There’s no remakes here; check out this week’s Movies You Have Not Seen But Should!

The Magnificent Seven

It’s time once again for Movies You Have Not Have Seen But You Should. For this week’s film, we’re going to take a trip in the wayback machine. We’re going to take a look at a classic film that you may have seen before but it’s been a long time. We will be looking at the oldest film to be featured so far in this series. We will look at 1960 western The Magnificent Seven. The film stars include Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson and James Coburn.

It is the time of the Wild West. In a Mexican village, the residents are attacked on a regular basis by a group of bandits. The bandits are led by Calvera (played by Eli Wallach) who reminds the villagers that they will continue to pillage and loot them. The villagers decide to try and fight back so they cross the border to America to buy guns and ammo from nearby village. As they try, a veteran gunslinger named Chris Adams (played by Brynner) overhears the villagers and tells them it would be better for them to hire gunslingers to protect their village as opposed to trying to fight themselves. After the villagers beg him to be that gunslinger, he agrees and convinces six others to join him in the cause.

Besides Chris, there was the inexperienced Chico (played by Horst Buchholz), Harry Luck (played by Brad Dexter) a friend of Chris’, the drifter Vin (played by McQueen), Bernardo O’Reilly (played by Bronson) a down on his luck gunslinger, Britt (played by Coburn) a cowboy looking for adventure & Lee (played by Robert Vaughn) a gunman who himself is on the run. These seven men try and train the villagers to stand up for themselves as well are there to fight the bandits. Are the bandits defeated? Is the village protected? What happens with the seven? You’ll have to watch the film to find out.

The film was a remake of sorts. It is a western-style remake of the 1954 Japanese film Seven Samurai co-written, edited and directed by the great Akira Kurosawa. This version was directed by John Sturges. He also directed such films as Bad Day at Black Rock, The Great Escape, and Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Sturges met Kurosawa once and was given a samurai sword by Kurosawa as a gift because of how much Kurosawa loved The Magnificent Seven. It was released in theaters on October 23, 1960. It received an Academy Award nomination for Best Score. As the years have gone by, it has grown in favor by critics and audiences. It has a 93% freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes and is the second most aired film on TV behind The Wizard of Oz.

The Magnificent Seven is available on DVD, Blu-Ray and Amazon Instant Streaming. Like I said before, this is a classic film. If you’ve seen it before, it’s worth watching again. If you haven’t seen it before, it’s one of those films that is a must see. It’s one that you may not have seen, but you should.