Seven Samurai has inspired the most remakes of any film for many reasons…Because it is a simple but powerful story – Warriors defending a village from bandits. Because it is universal, and can be applied to any setting in any time. Overlooked, but maybe most important, because it was not made in Hollywood.
Even to this day, there is an assumption American audiences (which make up one of the largest markets for films worldwide) will not watch anything not originally made in their language. Subtitles are right out, and bad dubbing only barely passes muster. Seven Samurai opened up the notion of international cinema, but only to a gentrified class, which thankfully included filmmakers such as George Lucas and Steven Spielberg…and John Sturges. (Compare that to how the stateside distribution of the same year’s Godzilla…) To truly bring the Seven Samurai story to mainstream audiences, it would need to be remade in English, by Hollywood, with a Western viewpoint. Look to The Ring and The Grudge for how Japanese cinema continues to “enjoy” this treatment.
How does one make Seven Samurai Western? One makes it a western! This is not such a difficult thing, as Akira Kurosawa filmed his original in imitation of John Ford’s earlier westerns, notably Stagecoach. Rephrasing Seven Samurai as The Magnificent Seven, and turning these samurai-fashioned-as-gunslingers into regular old gunslingers, is a most natural thing.
The Magnificent Seven is a classic in its own right, taking full advantage of how flawlessly constructed Seven Samurai is. It helps having a tested Hollywood director, as John Sturges had already handled some classic and respected westerns such as Bad Day at Black Rock and Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. So the western background to Magnificent Seven is solid, allowing the Samurai influence to bump it near the top of the U.S. western pantheon, with a great cast, confident direction, and a proven blueprint.
One could stretch the Samurai/Magnificent comparison for the entire film, which is apt for how perfectly the plots parallel, as do many smaller details. Again, it’s a village plagued by bandits, which hires seven warriors to protect them. Only now it’s a Mexican village, Mexican banditos, and assorted gunmen standing in for ronin. The new setting creates some variation on tactics and such, what with pistols replacing swords and spears. More importantly, being an American movie, The Magnificent Seven streamlines the rich, full running time of Seven Samurai into something just slightly over half as long. The story is simple enough there is nothing lost in the translation, but this changeup loses the fundamental humanism and texture of Kurosawa’s piece. The Magnificent Seven retains some of Seven Samurai’s baser powers, standing as another monument to slowly-evolving cinematic badassery, but the plight of the village now never feels like much more than a justification for good ol’ gunslingin’ shenanigans.
Certain changes are for the better. Not that Seven Samurai needed a villain with a face, as its bandits were most effective as an “other,” but the Hollywood-style good vs. evil morality tale demands a personal enemy. So the movie’s greatest character, I’d argue, is the first we meet, with no parallel in the Japanese version: the leader of the bandits, Calvera (Eli fucking Wallach!). Calvera is no mere thoughtless villain, as he’s rather a mouthpiece for some of the themes regarding duty and action which the American screenwriters (assorted Walters with different last names) picked up on in Kurosawa. It is unsubtle to lampshade former subtext, lest wider family audiences not pick up on it. Yet Eli Wallach is such an awesomely talented actor, he sells any of the heavy stuff, and makes his Calvera a strangely human figure. There are small hints of his upcoming Tuco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, and it’s quite likely I’m letting thoughts of one of my favorite films ever color my impression upon (re)watching The Magnificent Seven. But if it makes this other movie seem better, no harm in it.
The cast as a whole is largely made up of familiar faces, future independent badasses here earning their badass credentials. This applies mostly to the gunslingers, whom our villager friends seek out in a nearby border town. It’s said Seven Samurai created the “men on a mission” subgenre of action, war movies filled with panoplies of manly men, movies like The Guns of Navarone and The Dirty Dozen. Truly, The Magnificent Seven is more immediately responsible for that evolution, as it took the impetus of Kurosawa’s film and let it loose in another culture. These types of films, ideally, showcase recognized actors in rare supporting roles. The Magnificent Seven accomplishes this mightily.
In any film with a group of heroes, the leader must be the pre-established thespian, the man whose baggage lends credence to the rest. It being 1960, that role goes to Yul Brynner as Chris Adams. His eclectic ‘50s career ranges from The King and I to The Ten Commandments, always in royal roles. Most importantly, he’s bald, which identifies him inarguably as the remake’s Kambei stand-in.
