The Magnificent Seven
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The Magnificent Seven is a John Sturges western film of 1960, a remake of Shichinin no samurai, better known as The Seven Samurai. A group of hired gunmen are tasked to protect a Mexican village from bandits.
The Magnificent Seven
The film takes place in the 1880s, in and around two towns across the United States–Mexico border from each other. Neither town is ever given a name. The Mexican village is periodically raided by a gang of bandits led by Calvera (Eli Wallach), who leaves the villagers destitute and near starvation.
The film opens with Calvera and his men arriving in the village. They leave (after killing an overwrought villager), with the promise that they will soon return (when there will be more food to steal). Desperate, the village leaders go to the wise old man who lives near the town. He tells them to fight. He gives them a gold watch, and tells them to gather up everything that they can sell in order to buy guns at the border. They must learn to fight or die.
The villagers arrive at the border town just in time to witness the town undertaker Whit Bissell explaining to two traveling salesman that bigotry is the only obstacle halting the burial of Old Sam, an Indian who died in the town. One of the observers, obviously a veteran gunslinger, dressed in black, volunteers to drive the hearse. Another cowboy borrows a shotgun from the Wells Fargo stagecoach driver, and together they make the ride up to Boot Hill to deliver the body for burial, followed by the entire town. As they ride, the two men complain that the West is "settling down." The black-clad gunslinger proves the speed and accuracy of his draw by shooting and wounding two men who tried to block their way. Their duty done, the two men part, drifting through with no prospects. Almost as afterthought, they exchange names. The man in black is Chris (Yul Brynner), while the other calls himself Vin (Steve McQueen).
Approached by the villagers, who explain that the Mexican authorities can station men in such a small village for only so long, Chris tells them that it is more expensive to buy guns than to hire gunmen. He volunteers to help them find good men for the job, though the pay is only $20 per man plus bed and food.
First to answer the call is Chico (Horst Buchholz), a proud young man who leaves in anger after being humilated by Chris. Then comes Harry Luck (Brad Dexter), an old friend of Chris who joins the fight, convinced that Chris is hiding some secret about the town's wealth. Vin joins, after going broke while gambling — this is his only alternative to working in a grocery store. Next comes Bernardo O'Reilly (Charles Bronson), referred to them through Harry as an expert gunman, but reduced to menial labor to pay for his breakfast. Though he wears a gun, Britt (James Coburn) is fast and deadly with his switchblade pocketknife. At first, he declines the offer, but later chooses to join the small group, in large part to face the challenge. Last to join is Lee (Robert Vaughn), who is on the run after supposedly finding and killing his latest enemies, and figures that the job will keep him in Mexico long enough for things to cool down. Chris and Vin both know him to be a bit of a questionable personality, but he is a good gun, and that's what they need.
Although Chico had been rejected and had later drunkenly challenged Chris, he trails the gunmen as they ride south, and eventually is invited to join the group. On arrival, he brings the townspeople out of hiding by ringing the church bell, then berates them for wanting the gunmen to protect them but refusing to greet them, while the other six watch in amazement. After the lecture is over, Chris pronounces "Now, we are seven."
They begin to train the men of the town to fight, while building up the defenses to entrap the bandits in a killing zone. Then we learn more about each of the men, and a bond forms between them and the townspeople. Harry Luck repeatedly tries to find out about the secret riches which he is certain exist, and Bernardo is adopted by three boys, who promise to take care of his grave. Chico, off by himself, discovers Petra, (Rosenda Monteros), has gone into hiding with the other young women of the town, having been told by their parents that the gunslingers were thugs and rapists.
Calvera returns and is disappointed to find that the villagers have hired gunmen to protect the village. After a brief exchange the bandits are chased out of the village by the seven gunfighters and the villagers.
After the bandits are driven off, Chico is lectured by the other six on the life that he has chosen. When they talk about the hardships and benefits of the life, Chico thinks that they are counting up good things. To prove himself worthy of the life, he infiltrates the bandit camp. He returns with grim news, telling the others that Calvera and his men are desperate and hungry, and must take the villagers' food in order to survive.
The seven gunmen decide to keep their word to the town, and try a raid on the bandit camp, which they find empty. Returning to the village, they discover that Calvera's men have taken over, several of the villagers having let them into the town with the hope that it would inspire mercy. The seven are ambushed but spared, Calvera informing them that, if he kills them, their friends from up north might cause more trouble for him. The seven are disarmed, simply to emphasize to the villagers who is in charge, then escorted some distance from the town. The bandits hand over the sevens' guns, leaving the mercenaries to mull over their next move. All but Harry decide to return the next morning and finish the job they were hired for. During the ensuing battle, Harry returns to rescue Chris, and is mortally wounded. Chris tells him of gold and riches, convincing Harry that he was right all along, and Harry dies a happy man. Bernardo, Lee and Britt are also killed. At the end of the final battle, Calvera is mortally wounded by Chris, and asks with an incredulous look on his face, "You came back for a place like this? Why? A man like you. Why?"
