I do appreciate me a good Western and since it’s been a hot minute since I gave a fresh one a gander, the words “why the hell not?” popped through my thick noggin when I saw this title tucked in with the other rejected DVD’s parked sadly at my local thrift store. Less $5 later and this classic title was clenched in my mitts, ready to be finally experienced.
I’ve always been aware of this flick, largely for it’s cast of 1950’s era heavy-hitters and the fact that it’s a Western adaptation of an older Japanese film – Seven Samurai (1954), but I never sought it out, even when I was having the odd Western flick binge session. In one respect I think my disinterest in the title was largely due to – Westerns noticeably changed in the 1970’s, daring to take on a grittier aesthetic and a more hard-edged (for lack of a better term) approach to depictions of on-screen violence, which eventually baited my younger twisted self’s appreciation for the genre and subsequently pulled me in.
Prior to that heady, progressive period in cinematic history, there always seemed to be a certain cartoonish theatricality to early ‘cowboy’ flicks that left me cold and uncaring. They seemed too silly, too ‘cowboys and Indians’, if you will.
I’d wager that it was this element that also caused arrogant and ignorant Little Kid Me to flippantly dismiss them as lame, ‘old fogie’ movies and not worth my time back in the day…till I saw Young Guns in ’88. “Regulators!”
It’s worth noting that I have seen the 2016 remake of Magnificent by director Antoine Fuqua (Training Day) and I had a really good time with it, to the point where I grabbed a used Blu ray copy when I stumbled upon it in my past travels, though I haven’t seen it since that one and only viewing a few years ago. I should probably rectify that sometime in the near soonish, especially now that I’ve finally seen the ‘source material’ and always enjoy a good comparison.
But since I’m a middle-aged movie-nerd now, with a modicum of film experience and an iota of appreciation for that which came before, it seemed like a perfectly applicable title for a viewing on a dead-still Friday night here in the park, after an annoying-as-hell work week – just me, the fur-baby girls, a solid haul off a Pineapple Paradise 510 and, of course, my trusty pad and pen.
The Magnificent Seven: A small Mexican farming village is preyed upon by a roving gang of bandits. As desperation over the threat grows, a trio of villagers set out to find weapons and assistance to help stave off the impending onslaught. The search yields a rag-tag group of seven gunfighters / outlaws, who are hired (cheaply) to help fend off the marauders. The story details these efforts, inevitably leading to a final conflict as the two groups come to blows over the fate of the village and its simple inhabitants.
PLAY
Scribbles!
-I swear I know this theme. Jaunty. Instantly familiar, I just don’t know where I may have heard it.
-Head ‘bad guy’ IS an asshole. Instantly unlikeable. Good job! Eli Wallach (The Good, The Bad and The Ugly) was a staple in the Western genre of this time period and here he turns up as the head of the gang threatening the village. From the jump, he’s a cocky asshole.
-The melodrama is thick with this one. Over-acting is the name of the game here. There’s that play-like theatricality I always associate with these older Westerns and which always cheapens the narrative, for me.
-Some nice, Lean-like shots. Master director David Lean (Lawrence of Arabia) cornered the market on vast, expansive landscape shots and here, director John Sturges attempts to inject a similar feel into much of his own location and crowd shooting .
-Brynner and McQueen. Ok, boys. Yul Brynner (Westworld) and Steve McQueen (Bullitt) team up for the first time and apparently hated each other in short order; two macho egos competing for screen time and attention. Their first scene has them teaming up out of the blue to escort the coffin of a slain Native man to the town graveyard, despite the racist wishes of several pale-skin town-folk.
-Background ADR dialogue is hilarious. As the coffin is being taken by horse-drawn cart, the angry townspeople yell insults as they pass…only the sound quality on the taunts is absolutely chuckle-worthy, right down to the background echo of where ever it was that these incidental snippets of dialogue were recorded. Too funny.
-Seriously racist assholes. Something about this early scene reminded me of Tarantino’s Django Unchained (2012… and it was the racism.
-Brynner’s accent is odd. Supposed to be Cajun? OK, so actor Yul Brynner was a Russian and I have no idea how, given the Cold War fears and paranoia clouding the public’s perceptions at the time, did he manage to emerge as well-regarded in old school Hollywood as he did. But here, as a dude improbably named ‘Chris’, he’s apparently SUPPOSED to be a Cajun…who just happens to speak English with a most noticeable Eastern Bloc lilt.
