars out of five! This is a great film with great performances and many many highly quotable lines. I can easily see myself coming back to this film again once I am done with my list. There is a reason why this story works and why it is used over and over and over again.
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