Chico has become close to Petra, and as the three survivors leave, he turns back to her, to the town, and thus turns his back on the gunman's life that he had once thought he'd wanted. Chris and Vin ride away with no prospects, just as they had ridden into the border town. Looking back at the town and the graves of Harry, Britt, Lee and Bernardo, Chris sums it up: "Only the farmers won. We lost. We always lose."
The Seven and the Samurai
Modeled on The Seven Samurai, this American remake preserves the important scenes and themes of the original, with a few alterations.
Notable changes include:
- In order to gain permission to film in Mexico, changes had to be made to make sure that Mexicans were portrayed favorably. In the original, the village patriarch tells his scouts specifically to hire samurai to defend the village. This was originally to have been carried over, but the Mexican government thought it made it appear that Mexicans were unable to defend themselves. Therefore, it was changed so that the patriarch tells the scouts to buy weapons. It is upon their first meeting with Chris that he tells them they will need hired guns. As in the original, the hired guns teach the villagers how to defend themselves as well, and the villagers take a strong active role in the fighting.
- A scene in which the villagers capture and then torture to death one of the bandits is omitted entirely.
- In the original, most of the seven have never met before. Prior to meeting for their job, Kambei only knew Shichiroji. In this film, Chris Adams seems to know most of his comrades except for Vin, Chico, and Bernardo (who was recommended by Harry).
- Chris Adams's introduction is markedly different from Kambei's. In the original, Kambei makes his first impression on the farmers by pretending to be a monk in order to rescue a child taken captive by a bandit. In this film, he and Vin come to the farmers' attention by taking a dead Native American to be buried at a local cemetery, over the objections of some local townspeople. Though a very different introduction, each is suited to its respective culture.
- 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. Chico is given Kikuchiyo's pivotal moment halfway through the film, in which he chastises the farmers for reacting to the samurai with fear, yet still expecting to receive their protection.
- 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 have been driven off, and they find that the camp is abandoned.
- The bandit leader Calvara plays a much larger role than any of the unnamed bandits in the original.
- As in the original, only three of the original seven survive. In the original, as in this one, Chico/Katsushiro falls in love with a farmer's daughter, thus fulfilling her father's greatest fear and alienating her from him. In the original, once the fighting is over, the farmer's daughter refuses to return Katsushiro's affections. In this one, Chico stays behind to be with her. This sets the scene for the first sequel, Return of the Seven, which begins with Chico being shot and wounded after pulling his gun and belt out of a linen chest.
Cinematographic Process
The cinematographic process used in this film was anamorphic. This is a process that was first developed in the 1940s but did not become widely used until the 1960s. In essence, the anamorphic cinematographic process employs a wider lens that films a wider image than other technologies used in filmmaking. Therefore, the aspect ratio of the image imprinted onto the film is larger. When projected, this process provides the viewer with a wider, more natural view of the scene.Sequels
- Return of the Seven 1966 (also known as Return of the Magnificent Seven)
- Guns of the Magnificent Seven 1969
- Magnificent Seven Ride 1972
Trivia
- The movie's famous theme tune was by Elmer Bernstein, later being reused in commercials for Marlboro (before the cigarette ad ban) and Victoria Bitter beer, and cheekily within the James Bond film Moonraker. The score was nominated for an Academy Award in 1961.
- The film's success inspired three sequels: Return of the Seven (1966); Guns of the Magnificent Seven (1969) and The Magnificent Seven Ride! (1972), but none was as successful as the original film.
- The movie has also inspired a television series (The Magnificent Seven, 1998), and a parody in which a poor Mexican village hires three Western actors to protect their village from bandits (¡Three Amigos!, 1986, starring Chevy Chase, Steve Martin, and Martin Short).
- In Westworld, Yul Brynner played an android impersonating his black-dressed gunfighter role as "Chris Adams".
- It also inspired the Kazakhstan film The Wild East.
- There have also been adaptations of the film's plot, notably in a German Karl May movie called Thunder at the Border (Winnetou und sein Freund Old Firehand) (1966), and in the science fiction movie Battle Beyond the Stars (1980), in which Robert Vaughn reprised his role from The Magnificent Seven.
- With the death of Charles Bronson on August 30, 2003, Robert Vaughn (Lee) is the only one of the seven main stars who is still alive, as of January 2006.
