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The Magnificent Seven Customer Reviews (1 - 3 of 54 Reviews)

GET KURASAWA'S SEVEN SAMURAI ORIGINAL INSTEAD
Forget this dog and anything else done by Sturges. They all look like pool patio party night at ROck Hudson's all-male mansion.

THe original Seven Samaurai is so far and away superior to this all-male revue, which as in all Sturges's film features his unknown beefcake of the week, here a German kid forced to grimace and grunt as a HOllywood stereotype Mexican gunfighter. A great tragedy occured when Anthony Quinn who originally had the idea to make Seven Samurai into a Western did not get the backing in time to do somethnig decent with it. Instead we have this absolutely ridiculous and racist dog, in which Jewish BRooklyn's best is also forced to sweat as if a stereotypical Mexican bandit.

DOn't waste your time and money on a magnificent soundtrack. Get SEven Samurai. Way better, and you will be spared the embarrassment which is this Sturges mess.


High Quality DVD collectors edition
For all fans of this great western and first time viewers, this is the version you want. The picture quality and sound are much improved. Clearly, the effort is evident the moment the movie begins, meaning, MGM gave The Magnificant Seven the proper attention that it deserves and the quality DVD upgrade fans were hoping for. Collectors Edition is the way to go.

"I got nominated real good."
It's said that Akiro Kurosawa studied the themes of American Westerns in preparation for creating his classic THE SEVEN SAMURAI. If that is true, then John Sturges' Hollywood remake, THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, is a prodigal child come home.

The Magnificent Seven are recruited by a group of Mexican villagers to protect them against the depredations of the bandit Calvera (Eli Wallach) and his gang. Wallach finds the heart of Calvera's character in just a few short scenes, being alternately cruel, ironic, and deprecating. Despite sounding a bit like a Brooklyn version of Pancho Villa, Wallach does a splendid job.

The leader of the Magnificent Seven is Chris (Yul Brynner), the quintessential "Man in Black." Nothing fazes Chris who remains rock steady and remote throughout the film. The rest of the cast is a veritable Who's Who of graduates from the Clenched Jaw School of Acting. Steve McQueen is Vin, a jaded, but slightly wry gunfighter who yearns for a settled life. James Coburn is Britt, laconic to the point of sphinxism, who is a dangerous as a snake with both knife and gun. Charles Bronson is Bernardo O'Reilly, stolid, deadly, and unaccountably gentle. Robert Vaughn is Lee, the Riverboat Gambler gunslinger who has secretly lost his nerve. Brad Dexter, the only unremembered actor in the cast, plays Harry Luck, avaricious but principled. And Horst Buchholz plays Chico, the Young Turk, upstart, and boy-into-man with a chip on his shoulder, who admires the rest and strives to live up to them. At first excluded from the group, Chico slowly proves his mettle, and in the end matures past his need to prove anything.

The acting quality is uniformly excellent. The implicit toughness and uniform taciturnity of the actors set a standard for Westerns that later films have never exceeded. Scored with now-legendary music by Elmer Bernstein (aka "The Marlboro Man Theme") and shot on location in Mexico, THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN was released just as Westerns were falling into decline. In many ways, this film represents the best, but last gasp of the genre.

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