This was the last of the four Magnificent Seven movies they made in the late 1960s-early 1970s. By this point, they've gone from Yul Brynner, to George Kennedy, and now Lee van Cleef as Chris Adams.
It's mostly notable for the ways the movie tries to get us back to the same basic concept - seven disparate gunmen protecting a small town from a Mexican bandit - without being a strict rehash of the earlier films. Which is pretty standard in film franchises, see how John McClane keeps having real bad days in increasingly strange ways. This movie takes the approach that Chris is settled in as a federal marshal, comfortable and settled down with a wife. So when an old friend shows up asking him to help him defend this town, Chris declines, even for $500 (a far cry from the $20 or so he was gonna make in the first film).
What gets him on board is, he takes pity on a young man who robbed a general store because the man's mother insists he's just a boy. Once free, the boy and his friends (including Gary Busey) rob the bank, shoot Chris, kidnap his wife, rape and kill her. Valuable lesson about not showing leniency to young white men just because their mamas insist they're good boys. He ends up in Mexico out for revenge, and agrees to help only because he thinks the guy is with the bandit. When that gets resolved without him, he decides to help anyway.
The other change is the movie takes a Dirty Dozen approach to assembling the team, in that Chris recruits a bunch of guys, including a different old friend, that he arrested and got sent to the Tuscon prison. He promises they'll get pardoned if they help (and survive), but if they cross back into the U.S. without him, it'll be assumed they killed him and they go back to jail. Once they get to Mexico, Chris makes certain they can't throw in with the bandit, either. Which was pretty funny, actually, but it's a nice play on the idea the West is changing and the men with those kinds of skills are less and less welcome. They're either dead, in jail, or they went to Mexico like Chris' friend.
Beyond that, though, it's a Magnificent Seven movie. The characters are different in some broad strokes - a dynamite expert, a strong but simple-minded guy, a loverboy bank robber type - they enlist the townsfolk in setting up defenses. I don't think the battle has the ebb and flow of the first movie. it seems like one big fight, rather than one side retreating, then gaining a sneaky advantage. But they'd probably spent too much time on the tortured route they took to get to the point of defending the town.
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4 comments:
I keep forgetting that The Magnificent Seven became a franchise, I think because it's so unlikely. Die Hard is a good analogy; there was no reason for that to spawn any more stories, but here we are.
Stick Seven Samurai and Battle Beyond the Stars in there and you've got a very weird boxed set.
Yeah, I mean, they killed 4 of the 7 in the first movie, and one of the 3 survivors decided to stay in the village rather than be a gunman, so it's kind of ridiculous to try and spin it as something that keeps happening to this one guy.
I need to actually watch Seven Samurai one of these days. I've never heard of Battle Beyond the Stars.
You're not missing much with Battle Beyond the Stars; it's mid-range Roger Corman at best, but it's worth a watch. Robert Vaughn plays more or less the same character as he did in M7, just iiiinnnnn spaaaaaaaaaace!
It's the sort of thing that always used to turn up as Sunday afternoon TV filler but I haven't seen it in years.
Battle Beyond the Stars - haven't heard of that in a loooooong time! I must have been about 12 or 13 when I saw that, and still remember Sybil Danning making something of an impression upon me... :)
As to Die Hard I'm with you both; love the first film but after that the "bad day" happening to the same guy over and over really stretched credulity.
But then Jessica Fletcher was surrounded by murders wherever she went on a weekly basis...
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