The Magnificent Seven. Magnificent or effin' overrated?

have liked over the years.

I'm not sure how I went for 35 years w/o ever seeing it, but there you have it...

It's okay, but not as good as the "The Seven Samuri" as others have pointed out...

And I defy anyone who watches it not to at least get a little bit misty-eyed at the end.

I was ticked that they let one or two more of the mercenaries live...

Back in 1954 Toho Studios, who were not doing well financially, scored two huge hits at the box office, saving their company. One was The Seven Samurai. The other was Godzilla. Both finished in the top ten for the year. Both shared some of the same cast and crew, and the director of Godzilla, Ishiro Honda, was a very close friend of Kurosawa, working on many of his movies, including Ran, Kagemusha, and Dreams. Kurosawa delivered the eulogy on Honda at his funeral in 1993.

Two movies that many would consider miles apart have some very close ties. I think both are great. :)

The new ones, despite their fancy effects, don't have the personality of the old ones. Nothing like the old rubber Godzilla suit.

That is a bizarre relationship, though, between those two films.

The other six were icing on the cake... B-)

Great cast. The good guy/bad guy dynamic is wonderful. I love Eli Wallach's villain. Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen are as cool as it gets. James Coburn is fun in his role too. The dvd has a wonderful "Making Of" documentary on it. A special film.

A fun remake of "Seven Samurai" by Akira Kurosawa. A perfect concept to transfer to the Wild West. Perfect. I prefer other Westerns, but it has to be in my top 10 somewhere.

I usually skip the "making of..." docos with DVD's. They're mostly talking heads padded with trailer excerpts. But the one with The Magnificent Seven was really interesting.

Robert Vaughn is the only one left.

Yeah, Vaughn and the bad guy, Eli Wallach. Eli is 92! I didn't realize he was quite that old, at least according to wikipedia.

I love the part on the doc when Wallach said he'd get up in the morning before shooting and he and his "gang" would go riding. That is badass. And Coburn and some of the others mentioned it too, it was almost like those guys accepted the fact that they were really in a gang and Eli was their leader. Amazing. :) I also like how Coburn explained how after he watched "Seven Samurai" how he wanted to be that particular character. That was awesome. A smaller role, but he liked the idea of being the guy who was acknowledged as "the best." Cool stuff.

...that comes across as larger than life rather than merely pompous.

Some of the acting is terrible by today's standards, but it's still a beautiful portrait of the end of an era. Most movies give you one unstoppable, stoic good guy. This one gives you six, at least, even if some of them aren't quite unstoppable.

and I'm by no means a fan of westerns, in fact I don't particularly care for them in general.

And it lead me to becoming more aware/appreciative/and actively viewing international films because when I learned it was based on Kurosawa's Seven Samari I watch that film and others and since gone beyond just his films.

So that film, thought great on it's own, will also be special to me personally for the doors it opened in my mind to truly wonderful entertainment.

Nice scenery and a brilliant music score by Elmer Bernstein, but that is it. The direct needed lessons from Leone about ripping off Kurusawa films well.