The Magnificent Seven

Day 248 - 9/5/09 - Movie #244

BEFORE: Another well-regarded iconic Western, with another famous theme song, starring Eli Wallach (back-to-back!), Steve McQueen (seen last in "Papillon") and Yul Brynner. I really only know Yul Brynner from "The King and I", so I'm looking forward to seeing him in something else. Wait, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn and James Bronson, too? Damn, this movie is filled with extra testosterone! I picked this DVD up at the $5 DVD store a few weeks back...

THE PLOT: An oppressed Mexican peasant village assembles seven gunfighters to help defend their homes.

AFTER: The DVD liner notes called this the last great Western before Sergio Leone re-invented the genre. Yes, this is a manly movie, filled with manly man's men doing manly things - like defending a Mexican village from bandits, not because it's profitable, just because it's the right thing to do.

Actually, the seven men have different motivations, and that goes a long way toward making them distinct characters. Yul Brynner is Chris Adams, the ringleader, McQueen is Vin, the philosopher, Horst Buchholz is Chico, the eager youngster with little experience, and Robert Vaughn is Lee, who has the experience, but lacks the courage.

And how tough is Steve McQueen? Tough enough to play a cowboy wearing a pink shirt and bandanna, and still be a manly man. The villagers all wear white, which is very considerate of them, so we can distinguish them from the bandits during the big shootout. I also noticed that none of the Mexicans seem to have Mexican accents, except of course for Eli Wallach, who is not Mexican at all - the actor is Jewish and from New York...

Still, it's a classic. Based, of course, on the famous Kurosawa film "The Seven Samurai", which I've never seen. But I'm not putting that on my list, I have no interest in it. Kudos to whoever decided to draw the parallels between Samurai warriors and American cowboys. And this really gets into the methodology of gunslingers, by comparing them to the farmers of the village.

RATING: 7 out of 10 gunbelts