THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN

'''The Magnificent Seven''' is a 1960 western film directed by John Sturges about a group of hired gunmen tasked with protecting a Mexican village from bandits. It is based on Akira Kurosawa's 1954 film, ''Seven Samurai''.

Contents

Plot

Cast

The Seven and the Samurai

Production

Cinematographic process

Sequels, television series

Score

Pop-culture references

External links

Plot

A Mexican village is periodically raided by a gang of 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), for help. He tells them that guns alone will not do them any good; they are simple farmers, not fighters. They then ask him to lead them, but Chris rejects them, telling them that a single man is not enough. They keep at him though, and he eventually gives in. He recruits men, though the pay is only 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 actually looking for treasure. Vin (Steve McQueen) signs on after going broke from gambling. Other recruits include Bernardo O'Reilly (Charles Bronson), Britt (James Coburn), fast and deadly with his switchblade, and Lee (Robert Vaughn), who is on the run and needs someplace to lay low until things cool down. Chico trails the group as they ride south, and is eventually allowed to join them.
Upon reaching the village, they begin training the residents. As they work together, the gunmen and villagers begin to bond. Chico finds a woman he is attracted to, Petra (Rosenda Monteros).
Calvera returns and is disappointed to find that the villagers have hired gunmen. After a brief exchange, the bandits are chased away. Later, Chico spies on the outlaws and returns with the grim news that Calvera and his men are planning to return--the outlaws are broke and starving, and need the crops from the village just to survive.
The seven debate whether they should leave, but decide to remain. They make a surprise raid on the bandit camp, but find it empty. Returning, they are ambushed by Calvera's men, who have taken over the village. Their lives are spared, as Calvera fears others coming for revenge if the Americans are killed; they are disarmed and escorted out of the village.
All, but Harry decide to finish the job the next morning. During the ensuing battle, Harry returns to rescue Chris, and is mortally wounded. Bernardo is killed protecting some children he had befriended; Lee and Britt are also slain. Seeing the gunmen's bravery, the villagers grab whatever they can use as weapons and join the battle. The bandits are routed. Calvera himself is shot by Chris; puzzled, he asks why a man like Chris came back, but dies without receiving 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

★ Yul Brynner as Chris Adams

★ Steve McQueen as Vin

★ Charles Bronson as Bernardo O'Reilly

★ James Coburn as Britt

★ Horst Buchholz as Chico

★ Brad Dexter as Harry Luck

★ Robert Vaughn as Lee

★ Eli Wallach as Calvera

★ Rosenda Monteros as Petra

★ Whit Bissell as Undertaker

★ Vladimir Sokoloff as "Old Man"

★ Jorge Martínez de Hoyos as Hilario

★ Rico Alaniz as Sotero

★ Natividad Vacío as Miguel

The Seven and the Samurai

Modeled on Akira Kurosawa's ''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 Calvera plays a much larger role than any of the unnamed bandits in the original.

★ As in the original, only three of the seven survive. Chico or Katsushiro falls in love with a farmer's daughter, thus fulfilling her father's greatest fear and alienating her from him. 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.

★ Both films end with the leader of the Samurai and the town patriarch agreeing that while the samurai or gunfighters have fought bravely, only the farmers will truly be able to reap the benefits of the sacrifice. Those who have died cannot enjoy the fruits of their labor, and those who lived must move on with their lives.

Production

Filming began on March 1, 1960, on location in Mexico, where both the village and the U.S. 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.
The 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).

Cinematographic process

The cinematographic process used in this film was anamorphic. This process was first developed in the 1940s but did not become widely used until the 1960s. In essence, a film with an 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 largely 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:

★ ''Return of the Seven'' (1966)

★ ''Guns of the Magnificent Seven'' (1969)

★ ''The Magnificent Seven Ride'' (1972)
None of these were as successful as the original film. The film also inspired a television series, ''The Magnificent Seven'', which ran from 1997 to 2000.

