Westerns don’t normally have sequels, at least ignoring the pre-Stagecoach matinee franchises like The Three Mesquiteers and The Range Busters. Why is that? Most end with some adventurer riding into the sunset, promising to defend all those in need. That seems like the perfect framework for many more isolated struggles to come. Perhaps the western’s status as a morality play prevents that, as continuation can destroy the perfect whole of such a symbolic narrative. And maybe it’s also because westerns were being “sequelized,” in a sense, but on TV series like “Rawhide” and “Branded” and lookie here, Wikipedia lists a full 174 TV westerns!
This was the state of things for most westerns in the ‘50s and ‘60s, no matter how popular. Besides, it’s easier to simply brand someone like John Wayne, without the label of “franchise,” as John Ford famously did. Amongst the classical westerns (that is, pre-Spaghetti), The Magnificent Seven is the only one I know of with any sequels…it has three. This is perhaps because it jumpstarted a new action subgenre, even as it delivered classic western tropes. The ensemble “man on a mission” movie grew up from The Magnificent Seven, often numerically upping the ante: Ocean’s Eleven, The Dirty Dozen, One Hundred and One Dalmatians…okay, not the last one. And when subgenres emerge, often the codifier work creates follow-ups, to compete with its offspring.
Director John Sturges did just that, in 1963, with The Great Escape, a riveting WWII entertainment which brings back a huge percentage of The Magnificent Seven’s cast – Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, James Coburn.
That wasn’t a sequel…not by any standards. That, instead, came out in 1966, as Return of the Seven. Never mind most of the cast, including most of the valuable cast, died in the first, you can’t call it Return of the Last Two Guys. Besides, while Yul Brynner stayed on as the lead, Chris Adams, costar Steve McQueen wanted no part in this project. Rumors vary as to why, if McQueen hated the script, or hated Brynner, or if he was just too awesome now on the eve of Bullitt and The Thomas Crown Affair. At any rate, McQueen’s Vin is recast, now Robert Fuller.
Actually, everyone who’s not Brynner is recast, including that other surviving “Seven,” Chico. (Geez, that sounds like a Marx Bros. sentence!) We’re also Sturgesless, Burt Kennedy fulfilling the role of director with mere passable competence, nothing more (to look at his resume of middling westerns). Not that I can say with certainty, for Return of the Seven’s reputation is apparently dire enough for it to join this blog’s ignominious ranks of “unwatched” movies.
Either way, the story sounds like purest sequel hokum – You know, awkwardly rejigger the end of Part One so as to allow the same exact story to happen again. This means the same Mexican village is beset upon by different bandits, now numbering 50 (escalation!), and Chico is captured with them, to be put into slave labor. Ah, but he escapes, as he, Chris and Vin get about recruiting four new gunmen, almost entirely because the number seven is titularly important, and they’re apparently doomed to run through this narrative time and again.
It’ll take a viewing of the second sequel, Guns of the Magnificent Seven, to determine if that’s truly the case…
Well…it is and it isn’t. Explicit, idiotic continuity like the exact same village are gone, as Guns apparently does the common Part Three thing of correcting for the first sequel’s formula miscalculations. See also Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Die Hard with a Vengeance, for recycling the right traits Part Two forgot. Of course, Guns of the Magnificent Seven still subscribes to the endless notion of “sequels as in-continuity remakes,” which makes this, unofficially, a bastardized, third generation remake of Seven Samurai, whether it even knows that. For the central plot thread remains e’er the same: Seven warriors amass to fight for the poor and impoverished. The exact same recruitment sequence follows, only with a new batch of seven (just as in Part Two), justifying the stylistic repetition.
So many steps removed from the original, Japanese version which had a point, much of the fundamental humanity of the Seven’s quest gets lost. There are attempts at drama, but such attempts feel shoehorned in out of necessity. The real interest of Guns is simple formula experimentation, to see how, structurally, things change with variation.
Most significantly is the Seven’s quest, which is not defense as in Seven Samurai or The Magnificent Seven (I cannot speak for Return of the Seven), but offense: To break into a maximum security prison and rescue a high profile prisoner. Yes, now the Magnificent Seven franchise is aping its apers (that glorious ouroboros one finds with subgenres), retelling the Where Eagles Dare story in the Mexican Revolution.
Yes, so very many westerns invoke the Mexican Revolution, a transparent guise to add on some pap about “freedom” and “the people” and whatnot. Partly, this is because that lends a western an “epic” feel when simple cowpokes vs. homesteaders won’t do. More likely, it’s because a great many Spaghetti Westerns (i.e. Italian westerns, and yes, those are often the best sort) were filmed in Spain, and the Spaniards look like Mexicans if you squint hard enough (as Clint Eastwood is wont to do). Guns, though a Hollywood production, utilizes the Spanish deserts (as did Part Two), making it something of a Spaghetti Western.
