The Magnificent Seven

John Sturges was the master of stylish ensemble action flicks (Gunfight at the OK Corral, The Great Escape), and The Magnificent Seven (1960) is probably his best-remembered work. This heavily simplified remake of Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai boils the dense samurai film into a simple story of good, ultra-cool gunslingers saving noble peasants from evil bandits. As matinee entertainment it succeeds with flying colors.

A small Mexican village is being terrorized by the bandit Calvera (Eli Wallach), who demands payment in food and money every few months. After a visit from Calvera ends in bloodshed, the villagers decide to go to the US-Mexican border and buy guns - deciding to hire gunslingers instead. They quickly enlist the help of Chris (Yul Brynner) and Vin (Steve McQueen), who help them recruit five others - charming con Harry (Brad Dexter), mercenary Bernardo (Charles Bronson), knife-throwing Britt (James Coburn), eager newbie Chico (Horst Bucholz), neurotic quick-draw Lee (Robert Vaughn) - for surprisingly low pay. The gunslingers find themselves growing attached to the village and its friendly inhabitants, and when Calvera comes they have a nasty surprise waiting.

Straightforward and unpretentious, The Magnificent Seven is an easy film to like. Its gunslingers are the ultimate Western heroes; nominally mercenaries, they eschew pay to do the right thing, and certainly look good doing it. It plays almost as a rebuttal to Robert Aldrich's cynical Vera Cruz (1954), whose gringo gunsels went south of the border purely for money. Helped by a highly-quotable screenplay ("We deal in lead, friend!") and simple moral compass, it's definitely one of the most accessible, broadly appealing Westerns.

The movie's treatment of its gunslinger heroes is a mite schizophrenic. Sturges and writer William Roberts seem to want us to think that the life of a gunslinger ain't all it's cracked up to be. Unfortunately, this message is balanced out by the protagonists themselves. Ultra-stylish, quick on the draw and narcissistic (they perform before an audience whenever possible), they are the last word in movie cool. Charles Bronson's speeches about how the peasants are the real heroes rings false: nobody's paying to see wimpy Mexican farmers. The final lines - "Only the farmers have won. We lost." - are borrowed from Kurosawa, where they had real ressonance. Here, it's so much nonsense, especially with three sequels in the pipeline.

A bigger failing is the scattershot narrative. The movie plays as a collection of great set-pieces strung together by a fairly thin plot: characters are introduced strutting their stuff, cue dull exposition, doze off until big shootout, and so on. The story seems almost an afterthought, and enjoyable as it is the movie isn't terribly compelling or deep. If the film isn't the sum of its parts, though, its parts are entertaining enough to compensate.

Sturges's direction definitely elevates the film above standard genre fare. If nothing else, Sturges had a flair for action, and this movie has definitely got that. The shootouts are wonderfully staged and exciting, filmed with a very modern flair and style. Charles Lang's photography makes fine use of authentic Mexican locations. Elmer Bernstein's legendary score also deserves a mention, as one of the all-time great movie themes.

Just as surely as The Godfather, The Magnificent Seven was a star-making film: Yul Brynner and Eli Wallach were established stars, but the rest of the cast was languishing in B Movies and bit parts. Brynner is fine as the gang leader, and Wallach makes a fun, scenery-chewing bandit, rehearsing his Tuco from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Steve McQueen catapults himself from star of The Blob to instant screen legend.

The others are more hit-and-miss. Charles Bronson (Once Upon a Time in the West) gets one of his best roles, and James Coburn (Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid) defines laconic as the knife-tossing Britt ("You lost!"). Robert Vaughn (Bullitt) comes off better than most cowardly commando characters. Brad Dexter is saddled with a lame, useless character, and the monumentally-miscast Horst Bucholz (One, Two, Three) is just obnoxious. Perhaps it's little surprise why the latter two never achieved the fame of their counterparts.

Whatever its rough patches, The Magnificent Seven is perfectly fine entertainment. Its enduring popularity speaks for itself: few other Westerns are so broadly appealing and universally-liked.