Score

The film's famous main theme is by Elmer Bernstein. The score was nominated for an Academy Award in 1961.
Later, the theme was used in commercials for Marlboro (before the cigarette ad ban) and Victoria Bitter beer. The theme was cheekily 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 2005 film ''The Ringer'', as entrance music for the British band James, as well as certain episodes of The Simpsons that had a "western" theme (mainly in the episode entitled "Dude, Where's My Ranch?").

Pop-culture references

★ The most well-known tribute to the movie is ''Auf Wiedersehen Pet'' (1983-2005), primarily in its second series, where all the characters decide upon which of the seven their personalities would fit. They have been commonly known in the media as "The Magnificent Seven".

★ The film's concept is parodied in (''¡Three Amigos!'' (1986), starring Chevy Chase, Steve Martin and Martin Short), as three Hollywood western actors who are hired by poor Mexican villagers to protect them from bandits.

★ Robert Vaughn (Lee) later played the recurring character Judge Oren Travis in the television series ''The Magnificent Seven'' (1998).

★ Vaughn would also would play the character Gelt in Roger Corman's 1980 film ''Battle Beyond the Stars'', essentially ''The Magnificent Seven'' given a science fiction makeover. The character is clearly an update of Lee from the earlier film, even to the extent that much of Gelt's dialogue is carried over, near-verbatim, from ''The Magnificent Seven''.

★ Stephen King's ''Dark Tower'' series is acknowledged by the author to have been influenced by Sturges' film, as well as its antecedent ''Seven Samurai''. In particular, the fifth book in the series, ''Wolves of the Calla'', borrows heavily from the themes and plotlines from the films. In this book the town defended by the series' "gunslingers" is named "Calla Bryn Sturgis" in homage to both John Sturges and Yul Brynner.

★ 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.

★ The sixth season episode of episode "The Magnificent Ferengi" is a reference to this film.

★ "The Magnificent Warriors", an episode of the original ''Battlestar Galactica'', has a plot based on this film.

★ In ''Westworld'', written and directed by Michael Crichton, 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'''.

★ It also inspired the Bollywood (India) film 'Sholay' which went on to become the second longest running film in Indian cinema history.

★ In the European version of the Playstation 2 Videogame "Ape Escape 3", the monkeys are filming a movie called "The Magnificent Monkeys", almost surely a parody of The Magnificent Seven.

★ The hit 1980s television series ''The A-Team'' was initially conceived as a cross between ''The Magnificent Seven'' and ''The Dirty Dozen''. Interestingly, James Coburn was reportedly considered for the role of ''The A-Team's leader, Colonel John "Hannibal" Smith. The role went to George Peppard - who was initially chosen to play Vin in ''The Magnificent Seven''.

★ Episodes 131 to 133 of the anime series ''Hokuto no Ken 2'' (''Fist of the North Star'' in English) features a group of cowboys modeled after the titular characters from the film known as the ''Kouya no shichi-nin'' ("The Wasteland Seven"), which is the Japanese title of the film.

★ The 2007 University of Hawaii Warrior Football team has seven dynamic players that have also adopted the "Magnificent Seven" namesake. Slotbacks Davone Bess, Ryan Grice-Mullen and Jason Ferguson, Wideout Jason Rivers, Running Back Jazen Anderson and Cornerbacks Gerard Lewis and Myron Newberry round out the group. While remaining a team, the boys have a strong bond that takes place even off of the field.

★ The Egyptian movie Shams El Zanaty starring Adel Emam is based on the plot of The Magnificent Seven, with an Egyptian village instead of a mexican one.

★ Supernatural's 3rd Season Premiere is Called "The Magnificent Seven" but It's about the seven deadly sins.

★ James Coburn took the role of Britt because it was based on his favorite character from ''Seven Samurai''.

External links

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★ ''The Magnificent Seven'' at the Movie Review Query Engine