The Magnificent Seven opens as a swarm of bandits ride into a little Mexican town to the tune of ominous orchestrations. They mean no good for the campasinos, stealing their food and promising to return at harvest time and leave just enough for the peasants to survive. Why kill the geese as long they continue laying eggs?
Recently reissued on Blu-ray, The Magnificent Seven (1960) entered movie history as an example of cultural influences traveling on a two-way street. Everyone always speaks of Hollywood's impact on the world, but the outside world has also been felt in Hollywood. The Magnificent Seven was an adaptation of The Seven Samurai (1954) by Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, transposing the tale of feudal warriors into a western. In the American iteration, a couple of lean and cool gunfighters (Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen) decide to help the Mexican town fend off the marauders. They recruit an odd lot of helpers, including Charles Bronson, James Coburn and Robert Vaughn, and teach the villagers how to fight back.
For its time, The Magnificent Seven displayed a social conscience and an aversion to the more overt expressions of racism prevalent then in American society. Its Blu-ray release (in glorious DeLuxe Color) was accompanied by its sequel, The Return of the Magnificent Seven (1966).
