Just One Keeper
I plan on reluctantly buying the Bluray of John Sturges‘ The Magnificent Seven when I return (it streeted on 5.11 — the day after I left for Cannes), but who in their right mind would want to watch, much less own, the three sequel/knock-offs? It’s a kind of fan punishment for MGM video guys to have packaged it this way.
All my life I’ve admired the knife-throwing skills shown by James Coburn‘s character. If you’ve seen the film you know what I mean.
“Fans will be glad to see that the print used here is relatively clean, with only a few scattered white flecks throughout the duration,” the Bluray.com reviewer says about the main attraction. “Clarity is as strong as could be expected, and though there are definitely some soft shots — a product of the original film elements, not this transfer — most of the time you’ll notice a fairly impressive level of fine detail.
“Horses’ coats have a discernable texture, and so does suede, the cloth weft of the village elder’s poncho, and the weathered, sun-beaten faces of our heroes. There are some minor color fluctuations, but the film’s dusty palette has been reproduced nicely, with rich neutrals, creamy sky blues, and vivid reds. Black levels are perfectly tuned, and strong contrast carves out an image with a palpable dimensional presence.
“The film’s grain structure is intact, and you will see some spikes in analog noisiness during longer establishing shots and lap dissolves between scenes. Compression artifacts and other issues are almost entirely absent, and the only oddity I noticed was some occasional telecine wobble — when the film shakes subtly back and forth as it runs through the telecine machine. This is most apparent near the beginning of the film, but it lets up quickly.”
As a kid growing up this film set the bar for my vision of what color a desert sky should look like….that certain blue
and those endless vistas.
Actually, always been really curious about the increasingly bogus sequels.
One of my favorite opening sequences (the hearse ride to the grave yard) of any film (“Raiders of the Lost Ark” might beat it by a smidge.)
But the rest of the film doesn’t quite fulfill the promise of the opening. Still love it, but…
Just curious, what films for you can’t quite match a great start?
“It’s a kind of fan punishment for MGM video guys to have packaged it this way.”
So, why not wait until they release the film on its own? Blu-Ray is following the same trajectory as DVD- expensive original release followed by much cheaper release. The movie is 50 years old. Why blow $30 now when you can pick it up under $10 in six months?
Don’t diss them all. ‘The Magnificent Seven Ride,’ with Lee Van Cleef, is a nifty little ‘B’ picture.
I’m not an enormous fan of this film. I think they did a nice job translating Kurosawa to the Old West and the cast is amazing, but I’m more in-tune with Escape From Fort Bravo and Bad Day at Black Rock if I’m going the John Sturges route.
Magnificent Seven has always been a bit overrated. It’s overlong with too much emphasis on Horst Buchholz and his stereotyped village compadres.
That said, it features one of the greatest scores in the history of scores, and the sheer joy of seeing McQueen, Bronson and Coburn manning up is worth the price of admission. But The Great Escape beats it one billion percent.
Horst Buchholz is no Toshiro Mifune.
That’s quite correct. Because in the Sturges film Yul Brynner is Toshiro Mifune.
Um, I don’t think so. Brynner is Takashi Shimura and Buchholz is Mifune. That’s why Buchholz is the last to join, follows them back to the town uninvited and rings the alarm once he gets there to pull the villagers out of their houses.
Kahn is absolutely correct.
Why wouldn’t you want to see the sequels? They’re in BLURAY! I’ve purchased every Bluray ever made, because they’re in BLURAY!
I’m watching “Can’t Stop the Music!” right now. Sure, it was an awful, coke-fueled, disco-era Village People vehicle that bombed on initial release, but now it’s in BLURAY! Look at how clear and crisp Bruce Jenner’s strands of hair appear! Look at the reds and pinks!
And it was only $29.99 at House of Bluray!
….and Buchholz is an asshole for helping, (through his assholeishness), to convince James Cagney to retire from movies.
I stand corrected about Buccholz/Brynner/Mifune. I guess I need to see the original Kurosawa again. It’s been a while.
Whoa – that’s a helluva slip up there Jeff.
Must be that Sicilian sun beating down or something. NO serious world cinema fan worth his salt forgets the pertinent details of SEVEN SAMURAI. You could be forgiven not remembering that Buchholz’s character is the equivalent of Mifune’s, because they aren’t really the same. Mifune’s character doesn’t really exist in MAGNIFICENT (he would have upstaged Brynner & McQueen and in Hollywood that doesn’t happen).
But thinking that Mifune was the leader in SAMURAI does suggest you need to get that last Criterion restoration in the player ASAP, it’s obviously been a very long time since you actually watched it.
