I haven't seen it for maybe twenty years, but when I was growing up it was on the telly every Christmas and Easter, so I suspect I've seen it, well, more than once, let's say. So I was surprised to find it as moving as I did. I might even have shed a tear or two. Or more.
In fact, as a movie geek I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that I enjoy it more than Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. There: I've said it.
That enjoyment might have something to do with the engaging presence of Horst Buchholz, perhaps, with cheek-bones so sharp I really believe you could grate parmesan on them.
In the film Horst's character is so repelled by women, and so besotted with Yul Brynner's character, that I was really beginning to wonder whether...
There's also a delightful sequence when we first meet the character played by James Coburn, where in the background is a steaming locomotive of the "FCI", the Ferrocarril Interoceánico de México, a delightful railway company established in England in 1888:
Er... back to the movie.
Eli Wallach's character was so compelling that he has remained the archetypal Mexican bandito over the intervening half century, all sleazy charm and vicious sadism:
But I have to say that, like Horst, all my attention was focussed on Yul:
This was not the Yul Brynner of The King and I, a lazy if colourful trot around stereotypes, a barking of commands. No, this was a sophisticated, philosophical Yul, a man of action and a man of enormous thought.
And now, whenever I see him on screen, I can't help but remember that Yul the man was also a pioneering poser for naked art photographs:
I don't think these are by George Platt Lynes, but I can't for the life of me find the reference books that will tell me who took them.
I don't really care. I first saw that last photo when I was an impressionable teenager and, like Horst (who was in reality -- and unlike me -- bisexual) I have adored Yul ever since.
He was some kind of a man.
PS: How could I have written anything about the Magnificent Seven and not mentioned Elmer Bernstein's score?
One of the all-time great movie scores. Miraculous. Magnificent, even.
5 comments:
Yet another exceedingly interesting post. I remember my dad letting me stay up late to watch 'The Seven Samurai' on the BBC and a couple of years later, he took me to see this film when it came out. Both films left a huge impression on my young self. (I even bought the John Barry theme to the 'Magnificent Seven' on a 45rpm record.) I have only seen each film twice as I always feel that if something makes a huge impression on one, then the second time will be a diappointment. Not in this case though. Thanks for the memories.
Michael
they are george platt lynes pictures
(and the lovely horst buchholz died a few years ago of anorexia)
greetings bubu
Horst Buchholz died 2003 in the Berlin Charité from pneumonia at the age of sixty-nine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horst_Buchholz
Just saying.
That's strange -- someone left a comment here, quoting Wikipedia that, Horst Buccholz died in 2003 "in the Berlin Charité, from pneumonia, at the age of sixty-nine".
But my reader now seems to have deleted his own comment. Dunno why.
In fact, just sayin'.
Turns out Blogger has an exciting new feature which automatically detects spam.
Except that somehow it took my reader's already approved & published comment, and put it into a spam dump. From where I have now rescued it.
So apologies for the vicious slur, where I implied my reader had deleted their own comment.
And that's also why my other comment, immediately above, now looks a bit mental.
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