The Magnificent Seven (Special Edition)
by John Sturges
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Charles Bronson, Eli Wallach, Robert Vaughn, Steve McQueen, Yul BrynnerDirector: John Sturges
Brand: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT
Producer: John Sturges
Writer: Akira Kurosawa
Writer: Hideo Oguni
Writer: Shinobu Hashimoto
Writer: Walter Bernstein
Writer: Walter Newman
Writer: William Roberts
DVD: 2 Layers, Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; Spanish (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 2.35:1
Running Time: 128 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-05-08
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Movie Reviews of The Magnificent Seven (Special Edition)
Movie Review: Some thoughts on a classic film
Summary: 4 Stars
Last year, a theater in Manhattan was doing a retrospective of United Artists films. I decided to see "The Magnificent Seven" again on the big screen. Seeing it left me with a stange feeling of sadness.
This film was released in 1960. At the time, Yul Brynner was still a superstar and Eli Wallach was a fairly established actor. The rest of the cast were still young and fresh. Steve McQueen was still doing "Wanted-Dead or Alive" on TV. He was still three years away from superstardom with "The Great Escape." Charles Bronson would continue guest-starring on shows like "Combat" and "The Fugitive," as well as appearing in supporting roles in popular epics like "The Great Escape," "Battle of the Bulge" and "The Dirty Dozen" He would not become a massive superstar until "Death Wish" in 1974. Coburn also did tv and supporting roles in films like "Americanization of Emily" and "Charade." He became "Our Man Flint" in 1965. Robert Vaughn became "The Man from UNCLE" in 1964. Now, with the exception of Vaughn and Wallach, they are all gone. It seems sad.
The thing that always surprises me about this film is that despite having a great action director in John Sturges, (one of my favorites,) the action scenes are really quite average. Other than McQueen flying through the air firing his pistol, there really isn't anything spectacular about the action sequences. The deaths of Bronson, Vaughn and Coburn, (gee I hope I haven't given anything away,) are especially uninteresting. One minute Coburn is shooting, the next minute he is shot, we don't even actually see him hit. I love so many of Sturges' films, especially "The Great Escape "and "Ice Station Zebra," however the action scenes really are disappointing.
I watched the deluxe dvd last night with the audio commentary by film historian, Sir Christopher Frayling. The commentary was good, although I did enjoy his commentary on the dvd of "Once Upon a Time in the "West" musch better. How Frayling could fail to mention once Sturges' all-time classic "The Great Escape" is beyond me. The dvd has a nice retrospective and some other featurettes including one on Elmer Bernstein who composed the magnificent music for this film and "The Great Escape" (as well as two great Duke Wayne scores "The Sons of Katie Elder" and especially, "The Comancheros."
I enjoyed watching the dvd again. It brought me back to a time, 1960, when show-biz legends like McQueen and Bronson were just beginning. It also brought me back to a time when American school children were still being taught American history in our schools and not just being taught to hate their own country. If only we could return to that time again.
Summary of The Magnificent Seven (Special Edition)
Spectacular gun battles, epic-sized heroes and an all-star cast that includes Academy Award?(r) winners Yul Brynner* and James Coburn**, together with Steve McQueen, Eli Wallach and Charles Bronson, make The Magnificent Seven a legend among westerns. Spawning three sequels and a successful television series, and featuring Elmer Bernstein's Oscar?(r)-nominated*** score, thisstunning remake of The Seven Samurai is "a hard-pounding adventure" (Newsweek) and "an enduringly popular" (Leonard Maltin) cinematic classic. Merciless Calvera (Wallach) and his band of ruthless outlaws are terrorizing a poor Mexican village, and even the bravest lawmen can't stop them. Desperate, the locals hire Chris Adams (Brynner) and six other gunfighters to defend them. With time running out before Calvera's next raid, the heroic seven must prepare the villagers for battle and help them find the courage to take back their town or die trying!Akira Kurosawa's rousing Seven Samurai was a natural for an American remake--after all, the codes and conventions of ancient Japan and the Wild West (at least the mythical movie West) are not so very far apart. Thus The Magnificent Seven effortlessly turns samurai into cowboys (the same trick worked more than once: Kurosawa's Yojimbo became Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars). The beleaguered denizens of a Mexican village, weary of attacks by banditos, hire seven gunslingers to repel the invaders once and for all. The gunmen are cool and capable, with most of the actors playing them just on the cusp of '60s stardom: Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn. The man who brings these warriors together is Yul Brynner, the baddest bald man in the West. There's nothing especially stylish about the approach of veteran director John Sturges (The Great Escape), but the storytelling is clear and strong, and the charisma of the young guns fairly flies off the screen. If that isn't enough to awaken the 12-year-old kid inside anyone, the unforgettable Elmer Bernstein music will do it: bum-bum-ba-bum, bum-ba-bum-ba-bum.... Followed by three inferior sequels, Return of the Seven, Guns of the Magnificent Seven, and The Magnificent Seven Ride! --Robert Horton
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