Lex – the second one isn’t all bad. It’s your standard re-tread, but some of the dialogue is fun enough that you’d quote it if it was part of the first one.
You know what a bad western is? That one with Charles Bronson and Toshiro Mifune. Talk about a wasted oppurtunity.
Time for the Lexmaster to hand in his “movie Catholic” card once and for all, to be burned while Jeff seethes with disdain:
I’ve never seen SEVEN SAMURAI. Where do you guys SEE this shit? Yes, I know, now you can just NETFLIX IT! But for the 30 years before that, show me ONE TIME that SEVEN SAMURAI was ever on Cinemax or TBS or the local afternoon movie time-compressed down to 121 minutes plus commercials?
For THREE DECADES, Kurosawa movies DID NOT EXIST, unless you lived in NYC and LA and went to rep houses. For some Podunk kid in small-town West Virginia with one Blockbuster that only stocked MANNEQUIN and SECRET OF MY SUCCESS… Where the fuck were you supposed to see Seven Samurai or Yojimbo, that you guys are all such SCHOLARS of these films?
Yes, I could Netflix it tomorrow, but really… CAN one come to a fifty, sixty-year-old movie that’s been talked up to the ends of the earth and NOT be disappointed? And I’m not even talking about showing a wide-eyed, clueless 19-year-old film student Citizen Kane for the first time.
I’m talking about a Tarantino-level movie super-geek like me, pushing 40, finally getting around to Seven Samurai. Is there any conceivable way it wouldn’t disappoint?
And I know snobs like to talk it up over Magnificent Seven, but other than Mifune, is there anyone else AWESOME in it? Who you putting up against MCQUEEN and CHARLES BRONSON? Bunch of no-charisma Asian actors? B-O-R-I-N-G.
Magnificent Seven was on TV like 500 times a year, every year, my entire life. Seven Samurai probably showed up ONCE on IFC at 4am in 2002.
I demand to know how ANY of you have seen it, much less committed it to memory?
Bergman, Kurosawa, and Fellini movies essentially DO NOT EXIST. Not in the way I’m accustomed to, as an HBO KID from the 80s whose favorites were all born of repetition.
“other than Mifune, is there anyone else AWESOME in it?”
When you’ve got Mifune, brother, that’s all you need.
TCM shows Kurosawa movies all the time. That’s where I’ve seen them.
As to the films being dated, watch Yojimbo some time and be amazed at how closely A Fistful of Dollars stuck to it. Sometimes almost shot-for-shot. And other than Eastwood, is there anyone AWESOME in it?
Lex – ‘Seven Samurai’ got semi-regular play (as in, once a year or so) on at least AMC, if not the Turner stations (I have a vague memory of it playing as time filler between 12am and let’s say 4, following a back-to-back showing of ‘Magnificent Seven’).
It only has to be on TV once to tape it and then you can re-watch it as often as you want. (Well, within reason.)
“And other than Eastwood, is there anyone AWESOME in it?”
Gian Maria Volonte in those movies was as awesome as Eastwood.
“Brynner is Takashi Shimura and Buchholz is Mifune.”
Well, there you go. That’s one reason why The Magnificent Seven falls short. Steve McQueen should have been Mifune.
LexG is right. Volonte was as awesome as Eastwood. As Brynner said when he insisted that Eli Wallach’s performance as Calvera should be more chilling and ruthless: “I have to have something to play against.”
I’m sorry Lex, that rant was pathetic. Takashi Shimura is a phenomenal actor (you know, the guy from “Ikiru” and “Rashomon”? Seen those?) and just because he’s Asian and he wasn’t in a bunch of shitty pan-and-scan movies that used to air on HBO, it doesn’t mean he or anybody else in it is lacking in “charisma”…
Look, I love your crazy, off-the-wall, I love “Chocolate Starfish” declarations, but you’ve gotta see “Seven Samurai,” dude.
Brynner also told him to stop upstaging him in general; I believe the story goes that Brynner implicitly threatened Wallach by taking off his hat, essentially saying “I can steal the scene back from you any time I want and all I have to do is this.”
“You know what a bad western is? That one with Charles Bronson and Toshiro Mifune. Talk about a wasted oppurtunity.”
Red Sun rocked. Sure, it should have been better, but c’mon, it was a nice little B-western with a GORGEOUS, topless Ursula Andress as a bonus treat.
Eli Wallach did kind of blow in Magnificent Seven. I’d like to think that he himself was disappointed in the performance, driving him to play Tuco in TGTBATU with complete lunatic abandon.
Agree with Chase Kahn. Lex’s catholic card is all but burned up. He spends way too much energy coming up with justifications for NOT seeing movies.
