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The Magnificent Seven is a 1960 American western film directed by John Sturges about a group of hired gunmen protecting a Mexican village from bandits. It is a resetting of Akira Kurosawa's 1954 film, Seven Samurai.
xican village is periodically raided by bandits led by Calvera (Eli Wallach). As he and his men ride away from their latest visit, Calvera promises to return.
Desperate, the village leaders travel to a border town to buy guns to defend themselves.
Discussion
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Quotations
A dollar bill always looks as big to me as a bedspread.
Generosity. That was my first mistake. I leave these people a little bit extra and they hire these men to make trouble.
Graveyards are full of boys who are very young and very proud.
He's a good gun. We aren't going to a church social.
Hmm... come to think of it, it was a silver mine.
I have the most stylish corner of the filthy storeroom out back. That, and one plate of beans. Ten dollars a day.
Encyclopedia
The Magnificent Seven is a 1960 American western film directed by John Sturges about a group of hired gunmen protecting a Mexican village from bandits. It is a resetting of Akira Kurosawa's 1954 film, Seven Samurai.
Plot
A Mexican village is periodically raided by bandits led by Calvera (Eli Wallach). As he and his men ride away from their latest visit, Calvera promises to return.
Desperate, the village leaders travel to a border town to buy guns to defend themselves. They approach a veteran gunslinger, Chris (Yul Brynner). He tells them guns alone will not do them any good; they are farmers, not fighters. They ask him to lead them, but Chris rejects them, telling them a single man is not enough. They keep at him though, and he eventually gives in. He recruits men, though the pay is a pittance.
First to answer the call is the hotheaded, inexperienced Chico (Horst Buchholz), but he is rejected. Harry Luck (Brad Dexter), an old friend of Chris, joins because he believes Chris is looking for treasure. Vin (Steve McQueen) signs on after going broke from gambling. Other recruits include Bernardo O'Reilly (Charles Bronson) (who is also broke), Britt (James Coburn), fast and deadly with his switchblade, and Lee (Robert Vaughn), who is on the run and needs someplace to lie low until things cool down. Chico trails the group as they ride south, and is eventually allowed to join them.
Even with seven, the group knows they will be vastly outnumbered by the bandits. However, their expectation is that once the bandits know they will have to fight, they will decide to move on to some other unprotected village, rather than bother with an all-out battle. Upon reaching the village, the group begins training the residents. As they work together, the gunmen and villagers begin to bond; the gunfighters are enjoying a feast but then realize that the villagers are starving themselves so that the gunfighters will have enough to eat -- they then stop eating and share the food with the village children. Chico finds a woman he is attracted to, Petra (Rosenda Monteros), and Bernardo befriends the children of the village.
Calvera comes back and is disappointed to find the villagers have hired gunmen. After a brief exchange, the bandits are chased away. Later, Chico, who is Mexican himself, and thus blends in, goes into the bandits' camp and returns with the news that Calvera and his men will not simply be moving on, as had been expected. They are planning to return in full force, as the bandits are also broke and starving, and need the crops from the village to survive.
The seven debate whether they should leave. Not having expected a full-scale war, some of the seven as well as some of the villagers are in favor of the group's departure. However, Chris adamantly insists that they will stay. They decide to make a surprise raid on the bandit camp but find it empty. Returning, they are captured by Calvera's men, who have been let into the village by those villagers fearful of the impending fight. Calvera spares the gunfighters' lives because he believes that they have learned that the farmers are not worth fighting for, and (perhaps) because he fears American reprisals if they are killed.
Calvera has them escorted out of town and then contemptuously returns their guns and gun belts.
Despite the odds against them, and despite their betrayal by the villagers, all of Chris' group except Harry decide to return and finish the job the next morning. During the ensuing battle, Harry returns in the nick of time, rescues Chris from certain death, and is mortally wounded. Bernardo is killed protecting children he had befriended; Lee overcomes his fear of death and kills several men before he is killed. Britt is also slain. Seeing the gunmen's bravery, the villagers overcome their own fear, grab whatever they can as weapons, and join the battle. The bandits are routed. Calvera is shot by Chris; puzzled, he asks why a man like Chris came back, but dies without an answer.
