RogerBW's Blog

The Magnificent Seven 10 February 2024

1960 western, dir. John Sturges, Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen; IMDb / allmovie. The villagers know the bandits are coming, so they hire fighters to defend them.

Yes, it's the official authorised remake. But while many of the key moments from the original are here, such as the save-the-cat incident at the start (here it's Brynner and McQueen driving a hearse through a gauntlet of enemies so that a black man can be buried in the town graveyard) and the excellent fighter provoked and insulted by a young blood until he has no choice but to kill the fool, there are surprising elements—in particular, the way that the bandits are humanised while remaining villains. Yes, they could go away… and then they'd starve. They don't mindlessly fight our heroes; they set up an ambush, capture them, and give them a chance to leave.

It's a solid cast, too, from the days when you could afford more than just one or two stars in a film: Charles Bronson when he still looked like a human being rather than a chunk of granite, Robert Vaughn before he became a Man from U.N.C.L.E., James Coburn, and Horst Buchholz in an attempt to transfer his German success into Hollywood ditto. (He ends up both as the wild and crazy guy and as the romantically-inclined kid—and even if there's a massive social gulf between farmer and gunfighter, here it's one that can be crossed, unlike the one between peasant and samurai.)

If God didn't want them sheared he would not have made them sheep.

I talk about this film further on Ribbon of Memes.

[Buy this at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

Tags: film reviews

See also:
Seven Samurai


  1. Posted by J Michael Cule at 12:45pm on 10 February 2024

    I think you should put quote marks around that line.

    You know, in the interest of keeping your cuddly public image unsoured.

  2. Posted by RogerBW at 10:56pm on 10 February 2024

    I've worked tech support.

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 2300ad 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech base commerce battletech bayern beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime crystal cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 essen 2024 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2021 hugo 2022 hugo 2023 hugo 2024 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1