>Yes, I could Netflix it tomorrow, but really… CAN one come to a fifty, sixty-year-old movie that’s been talked up to the ends of the earth and NOT be disappointed?
I’m not sure anyone can encounter anything that’s been praised to the heavens and not be disappointed on first viewing. But that doesn’t mean the praised item isn’t good or even superb. A mature person swallows the disappointment and looks deeper to a real appreciation of what’s in front of him.
>And I know snobs like to talk it up over Magnificent Seven, but other than Mifune, is there anyone else AWESOME in it? Who you putting up against MCQUEEN and CHARLES BRONSON? Bunch of no-charisma Asian actors? B-O-R-I-N-G.
Takashi Shimura is one of the greatest actors in cinema history, full stop. He carried what I consider to be Kurosawa’s greatest film, “Ikiru.” He is better in 7 Samurai than Mifune is. The actor who plays the expert swordsman is superb, as well. Your deriding these actors as “no-charisma Asian actors” does nothing but trumpet your own ignorance and close-mindedness.
>I demand to know how ANY of you have seen it, much less committed it to memory?
I’ve seen it several times. Committed it to memory? No. But I admire it tremendously and will buy the blu-ray when/if it is released.
>Bergman, Kurosawa, and Fellini movies essentially DO NOT EXIST. Not in the way I’m accustomed to, as an HBO KID from the 80s whose favorites were all born of repetition.
Again, how can you possibly expect to be taken seriously if the litmus test for your interest in a movie is “was it endlessly repeated on TV when I was a kid”? Do you have any idea how much amazing art (in all media, not just film) you’re denying yourself by applying such absurd criteria? Why? Why deliberately impoverish yourself? What’s to be gained? Are you aware, by the way, that Woody Allen, who apparently is a personal god of yours, worships Bergman and Fellini to the point of mania? Is it possible that there’s a reason such an infallible man-god admires them so?
I’d make a comment about the absurdity of not listening to Mozart because it wasn’t on top 40 when I was a kid — but that would probably just set you off on some kind of ridiculous anti-Mozart rant.
Wrecktem – I managed to catch every boring scene in that movie and none of the good ones. I saw at least forty-five minutes of them wandering around stupid old west cliches before Mifune even used his samurai sword on *anybody* (admittedly, when he finally did, stabbing a random guy through the door while the guy stalked Bronson, it was awesome).
I just couldn’t believe that Bronson and Mifune could be that boring together. Maybe I’m just disappointed because that movie, based solely on the two of them, should be one of the ten greatest westerns ever.
What’s with all the Eli Wallach dissing? I think he’s great as Calvera. ‘You. You came back. A man like you. Why?’
“Brynner also told him to stop upstaging him in general; I believe the story goes that Brynner implicitly threatened Wallach by taking off his hat . . .”
Brynner threatened McQueen by taking off his hat. In the early scenes you can see McQueen messing with his own hat or with a whiskey bottle in an offhand, but attention-grabbing manner while Brynner is speaking his lines. McQueen tones it down a lot after the first several scenes, at least when Brynner is around.
Brynner’s complaint against Wallach’s performance early on was that it was long on comic charm and short on menace. The audience would feel Brynner’s character was not going up against a formidable enemy. My impression was that Sturges and Wallach agreed, and Wallach toughened up his performance.
Both these stories are in the extras on the DVD.
Apparently Brynner’s complaint about Wallach’s performance was based on the early rushes. I agree that Wallach is terrific in M7.
One thing I’ve always wondered about Eli Wallach’s biography. What on earth possessed a Jewish boy from Brooklyn to go to the University of Texas Austin in the 1930s?
Ikiru is the only Kurosawa movie I’ve ever seen, back in film school.
I guess it was pretty good, but if you’re gonna while away a lazy Saturday afternoon, what sounds more awesome: Some dour Japanese guy dying for six hours in black and white, or CONFESSIONS OF A TEENAGE DRAMA QUEEN, where you can watch 17-year-old Lohan and Megan Fox having catfights and trying on little outfits?
Zardoz rests.
Also: Wow, Yul Brynner sounds like kind of a giant asshole from all these stories. I can see Wallach being a gracious enough guy to take the high road in the face of such assholedom, but man, someone tell me McQueen eventually cold-cocked Yul, or at least trashed the guy’s trailer in a beer-soaked revenge rampage.
One thing I am stone confident about. Yul Brynner, Eli Wallach, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, James Coburn, Clint Eastwood, Gian Maria Volonte — all those guys drove stick. Especially McQueen.
Seven Samurai kicks fucking ass. It just does. LexG, just track down a copy, sit down and watch it, you will not regret it.
“Wow, Yul Brynner sounds like kind of a giant asshole from all these stories.”