His introduction is somewhat similar to Kambei’s scene with the thief. In fact, there are many specific set pieces which reflect precursors in Seven Samurai. The Magnificent Seven doesn’t aim to recreate Seven Samurai quite as lavishly as certain other Kurosawa remakes [cough!] A Fistful of Dollars [cough!], instead borrowing moments here and there as it sees fit. This works best to give Magnificent Seven its own identity, as Chris’ introductory act of random heroism is its own thing, more in keeping with the western.
This involves delivering a dead Indian to Boot Hill, for a proper burial many of the town’s racist residents oppose. Actually, this scene serves double duty, introducing also the second of seven, Vin (Steve McQueen, future “King of Cool,” now just a promising young anti-hero with “Trackdown” and Never So Few to his credit). Let us credit Sturges, and this role, for catapulting McQueen into iconography. Let us, however, not try pinpointing a precise parallel for Vin in Seven Samurai…though if I had to pick one, I’d go with Shichirōji.
That’s a challenge of The Magnificent Seven, from the remake/franchise perspective. There are moments of inarguable Japanese-stolen inspiration, but other elements with no obvious antecedent. And still other elements which, for whatever reason, are otherwise altered. Take Horst Bucholz as Chico. He is actually an amalgamation of two Samurai characters, Katsushirō and Kikuchiyo (name-wise, I can see that getting confusing). This is odd, since those are arguably the two most interesting characters in Kurosawa’s epic, each naïve in his own way, but one a braggart commoner, the other an idealistic noble. There’s a certain thematic similarity to their function, in emphasizing class and heroism, but what’d I say about The Magnificent Seven highlighting thematic concerns? So in Chico we have the young buck who latches onto a team of gunmen, has a romance, has a character arc, all of that. It’s a shame Chico’s personality is compromised, leaving us with no one to run wild through the movie like Toshirō Mifune. That alone explains why Seven Samurai is the better film.
Running through the other four quickly…
James Coburn, eventually Derek Flint, is a taciturn, quick-minded knife specialist. He is recognizable as the ersatz Kyūzō, mostly because his introductory scene (a western-style showdown growing out of a minor dispute) is one of the pilfered set pieces. For all of Coburn’s own, personal awesomeness, his knife-throwing Britt isn’t quite as invaluable as Kyūzō.
One more uncontestable badass: Charles Bronson. (Which is his flagship future franchise? Death Wish.) Good luck finding a Samurai parallel for Bronson’s Bernardo O’Reilly (yet another role which challenges the actor’s ethnicity), for Bronson’s sheer Bronsonness overwhelms any other factors. He only really stands out once they reach the village, and Bernardo becomes the favored role model for a gaggle of young hero worshippers. Kikuchiyo enjoyed something similar, but that just confuses matters.
What with the doubling-up of parallels, and other remake-related confusion, that leaves at least one role open for a wholly original “seven.” Lee (Robert Vaughn – his series: “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.”) is an aged western wildman, who is starting to doubt his life of violence. This allows for a character arc of arguable cowardice. It’s a good notion, something that would’ve worked nicely in the lengthier runtime of Seven Samurai (we lose some character depth at 2 hours). As it stands, Lee is notable as another step in that genre-long western tradition of questioning its old archetypes. The worn-out old warhorse, the anti-hero, we’d see Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah run with these ideas later. Then we’d see Clint Eastwood completely shatter everything about this type in Unforgiven. Wish we could’ve seen more of Lee.
About the seventh, Harry Luck (Brad Dexter), I haven’t much to say. He seems a bit of a dandy, a “Maverick” type. He gets completely lost in the shuffle.
The Magnificent Seven spends, proportionally, much more time assembling its team than Seven Samurai did, since the film is nearly half complete once they’ve reached the village. The emphasis is clearly on the heroes as heroes, as the early American action hero starts to get defined throughout the ‘60s. Focus then moves away from the village, which is mostly just an ideal to be fought over here. The villagers lose the horrifying contradictions of Kurosawa’s peasants, which means when certain set pieces utilize them in the same way, it isn’t as effective.
So the Seven (“Magnificent” being a descriptor only the title insists upon) get the same fearful welcome as their samurai brethren. It plays out in a similar manner, with Chico acting Kikuchiyo (Kiku-chico!) and ringing the church bells. As in the original, this act gets him officially accepted into the group.
The Magnificent Seven is in a bit of a hurry relative to Seven Samurai when it comes to pitting its heroes against the bandits. There is a little preliminary effort put into fortifying the town, creating a rock wall, but not too much, for this is more “western” than “war.” There is enough time for character exploration before we get down to business. Chico gets the Katsushirō romance with a girl named Petra (Rosenda Monteros). This mostly follows the Kurosawa example, though more in the classic Hollywood romance style – that is, as a disposable subplot. This only becomes important at the end.