Tonally, Guns seems desirous to take on the pulpy, exaggerated contours of a Spaghetti Western (I’m thinkin’ more Django than For a Few Dollars More), which doesn’t jibe well with that classical Hollywood western feel Guns inherits from its own Magnificent Seven. By 1969 standards, Guns feels somewhat anachronistic, like an old guard relic struggling to remain relevant. Add to that the simultaneous explosion of darker, post-classical Hollywood westerns, epitomized by Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch. The western was becoming as dark and cynical as most cinema moving into the ‘70s, and Guns can only make a token show of following that trend.
Not that it’d completely work even in the classical mode, assuming somehow this was put out in ‘60 instead of ’69 (that is, if this were to replace The Magnificent Seven). The cast, the entire cast is new, not even Yul Brynner remaining. Oh, Chris Adams remains, for we need something to keep this specifically within the franchise, and not just Generic Western With, Coincidentally Enough, Seven Guys. Leading an emaciated macho cast, late enough in the game that no major stars are interested in the genre, is George Kennedy – the only instantly recognizable face. Paradoxically, I know him best as the strapping, ridiculously muscular beast in Cool Hand Luke, and the fat, aging, put-upon police captain in The Naked Gun. Neither of which really gives Kennedy the necessary iconography to play Chris. Besides, the man is literally a redneck, as the picture attests.
And now…the rest of the Seven:
Second-in-command: Keno (Monte Markham, TV star – that’s how far we’ve fallen), a horse thief. Actually, this late in the “men on a mission” cycle, there’s no longer a point in giving your team personalities, per say. Instead, they all have “specialties,” novelty forms of machismo which combine together once the job is underway. Keno, thus, is defined completely by that “horse thief” title, which doesn’t ultimately amount to much. So like many a second-in-command, the ostensibly important Keno is rarely ever around.
The young, naïve one: Maximiliano O’Leary (Reni Santoni, most famous as a minor character from Dirty Harry). Because it’s so hard rounding out a complete seven each time, Max actually fulfills the standard “villager” role – the man who hires gunmen to do his dirty work. He’s added to Chris’ team, why the hell not, under the bizarre notion that they just gotta have seven guys, simply because series rules dictate so. As the sequels go on, this really starts to feel arbitrary and awkward.
The old one, coming back for “one final big score”: James Whitmore as Levi. He also happens to be the knife specialist. Hey, guys, don’t load up all your novelty traits onto one guy!
Explosives: Cassie (Bernie Casey). I hate it when characters are (almost) named after their actors. In what half-way qualifies as progressive by 1969 standards, Cassie is the first non-white to join the Seven – though honestly nowadays we’d expect a little diversity in our teams, excepting the all-Jew Basterds. Being black is apparently enough of a “personality” for Cassie. Oh, and guess which one dies first! Yup, the cliché is healthy and strong in this ancient production.
Actually, they handle Cassie’s minority status with remarkable tactlessness. Being black is directly equated with being deformed, disabled, an “other.” That’s because Cassie is paired up with an actual cripple, the one-armed trick shot artist. That’d be Slater (Joe Don Baker, who I do recognize – by name at least – for playing a fat, fat man in three separate Bond films…when your “macho” cast is famous for being fat, you know you’re in trouble).
Then there’s the “other one,” P.J. (Scott Thomas), whose entire personality is “wears a black outfit.” By some less informed notions of the western, I guess they thought it was revolutionary to put a good guy in black, then give him the desultory romantic subplot I’m not going to address further. They ought to have tried harder.
The specifics of the Seven’s task: Free one Quintero from the vile Colonel Diego, in the strongest Federale prison in all of Mexico. Quintero can then, presumably, lead his rebel forces to victory, something he’d clearly not been able to do prior to his opening capture. Look, just go with it, there’s a prison to be broken into, a pretty classic “heist” style setup, so let’s just concern ourselves with the logistics, shall we.
A good movie of this sort would commence with a lengthy “scoping it out” section, detailing the intricate, unstoppable defenses of the prison, setting up specific mini-tasks for the Seven to overcome, you know the drill. I’m thinking of an Ocean’s Eleven sort of scenario, though today it’s easiest to refer to how Inception did it (minus, of course, the dream thing). This seems to be beyond the powers of lowly director Paul Wendkos, whose fame comes from directing the Gidget movies. Oh boy!
