Sunday, June 29, 2014

Family Movie Night: The Magnificent Seven

Title: The Magnificent Seven
Director: John Sturges
Original Release: 1960
Choice: Mine
My Overall Rating: 4 stars out of 5
via Geektyrant
The Magnificent Seven is but one strand in the far-reaching web of influence of one of cinema's most important figures: Akira Kurosawa.  The Japanese grand master directed the seminal films upon which many other seminal films have been based.  The Hidden Fortress begat Star WarsYojimbo begat A Fistful of Dollars.  His masterpiece, Seven Samurai, inspired The Magnificent Seven, a 1960 Western.  While watching The Magnificent Seven, we also realized the influence on the Pixar movie, A Bug's Life - our very first Family Movie Night movie, incidentally.


A Mexican border town, harassed by Calvera and his band of raiders, hires seven gunslingers for protection.  But as with the original, this is no simple good guy vs. bad guy tale.  The more interesting moral tug-of-war is between The Seven and the villagers who have hired them.  Big names populate the cast: Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, James Coburn and Eli Wallach (who just passed away on Tuesday).
via BFI
For me, the movie is worthy of four stars for the Kurosawa legacy alone.  There's no way it's as good as the original, of course.  As far as I'm concered, Seven Samurai is one of the most perfectly rendered black-and-white films you'll ever see.  Indeed, The Magnificent Seven is strongest when it adheres to the model, weakest when it deviates (Are you reading, Peter Jackson?).  The musical score, composed by Elmer Bernstein (no relation to Leonard), is one of the most recognizable in the entire Western idiom.


10 comments:

  1. I've never seen it, but I will probably fix that at some point. Same with far too many Kurosawa movies.

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    1. Start with Seven Samurai if you haven't seen it. You'll appreciate both movies more.

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  2. It's a fantastic movie, and I've seen the Kurosawa original (used to belong to a film society group that presented underground films, international films and old musical films from early in the 19th century). The Magnificent Seven has a great cast, and the acting dramatic for a western. A western with a conscience.

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    1. Yes, it's a lot of fun. I like that film society idea. (Stay tuned...)

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  3. I haven't seen it in a long time, but I did recently re-watch Seven Samurai.

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    1. I highly recommend a re-watch of this one, too. It'll increase your appreciation for both movies. At least, it did for me.

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  4. I've never seen it. I didn't know that Eli Wallach died. I liked him very much.

    Love,
    Janie

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    1. Actually, I didn't realize he'd died until I started putting this post together.

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  5. A truly great film and very faithful to the Akira Kurosawa classic in many ways. The best western of all time.

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    1. Best ever, wow! I don't know the genre anywhere near well enough to weigh in on a best ever list. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is my personal favorite - such fantastic writing.

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