-You friggin wuss! Go cry, you big baby! This young upstart character named ‘Chico’ (Horst Buchholz) turns up on the scene, wanting to join the group and prove himself in the eyes of the veteran gun-fighters and outlaws, and he just comes off like a spastic cry-baby, especially when his challenges are rebuffed.
-Curious about restored version. I love seeing the successful restorations of older films and the picture quality I was watching on the DVD version had me pondering.
-Bronson! Mr. Deathwish himself, Charles Bronson, turns up as a down-on-his-luck gunfighter named ‘O’Reilly’ who joins the effort.
-Coburn! James Coburn (Young Guns 2) pops in as a quick-draw gun-slinger named ‘Britt’.
-Young dude’s an idiot. Toro! This is circling back around to ‘Chico’, who just can’t help himself and starts imitating a clownish Spanish bull-fighter when he stumbles upon a lazy cow standing out in the woods, for no reason at all, and he just comes off like he deserves a few scoops of high-speed hot lead to put him out of his misery…and everyone else’s.
-Prepper montage, of course. As they do in flicks of this type, you have to have the obvious and highly cliched montage of our heroes and the plucky townspeople banding together to whip up their ad-hoc defenses as they await the villain’s arrival.
-Too much score. Another product of the cinematic sensibilities coming out of the 1950’s was the overuse of annoyingly orchestral music. Here, the movie isn’t given still or quiet moments in which to breath. Instead, the overly brassy score keeps popping up to intrude.
-Robert Vaughn! WTF?! His odd character ‘Lee’ has some serious PTSD issues and he spends a lot of time in an unintentionally amusing state of mental anguish.
-Day-for-night NEVER works. Slapping a deep blue filter over top footage CLEARLY shot during the day is a primitive technique that always betrays itself for what it is.
-The laser-gun ricochets are amusing. I was acutely reminded of the Martian death-rays from The War of the Worlds (1954). In a Western? No. Just…no.
-Stupid lil bastards got Bronson killed! *SPOILERS* A trio of pre-teen Mexican miscreants hound Bronson’s character for a chunk of the flick, for their own amusement, and in the end, he’s pushed to sacrifice himself in a hail of bullets they probably would / should’ve taken.
-Feels overly simple. Lacking in depth. Not much character. The core idea IS a simple one…but when the 3rd Act was wrapping up, it felt like not much had actually been accomplished, there hadn’t been any notable arcs for any of the main characters. It felt like 15 or so minutes of connective tissue and character building was MIA.
-Charmingly cheesy. Definitely a product of it’s time. An apt summary, if I’ve ever seen one.
I’m glad that I finally took a couple minutes (2 hours and 8 min, actually) and checked out 1960’s The Magnificent Seven, if for no other reason than historical reference and appreciation. It’s perfectly serviceable as a ‘Western’, all the more so if it’s appreciated as a product of its time.
It was cool to see the old-school roster of Hollywood heavy-weights, made all the more intriguing after you find out about the crazy, ego-driven insanity that plagued the set.
That being said, at its core, it’s NOT a GREAT movie…but it is a GOOD one, again when best viewed through the prism of the time-period of it’s release and the cinematic sensibilities that governed the art form.
While it has some slick cinematography, entertaining characters and fun action scenes, it also has an overly simple plot line that felt lacking in ‘flesh’, some hilariously placed ADR’d dialogue and an overcooked sense of melodrama that cheapened the proceedings…all backed up by the same 5 canned gunshot / ricochet sound effects…over, and over, and over again.
If you’re a ‘Western’ purest / completist, then I can easily recommend you seek out this flick, even if just to say you’ve seen it. For everyone else, I’m going to do the rare thing and actually steer you toward the 2016 version which, in my humble opinion, improves on this flick in almost every way. It’s simply a more entertaining version, bolstered by the advantage of modern film-making, a robust and gritty production design, and another top-notch cast.
The Magnificent Seven (1960)…isn’t THAT magnificent.
More like The Decent Seven…that you can take or leave.
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