Last week, I screened Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 film “Seven Samurai”. Yul Brynner (who I just saw as Pharaoh in “The Ten Commandments”) saw that film and must have known that a tale about standing up to bullies crosses cultural lines. With his advocacy, "Seven Samurai" was reworked, filmed, and released as a Western movie in 1960. As “The Magnificent Seven” has since become known as a classic in its own right (spawning three further sequels and a modern remake), I figured it would be fun to screen this film immediately after “Seven Samurai” and it was a great choice!
“The Magnificent Seven” begins unabashedly in the same way that “Seven Samurai” does, with a village of Mexican farmers hiring seven gunman to defend their town against 40 bandits. The first half of the film is nearly identical to the original, depicting how the seven gunman agreed to the job. Once in town, they train the villagers on how to fire weapons and help set up booby-traps. From here, the story kind of diverges from the original: After an initial showdown with the bandits, the seven seem to be victorious until rouge villagers let the bandits in. The bandits (strangely) allow the seven go with no repercussions but they all, allegiant to their new-found purpose, return to the town to oust the bad guys—again, at a great personal cost.
In general, I thought that this film was a ‘nice’ and enjoyable retelling of the original story. Designed for American audiences, the story was less complex, less layered, and not as long. While this makes sense when averting Japanese cultural details, it did make the film feel—well, less. For example, while this version hints at the farmers mistrust of the gunslingers, this never really boils over into mutiny or disregard. The relationship between the town and the seven is generally simple and amicable, leading the film to lean more heavily on the second and third act gun-fight sequences, which I found a bit dull.
That said, there are actually things that I enjoyed more about this version of the story. I thought the general plot adapted really well to a western setting and the seven mains were just as superb (especially Yul Brynner’s Chris Adams, the leader of the seven). I also really like that this film fleshed out Calvera, the leader of the bandits. This character was sort of a one-dimensional, eye-patch wearing bad guy in the original and here, was played with clumsy wit by Eli Wallach. Finally, the film’s score was excellent and a great example of classic western music. I’ll probably check out the modern remake one day, but feel satisfied with this story for now!