The Magnificent Seven is anxious to bring back Calvera’s men early, largely because they include Calvera, and what’s the point of creating an effective villain if you’re not going to use him. So whereas the samurai are entirely prepped once the bandits attack, here Calvera’s banditos simply ride on into town all of a sudden with no warning and no skirmish. This allows Calvera and Chris to have a lengthy showdown of words, outright addressing the question of why such gunmen help foreign peasants. That’s the most significant thing Seven Samurai left unspoken.
John Sturges stretches the tension of this scene, this friendly dinner table chat between Calvera and Chris, reasonably far. It stands as a precursor to later such scenes, like Angel Eyes’ intro in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (that is not the Eli Wallach character), or that first half hour of Inglourious Basterds. And it ends in the only way such things can – SHOOTOUT!
It turns out the gunmen did have their defenses prepped, only theirs’ involved trapping the banditos inside the village first, en masse. Hence the fortifications (mostly volleyball-type nets) weren’t even visible yet. Having effectively ambushed Calvera’s men, the 7 effectively fight off the 40 (yup, it’s the same numbers), and a battle of wits starts up with Calvera.
Now, Seven Samurai was a siege story, essentially, which The Magnificent Seven never really attempts. While defense of the village remains a priority, this is a bit more of a roaming, region-wide battle, taking full advantage of those sweeping, powerful vistas the western is most known for. Despite occasional familiar scenarios, we’re moving well out of Kurosawa’s shadow, and heading well into SPOILER territory. The climactic events of The Magnificent Seven are something I maybe wouldn’t normally address, except for how they relate to the original. For without a single siege-like engagement having been fought, Calvera successfully captures the village!
This is a scenario the samurai never had to face. In their film, tension mounted even as bandits dwindled due to overall fatigue, and the steady wrath of nature. A Hollywood picture must create climactic tension via some other means, hence the bandits have their numbers and the advantage of position going into the home stretch. And the gunmen have their various character low points, just before impassioned speechifying resolves this. It’s Screenplay 101, the early Third Act lament, but I think it’s totally forgivable in a Hollywood refashioning of a foreign story. It shows just how sturdy the original Kurosawa framework is, that it fits other culture’s narrative formulae with such ease.
Enough of those concerns! The seven gunmen decide to take back the village in the only way understandable to a modern action mindset – through sheer show of force. Never mind they’re hopelessly outnumbered, the townsfolk held hostage, it’s only in this predicament where an action hero becomes truly dangerous. So forget issues of strategy or realism, for The Magnificent Seven is perhaps the last of the classical westerns even as it’s the first of the “men on a missions.” As such, all you need is guns-a-blazin’, some crowd-pleasing horse stunts, and victory is assured.
What’s amazing about The Magnificent Seven is that it is a classical western, with a classical western’s morality. Consider Elmer Berstein’s truly legendary soundtrack, which really does sum it all up. The Magnificent Seven has entered the realm of legend even while it is an openly indebted picture. As a movie of that type, its conclusion differs in certain ways from Kurosawa’s. Sure, following the Japanese model, the gunmen’s is a pyrrhic victory, with more dead than alive. But the true loss, in Kurosawa’s epic, was the zero sum gain for the surviving samurai, directionless and classless ronin at the end as at the start. It’s not quite possible to make the same statement with gunslingers, who were never remotely as codified as their samurai brethren. Not that there isn’t an effort at a closing line to echo Kambei’s:
“The old man was right. Only the farmers won. We lost. We always lose.”
That ignores the fact that they did win…or at least Chico did. Unlike Katsushirō, Chico has the option, and makes the choice, to stay in the village with his young love. Which was never really a long-term option for Katsushirō. This speaks of positive change and improvement, which is a distinctly American notion. While the other surviving gunmen (I won’t say which, and I hope the final pic doesn’t make it over-obvious) do ride off alone into the sunset (I mean, what else could happen?!), that’s more in the Shane sense of riding off to do more good, have more adventures…have sequels. This highlights the fundamental, philosophical difference between remake and original – not a bad thing, as it makes The Magnificent Seven its own beast, an act of cinematic reinterpretation which nicely compliments the original.
(P.S.: While The Magnificent Seven is a franchise unto itself, this movie also counts in a separate “franchise” as Seven Samurai No. 2. For ease of designation, that has been omitted from the post title, yet is still reflected in the tags.)
RELATED POSTS:
• Seven Samurai (1954)
• No. 3 Guns of the Magnificent Seven (1969)
• No. 4 The Magnificent Seven Ride! (1972)
(see also Seven Samurai)
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