- This film shares three of its stars (Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson and James Coburn), its director and producer (John Sturges), its composer (Elmer Bernstein), and an uncredited screenwriter (Walter Newman) with The Great Escape (1963). Each film also features an actor who would later go on to star in The Man from U.N.C.L.E.: Robert Vaughn appeared in this film while David McCallum appeared in the later one.
- James Coburn (Britt), Brad Dexter (Harry Luck), Horst Buchholz (Chico) and Charles Bronson (Bernardo O'Reilly) all died within the same ten months.
- Although his character and the rest of his bandits are eventually defeated, Eli Wallach (Calvera) has ironically outlived all of the seven stars of the film, except for Robert Vaughn who is still alive as of January 2006, despite being older than all of them besides Yul Brynner.
- Wallach, unfamiliar with guns, was never able to holster his pistol without watching what he was doing. The Mexicans who made up Calvera's band took their roles to heart, adopting Wallach as their chieftain off the set as well as on.
- This is the first of three films in which both Steve McQueen (Vin) and Robert Vaughn (Lee) appear. The other two are Bullitt and The Towering Inferno.
- James Coburn was a big fan of The Seven Samurai, and his favorite character in that film eventually became the character he ended up playing in this film; he strongly resembled the actor in the first film.
- Robert Vaughn (Lee) later played the recurring character Judge Oren Travis in the television series The Magnificent Seven (1998).
- John Sturges made several strange casting decisions: Charles Bronson (Bernardo O'Reilly) was the son of Lithuanian immigrants and was born in Pennsylvania but played a half-Irish, half-Mexican man; Horst Buchholz (Chico) was German and Eli Wallach is a Jewish American actor from Brooklyn but both were cast as Mexicans. And, although he joined the film before Sturges, Yul Brynner (Chris Adams) was of Russian, Swiss and Mongolian descent but played an American cowboy in the Old West. His accent was explained away as being Cajun in the early scene where we meet Harry Luck (Dexter).
- Filming began on March 1, 1960. 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.
- Yul Brynner was initially to direct while Anthony Quinn was to play his character, Chris Adams. However, due to many differences and arguments with Brynner and the fact that by then he had lost the lead role, Quinn ended his involvement with the film. As Brynner was no longer going to direct, a new director was needed and eventually John Sturges was hired.
- James Coburn (Britt) and Robert Vaughn (Lee) were close friends, having gone to college together in the early 1950s. It was Vaughn who both informed Coburn of the film and recommended him to John Sturges to play the only lead that had not yet been cast, Britt. Sturges said he needed a young Gary Cooper type actor and Vaughn told him that Coburn fit the profile.
- Chris Adams (Yul Brynner) and Vin (Steve McQueen) were the only two of the seven gunfighters to "ride off into the sunset" at the end of the film (although Horst Buchholz's character, Chico, also survived). However, of the seven main stars of the film, they were the first to die in real life: Brynner died of lung cancer on October 10, 1985, McQueen also died of lung cancer on November 7, 1980.
- George Peppard (who was first chosen as "Vin") was passed over because producers worried about his rather volatile behavior off-screen. Peppard said that it was one of the worst things that happened to him. Oddly enough, twenty years later, he met and became friends with star Robert Vaughn during the movie Battle Beyond the Stars which had Peppard playing the equivalent of the "Vin" role: "Space Cowboy."
- Yul Brynner (Chris Adams) and Steve McQueen (Vin) are the only two of the seven main actors to have at least one exchange of dialogue with all of the other six.
- James Coburn (Britt) has only eleven lines in the entire film while Robert Vaughn (Lee) has only sixteen.
- The final episode of the first season of the British comedy Blackadder, The Seventh Seal, features the main character (played by Rowan Atkinson) assembling seven evil-doers to overthrow the king. Blackadder and other characters parody this film by signalling the number of men who have been recruited with their fingers, as Chris and Vin do throughout the first half of this film.
- Both the village and the border town were built for the film.
- The scene in which the second-story window is shot out during the hearse trip was actually done with live ammunition, a rarity in motion pictures.
Cast
- Yul Brynner (Chris Adams)
- Steve McQueen (Vin)
- Charles Bronson (Bernardo O'Reilly)
- James Coburn (Britt)
- Horst Buchholz (Chico)
- Brad Dexter (Harry Luck)
- Robert Vaughn (Lee)
- Eli Wallach (Calvera) and his 40 bandits
- Rosenda Monteros (Petra)
- Whit Bissell (Undertaker)
- Vladimir Sokoloff "Old Man"
- Jorge Martínez de Hoyos Hilario (as Jorge Martinez de Hoyas)
- Rico Alaniz Sotero
- Natividad Vacío Tomas
External links
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