Maybe the Magnificent Seven is the swan song of the classic western, you know the ones in which men are meticulously shaved all the time, dress in spotless clothes and the weather only turns sour when it was needed. But most of all, they did what they did because of some noble principle(unless they were bad).
It is established early into the movie. Adams and Tanner step in when nobody wants to bury a dead Indian. They transport his corpse to the cemetery while opposed by nameless bigots who do not want an Indian in their graveyard. Even after death there is racism.
Adams seems to be one of those decent selfless gun for hire types(think lone ranger) and thus, when asked by a group of Mexicans to have him protect their village from a band of marauders, he accepts the dangerous job for a pittance. This raises the one importance question that will plague the movie, echoed by Eli Wallach: why? What makes a gunslinger like Adams decide to put his life on the line to do this thing for no good money at all?
I loathe to compare movies nowadays, but in the seven samurai there was a very good reason: they were lordless fighters who were trapped in a rigid social structure that allowed for no social mobility in desperate times. In other words: they were doomed to it. Fight or starve. But in the late 19th century US men were far doomed in that manner in a land of opportunity that experienced an economic boom.
Sturges thus needs to establish another motive, so he has Tanner supply an answer of a kind: it seemed to be a good idea at the time. This might have been a sarcastic Bruce Willis line from say Die Hard, but this isn't a tongue in cheek movie because it takes itself pretty serious indeed. Wrong answer therefore. Seven against forty(six actually)is no good idea at any time. It almost feels as if Sturges is caught in between the mood of times: the spaghetti westerns will supply other reasons: greed, revenge, and other less noble principles. The classic westerns had their own noble reasons, but they are never supplied. In fact, when the villagers betray the seven, the latter even come back to save them again.
The movie never explains why the men do what they do, even if their behavior is at odds with their characters. Take Harry Luck, a fortune seeker, who tags along because he believes there is more to the job than the twenty dollars pay for 6 weeks being shot at. Why would he think that Adams is hiding something? Does it follow from what went before? Is it made believable in the movie? But most of all, why does Adams take him along, knowing that Luck might bail the moment he finds out there is nothing else but the twenty dollars and the likely possibility of death?
Sturges cannot shake loose from the confines of the earlier movie and the prescriptions of the classic western. He could have the villagers or Adams dupe the others. Suggesting more wealth that there was, but that would made them look bad and that cannot be. He could have spend more time on character building, thus giving personal reasons.. which actually seems the way he is heading, but alas there is not enough movie to do that for seven characters. Not even the character of Adams is well developed in the movie.
The central weakness of this movie is this lack of proper motivation for the characters involved and the failure to establish their personalities. This would not have such a great weakness if the rest made up for it with, say, good gunfights. But they are weak and awkward at times.
This leaves us actually with a weak movie that cannot deal with the cultural transition from 15th Century Japan to 19h Century us in an acceptable way. Sturges is just not up to the challenge. The movie therefore simply pales in comparison to The Big Country(2 years older) that sees a man resisting violence out of principle and A fistful of Dollars that followed four years later in which the main characters are no longer driven by noble goals. As such the movie is not so much interesting by itself, but rather as an in between piece of work. The last of the classic western and, perhaps, showing an embryonic development of what was to come.
It is established early into the movie. Adams and Tanner step in when nobody wants to bury a dead Indian. They transport his corpse to the cemetery while opposed by nameless bigots who do not want an Indian in their graveyard. Even after death there is racism.
Adams seems to be one of those decent selfless gun for hire types(think lone ranger) and thus, when asked by a group of Mexicans to have him protect their village from a band of marauders, he accepts the dangerous job for a pittance. This raises the one importance question that will plague the movie, echoed by Eli Wallach: why? What makes a gunslinger like Adams decide to put his life on the line to do this thing for no good money at all?
I loathe to compare movies nowadays, but in the seven samurai there was a very good reason: they were lordless fighters who were trapped in a rigid social structure that allowed for no social mobility in desperate times. In other words: they were doomed to it. Fight or starve. But in the late 19th century US men were far doomed in that manner in a land of opportunity that experienced an economic boom.
Sturges thus needs to establish another motive, so he has Tanner supply an answer of a kind: it seemed to be a good idea at the time. This might have been a sarcastic Bruce Willis line from say Die Hard, but this isn't a tongue in cheek movie because it takes itself pretty serious indeed. Wrong answer therefore. Seven against forty(six actually)is no good idea at any time. It almost feels as if Sturges is caught in between the mood of times: the spaghetti westerns will supply other reasons: greed, revenge, and other less noble principles. The classic westerns had their own noble reasons, but they are never supplied. In fact, when the villagers betray the seven, the latter even come back to save them again.
The movie never explains why the men do what they do, even if their behavior is at odds with their characters. Take Harry Luck, a fortune seeker, who tags along because he believes there is more to the job than the twenty dollars pay for 6 weeks being shot at. Why would he think that Adams is hiding something? Does it follow from what went before? Is it made believable in the movie? But most of all, why does Adams take him along, knowing that Luck might bail the moment he finds out there is nothing else but the twenty dollars and the likely possibility of death?
Sturges cannot shake loose from the confines of the earlier movie and the prescriptions of the classic western. He could have the villagers or Adams dupe the others. Suggesting more wealth that there was, but that would made them look bad and that cannot be. He could have spend more time on character building, thus giving personal reasons.. which actually seems the way he is heading, but alas there is not enough movie to do that for seven characters. Not even the character of Adams is well developed in the movie.
The central weakness of this movie is this lack of proper motivation for the characters involved and the failure to establish their personalities. This would not have such a great weakness if the rest made up for it with, say, good gunfights. But they are weak and awkward at times.
This leaves us actually with a weak movie that cannot deal with the cultural transition from 15th Century Japan to 19h Century us in an acceptable way. Sturges is just not up to the challenge. The movie therefore simply pales in comparison to The Big Country(2 years older) that sees a man resisting violence out of principle and A fistful of Dollars that followed four years later in which the main characters are no longer driven by noble goals. As such the movie is not so much interesting by itself, but rather as an in between piece of work. The last of the classic western and, perhaps, showing an embryonic development of what was to come.