THE MAGNICIFICENT SEVEN (1960)

SYNOPSIS

Lacking the courage, training or resources to defend themselves from the Mexican bandits who regularly plunder their village, a group of farmers decide to hire an army to protect them. Due to their limited funds, however, they can only afford to hire seven men, but each one proves to be extremely proficient in some skill, whether it's sharpshooting or knife-throwing. When the bandits return to pillage the village, they encounter unexpected opposition from the hired mercenaries and the farmers, a standoff that results in a final, life or death struggle.

CAST AND CREW

Producer/Director: John Sturges
Screenplay: William Roberts
Based on the Japanese film The Seven Samurai (uncredited)
Cinematography: Charles Lang, Jr.
Editing: Ferris Webster
Art Direction: Edward Fitzgerald
Music: Elmer Bernstein
Cast: Yul Brynner (Chris), Eli Wallach (Calvera), Steve McQueen (Vin), Horst Buchholz (Chico), Charles Bronson (O'Reilly), Robert Vaughn (Lee), Brad Dexter (Harry Luck), James Coburn (Britt), Vladimir Sokoloff (Old Man), Whit Bissell (Chamlee).
C-128m.

Why THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN is Essential

The Magnificent Seven established The Mirisch Company and United Artists (UA) as a major production force in Hollywood. Where previously UA had just picked up work developed by independent producers, with this film they started to take an active hand in developing their own product for distribution. They would follow in 1961 with the multi-Oscar-winning West Side Story.

The Magnificent Seven was a key influence on the development of the "Spaghetti Westerns" that would be produced in Italy in the '60s. Like Sergio Leone's first major international hit, A Fistful of Dollars (1964), it was adapted from one of Japanese director Akira Kurosawa's samurai films. In addition, the idea that each member of The Magnificent Seven was a specialist in some area of combat would recur in the Italian westerns, in which characters were often defined by specific skills.

The Magnificent Seven was one of the first Westerns to demythologize the genre by portraying its gunfighters as fallible human beings who knew that changing times would ultimately end their usefulness. The film actually makes a case for the farmers, who stay on the land and shoulder the responsibilities of raising families, as the true heroes of the West. As such, it was a forerunner of George Roy Hill's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (both 1969).

Realizing that the film would have its greatest impact with action-film fans in the South and Southwest, United Artists opened the film wide, rather than playing it first at a few big city theatres. It was one of the first major Hollywood films to open with saturation booking, a practice introduced by David O. Selznick with Duel in the Sun in 1946 that would not become standard practice until the release of The Godfather in 1972. Prior to that, only low-budget exploitation films were released that way.

The cast of The Magnificent Seven was a gathering ground for future stars, such as Steve McQueen, who would hit big when he starred in Sturges' next film, The Great Escape (1963), Charles Bronson, who would also appear in The Great Escape before becoming a star in Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), James Coburn, who would finally hit the big time as the Bond-like secret agent Derek Flint in Our Man Flint (1966), and Robert Vaughn, who would star in the hit television series The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (1964).