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DVD : The Magnificent Seven (Special Edition) |
List Price: $14.98Amazon.com's Price: $9.99 You Save: $4.99 (33%)Prices subject to change.
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Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
Brand: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT
EAN: 9780792849575
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
ISBN: 0792849574
Label: MGM (Video & DVD)
Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
Number Of Items: 1
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen
Publisher: MGM (Video & DVD)
Region Code: 1
Release Date: May 08, 2001
Running Time: 128 minutes
Sales Rank: 2131
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Theatrical Release Date: October 23, 1960
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Editorial Review:
Description:
Spectacular gun battles, epic-sized heroes and an all-star cast that includes Academy AwardÂ(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 OscarÂ(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!
Amazon.com essential video:
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
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
The Bottom Line:
A mediocre western that doesn't take enough time to develop characters and falls far short of the Japanese original (though it is mercifully shorter), The Magnificent Seven has little to recommend it aside from Eli Wallach's performance and Steve McQueen's iconic cool--if you can make it through the scene where Charles Bronson lectures the peasant children about heroism without laughing, I salute you.
Rating:  -
Director John Sturges' remake of Akira Kurosawa's 1954 epic "Seven Samurai" ranks as one of the greatest westerns ever made. Along with Robert Aldritch's shoot'em saga "Vera Cruz," "The Magnificent Seven" exerted considerable influence the look and subject matter of many later Spaghetti westerns. Sturges had gained an impressive reputation in the genre with two contemporary westerns "The Walking Hills and "Bad Day at Black Rock" as well as his frontier oaters "The Law and Jake Wade," "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral," and "Last Train from Gun Hill." Sturges specialized in all-male actioneers with tough guys in the life and death situations. Visually, he relied on low-angle photography to give his pictures a larger-than-life look, and he staged his gunfight sequences as if they were football game strategies.
Sturges began a long association with "The Ten Commandants" composer Elmer Bernstein on "The Magnificent Seven." Not only did Bernstein receive an Oscar nomination for Best Original Score for his music on "The Magnificent Seven," but he also got an Oscar nod when he reprised his score in Burt Kennedy's 1966 sequel "Return of the Seven." Aside from Sturges' masterful direction, "The Magnificent Seven" boasts a top-notch cast. Sturges was largely responsible for these brilliant casting choices.Many of them, including Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Robert Vaughn, and Charles Bronson, achieved superstar prominence during the 1960s. "The Magnificent Seven" was lensed on ... Read More
Rating:  -
This movie was made in the days before film-makers realized that people were sophisticated enough to recognize corn when they saw it. Horz Bucholz's impetuous kid act was just total corn. Talk about bad acting. Robert Vaughn deliberately affects some kind of bizarre weakling voice quality.
The whole premise of the movie was that the villagers were wothless cowards but Bronson goes off his head proclaiming how brave they are because they're dirt scratching farmers. The 40 banditos ride into the village and the hired guns(the seven) expose themselves in positions where they could easily be shot by less than half of 40 banditos.
The banditos get the drop on the seven when the seven return to the village and the ultimate in movie absurdity happens. The banditos let the seven go on their merry way AND give them their guns back. Any self respecting Mexican bandito would have slit their throats, but not in this fantasy universe. This is truly one of the worst westerns I've ever seen. I just don't understand why this movie has gotten the hype that it has. Probably simply because it had Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen in it.
Rating: -
Whilst this probably isn't the best western ever made its certainly up there amongst the top flight. It was fortunately made a few years before 'A Fistful of Dollars', which changed westerns and what was expected from them.
Take the classic Kurosawa film 'Seven Samurai' (which is given its due in the opening credits) and reinvent it in the American west. Then add the staggeringly good cast of Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Eli Wallach, James Coburn and Robert Vaughan and what you have is a near perfect piece of Cinema. Some of these guys (like McQueen) were not the bigshots they would later become, but they are incredibly cool. Just a look is enough for these actors. For example, James Coburn hardly says a word throughout the film, and he has arguably the best scene - the knife vs gun moment.
Sure its not a great film in the way 'The Searchers' is, but for straightforward entertainment this is hard to beat. And for those who criticise it as being dated and slow, I'm afraid you've been watching too many modern Hollywood blockbusters. What makes The Magnificent Seven substantially better than a lot of modern films, is that its a simple morality tale, and in the end you do care about the villagers and the Seven.
As a simple comparison the film I watched prior to this one was 'Swordfish' a 2001 film starring John Travolta and Hugh Jackman. Not a bad film. It has a great start. But its not in the same league as The Magnificent ... Read More
Rating: -
My all time favorite Western. I first saw it as a little kid and have watched it a number of times since. It's the values that it portrays and the character that it inspires that makes it such an enduring classic for me. The fact that these seven hired guns knew (most of them) that they're doing a dirty job and that there is so much better out there and they admired it more then their own glory is simply great. In a way they went to save the village from the bandits as a way of their own redemption. Wonderful movie.
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