As the three survivors leave, Chico decides to stay with Petra. Chris and Vin ride away, pausing briefly at the graves of their fallen comrades. Chris observes, "Only the farmers won. We lost. We always lose."
Cast
Differences from Seven Samurai
Although The Magnificent Seven is modeled so closely on Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai that they share even some dialogue (in different languages), there are several notable differences:
- Samurais villagers are sent to town to hire swordsmen. In this remake, the villagers are sent to town to buy guns. Chris tells them that guns won't be enough, that they'll need gunmen.
- Katsushiro, the aspiring young samurai, and Kikuchiyo, the would-be samurai whose hatred for the farmers hides a painful past, are combined into the single character, Chico. Unlike Kikuchiyo, Chico is not killed at the climax of the film.
- The combination of Katsushiro and Kikuchiyo opens a slot for the Robert Vaughn/Lee character - a gunfighter who has lost his nerve. His pursuit of perfection in his gunplay does mirror Kyuzo.
- The Katsushiro and Kikuchiyo combination also opens a slot for the character of Harry Luck, the gunfighter who is convinced there is some financial gain in protecting the village. There is no comparable character in the original, all the samurai take the job knowing there is nothing more to gain from the job than what's promised.
- In the original, the samurai make a pre-emptive strike against the bandits' campsite, losing one of their own in the process. Thus, when the bandits attack the village, the samurai are short one man, and three more are killed in the battles. In this version, that attack takes place after Calvera's band are initially driven off, and they find that the camp is abandoned.
- The bandit leader Calvera plays a much larger role than any of the unnamed bandits in the original.
- Chico and Katsushiro both fall in love with a farmer's daughter. In Seven Samurai, the farmer's daughter recognizes the impossibility of bridging the class divide and must ignore the samurai once the fighting is over. In The Magnificent Seven, Chico stays behind to be with the peasant girl. As he makes his decision, Chico is shown purposefully rolling up his sleeves in order to start laboring.
- In Seven Samurai, the village elder is killed by the bandits when he refuses to abandon his house, which is an outlying house that the Samurai determined could not be protected. In The Magnificent Seven, the village elder likewise refuses to abandon his house but suffers no repercussions for it.
- Near the climax of The Magnificent Seven, the gunmen are betrayed by frightened villagers who allow Calvera's men to sneak in and take the gunmen by surprise. Although the villagers in Seven Samurai are also portrayed as frightened and momentarily regretful for hiring the Samurai, no comparable scene of betrayal occurs in the story.
Production
Filming began on 1 March, 1960, on location in Mexico, where both the village and the US border town were built for the film. The first scene shot was the first part of the six gunfighters' journey to the Mexican village, prior to Chico being brought into the group.
Cinematographic process
The cinematographic process was anamorphic. This process was developed in the 1940s but not widely used until the 1960s. A film with anamorphic aspect ratio appears wider (more panoramic) than when shot and projected at a ratio of 4:3 (width:height), which had been the industry standard until wide-screen formats gained popularity. This change was intended to give the cinema a look that would further distinguish it from - and give a competing edge over - television (which used the 4:3 format).
Sequels, television series
The film's success inspired three sequels:
None of these were as successful as the original film. The film also inspired a television series, The Magnificent Seven, which ran from 1998 to 2000.
Score
The film's score along with the main theme is by Elmer Bernstein. The score was nominated for an Academy Award in 1961. The original soundtrack was not released at the time until reused and rerecorded by Bernstein for the soundtrack of Return of the Seven. Instead electric guitar cover versions by Al Caiola in the US and John Barry in the UK were successful on the popular charts. A vocal theme not written by Bernstein was used in a trailer.
From 1963 the theme was used in commercials in the USA for Marlboro cigarettes with Victoria Bitter beer in Australia having a similar sounding but different tune. The theme was included in the James Bond film Moonraker (also from United Artists). Other uses include a passage on an album by the rock band Yes in the early 1970s; in the 2004 documentary film Fahrenheit 9/11; in the 2005 film The Ringer; as entrance music for the British band James, as well as episodes of The Simpsons that had a "western" theme (mainly in the episode titled "Dude, Where's My Ranch?").
The score was listed at #8 on AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores.
External links
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