Or you could say that Brynner knew what he was talking about when it came to movie performances, and wasn’t shy about sharing his knowledge. It probably improved the film. That King of Siam style came naturally to him.
I did read somewhere that McQueen did play a few Clooney-style practical jokes on Brynner during the filming.
I’ll get right on Seven Samurai right after I get through all these Gossip Girl DVDs.
MOMSEN POWER.
Jeff’s comments prompted me to go out and buy the new Dr. Zhivago Bluray and I wonder if I’ll be able to resist The Magnificent Seven. I have it on standard DVD with a really good documentary featuring many who have now left us:James Coburn, Brad Dexter, Horst Bucholz and Elmer Bernstein.Bernstein uses the term “rhythmic underpinnings” while discussing his score. I love the way his music makes it possible for the audience to enjoy long travelling scenes that might otherwise be cut. I was reading some reviews of the new Bluray on amazon.com. One singled out William Robert’s screenplay. But the documentary makes clear that Roberts only did some on location fine-tuning. Sadly the real writer, Walter Brown Newman (Ace In The Hole, Cat Ballou) demanded his name be taken off in what now seems to be a silly temper tantrum. One problem was Steve McQueen was given some of Yul Brynner’s lines after begging for more.Newman also later explained he was a very angry man at the time and had been in analysis for 18 years. After a screening, director John Sturges said something that set hiim off: “I guess I must have been at a flash point and I said– All right,John dammiit, take my name off it.” Sturges could not believe his ears and called Newman a “damm fool.”The full story can be found on pages 70 and 71 in William Froug’s 1971 book “The Screenwriter Looks At The Screenwriter.”
“Both these stories are in the extras on the DVD.”
Nemo – I don’t have the DVD; I was remembering from (or, rather, conflating/misremembering) Wallach’s biography. He doesn’t seem to think Brynner was an asshole, but he does make it sound like Yul wanted it to be clear he was the star.
I really enjoyed this film. I loved the character mentioned here. Thanks a lot. Keep blogging.
The cost for P90X is about three months of a paid gym membership but you get to keep the program forever
Spammers are the thread shark-jumpers.
Yet, still less annoying than D.Z., Travis.
Lex, I saw SEVEN SAMURAI at a theater in Columbia, Missouri when I was in college.
It’s not exactly the MOBY DICK of filmdom. The fact that you haven’t seen it – or any Kurosawa other than one film – should deflate your Tarantino-esque claim to film love.
Watching a lot of movies does not mean you’re a film lover. It just means you know how to kill time.
If IKIRU was Lex’s intro to Kurosawa, I have to cut him some slack for not making an effort to see SAMURAI, YOJIMBO, SANJURO, RASHOMON, HIDDEN FORTRESS and the rest. Especially as some sort of bumpkin with apparently not much exposure to higher art or literature (paraphrasing his own past admissions, not a put down).
I myself got to IKIRU after non-samurai period films like THE BAD SLEEP WELL and years of high praise, yet found it touching but not very memorable (although very impressed with Takashi Shimura, very different than his turns in SAMURAI, FORTRESS and YOJIMBO).
However, still doesn’t explain how someone could think of themselves as a film fan, presumably have to wonder why Toshiro Mifune is so famous and yet fail to see a single one of the movies that made him so.
Guess Kurosawa should have used more 16 year actresses with naked feet or something…
“Guess Kurosawa should have used more 16 year actresses with naked feet or something… ”
GOOD IDEA.
But I saw Mifune in stuff: 1941 and THE CHALLENGE, specifically. Both awesome movies. Probably the only two things I ever saw him in, but whatever.
“If IKIRU was Lex’s intro to Kurosawa, I have to cut him some slack for not making an effort to see SAMURAI, YOJIMBO, SANJURO, RASHOMON, HIDDEN FORTRESS and the rest.”
No. Absolutely no excuse.
Quantrell…… you went to Mizzou? When?
1994 through 1998, Magazine Journalism.
Worked at Slacker’s the last two years I was there.
You?
Um…. uh…. a little earlier than that….. (late 80′s)
(yeah, I’m old… what of it?!)
From waaay back….
“Brynner is Takashi Shimura and Buchholz is Mifune.”
Actually, Buchholz is playing a combination of Mifune and the young kid who gets involved with a villager’s daughter, just as Buchholz does in M7. That inconsistency of characterization, and Buchholz’s relatively weak performance, is one reason why M7, though I like it a lot, falls short.
Of course, a lot of movies fall short in comparison to SEVEN SAMURAI, so that’s no great shame. You may not think you have three hours to spend, but you’d be surprised at how fast the time goes. And anyone who’s a Western fan will have no trouble following it.