The Magnificent Seven (1960)

The Magnificent Seven (1960)

Written by William Roberts, based on the film Shichinin no Samurai (The Seven Samurai) by Akira Kurosawa

Directed by John Sturges

            I watched this one based on a recurring recommendation by a guy I used to work with, and, despite my reservations to watch it, I ended up enjoying it a lot.  You see, I have this theory.  You know when you get a Netflix movie that you put on your queue like 4 months ago, and you totally forgot it was there?  And then, once you get it, it just sits on your TV stand for like 35 days, because you don’t really want to watch it, but you don’t have the heart to just send it back either?  Well, my theory is that these movies, the “TV Stand Movies”, as I like to call them, are the best ones.  And it happens every time!

            So, I put in this flick the other night, not expecting much from it (it was one of the dreaded TV Stand Movies, arriving on 10/17/2009, not to be returned until 11/25/2009), and getting a lot back.  I’m told it’s a classic, and I can understand that.  It is certainly one of the best western flicks I’ve ever seen.  Now, I’m not exactly a connoisseur when it comes to Westerns, but I do like them a lot.  3:10 to Yuma (the remake) and The Proposition are two modern westerns that are regular staples in my dvd player.  When I was “growing up”, I remember my grandfather watching Westerns and Nascar constantly, and I guess they kind of stuck with me.

            The Magnificent Seven, as mentioned earlier, is a remake of the Kurosawa film The Seven Samurai, which I have never seen.  So the movie starts, and there’s a bad man threatening a little Mexican village.  It’s the usual Western story.  The Mexicans are just farmers, as they say, so they hire Chris Adams (played by Yul Brenner) to protect them.  Adams then hires Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, and Robert Vaughn, amongst a few other dudes, and they form the titular group.  Naturally, each additional person Brenner and Steve McQueen find has a particular area of expertise, for instance, there’s a knife thrower, there’s a guy that’s a riduclously awesome shot, there’s another guy that likes to protect children.  Notable, however, is the complete lack of female presence until about 2/3 of the way through the flick.  Our lone woman is Petra, played by Rosenda Monteros.

            Also notable in this flick is the not so subtle racism and sexism.  You see, only the white man can save the Mexicans.  That’s right.  The Mexicans are played with a complete disregard for changing stereotypes.  They’re all brown, they all wear traditional farmers clothes, and they’re all illiterate and incapable of defending themselves.  So then they hire a bunch of white men to help them out, and then the Mexicans hide all of their women, old people, and children!  Later on, when a woman wants to help out (that’s Petra), the white men tell her that it’s really her job to take care of the other women, old people, and children! And she does it!

            Despite the obvious discrimination prevalent in this flick, it was well-acted, the story was intriguing, and the action was pretty good.  I can really see this being one of those flicks that “needs” to be remade in the next few years.  I recommend this flick to fans of the 60’s, Westerns, and Steve McQueen, cuz he’s the fuckin man.