No, the “scoping it out” routine is boiled down simply to Chris wandering on up to the prison, and outright asking a guard about its defenses. And the guard tells him! Then Chris strolls away again, successful only because he is white, and therefore apparently trustworthy. Boy, that was anticlimactic.
Instead, the lengthy, draggy remainder of the Second Act must tread water as the Seven interact with various revolutionaries, have assorted go-nowhere character scenes, and otherwise waste time. Of note, perhaps, is how Guns attempts to create drama 1/100th of what The Magnificent Seven put out, which was itself maybe 1/20th of Seven Samurai’s output. For here the series-old question of “Why did they pick this job?” isn’t just outright stated (as in Magnificent Seven), but even answered. That’s some poor dramatics there, as it removes all meaty ambiguity from your project. Instead, Chris simply announces he did it initially for the money (a whopping $100, up 5x from The Magnificent Seven’s reward), but now doesn’t want the money because he loves the rebels. This is that whole weird American western obsession with celebrating the Mexican Revolution, without ever invoking its messy politics. Chris pretty much gets the Han Solo arc, only played in crayon, and with no Wookies.
That nonsense out of the way, the Seven can proceed with their assault upon the prison, preplanning or no. Let me sum up their strategy in a nutshell first, then get into details…
Just a full-on, balls-out attack!...By seven guys…
That is why there was no careful planning section, there was no careful planning. There’s a little bit of a preliminary involving the Seven sneaking into train carts so they can get close to the prison, which we’ve already seen is completely not a problem for them, so this is just filler. And even when they get to the prison, any need for cleverness is negated by the fact that they suddenly have a whole bunch of expendable Mexicans to do their dirty work. I think there might be a little unacknowledged racism at play in this movie.
A tactless assault is appropriate for a western, and I even excused similar tactics at the climax of The Magnificent Seven. But it’s usually just so disengaging for an audience, since they know the good guys must win by default. No need for subtleties; if you’re the hero, just do whatever you damn well please, and it’ll work out. I mean, sure, many of the Seven do die in this moronic effort – I hope it was worth it for $100! Actually, the same four die as have in all previous versions of this story. That is, survival is limited to Chris (to carry on the franchise), the naïve one (to justify his growth arc), and the other one with an identifiable arc (in this case, Levi of all people – because he has a family to go back to). As far as sequels go, this degree of regimentation severely limits tension, forcing us to focus upon the little details instead.
Anyway, of those details, for that’s the one place where Guns might now distinguish itself… In keeping with its contemporary Wild Bunch, use of a ridiculously big machine gun figures prominently into this chaotic melee. Now, The Wild Bunch is a fantastically violent picture, playing its gunplay up for maximum carnage, and using a very Kurosawa slow motion. It’s a critique upon the thoughtless, bloodless, easy butchery in classical westerns. Now, Guns pretty much resembles what The Wild Bunch was railing against. Little of what transpires here has any impact, beyond a shrugged off “Oh, well, I guess that guy’s dead now, eh.” Actually, that goes for all the violence in Guns of the Magnificent Seven, which is plentiful (most of it comes courtesy of the strangely kill-happy Colonel, whom they’re struggling to paint as an irredeemable monster when he just seems an overzealous, under-effective bad guy).
And of course the cavalry of revolutionaries arrives once the majority of the climax has passed, to break into the prison on their own, meaning…there was no point in the Seven doing any of this! And it’s not the Seven Samurai ending, an intentional dramatization of pointlessness. It’s actually pointless!
Chris bids the rebels farewell, because the genre (and franchise) dictate precisely how these things must end. Because everything thus far in this Seven cycle includes a capper quote, here’s George Kennedy’s:
“The cowards die many deaths. The brave only one.”
I think I saw that in a fortune cookie once.
Then our “heroes” ride off into the sunset, and it’s a sign of how underperforming Guns is that they can’t even successfully deliver this classic image. Otherwise, I would’ve capped it, instead of showing George Kennedy’s sunburned mug again.
Guns of the Magnificent Seven delivers lowered thrills. It’s clear this thing played to more specialized audiences than the universally loved Magnificent Seven. Indeed, the western as a whole was undergoing substantial changes in 1969. Newly lifted restrictions allowed violence and cynicism to, which was actually (contrary to popular opinion) already pretty danged cynical in the celebrated John Ford mode (I mean, what you seen The Searchers lately?). Actually, the whole late history of the western seems like a continual effort to undercut the presumed wholesomeness and contradictions of the classical-style westerns. No matter its wishes, Guns of the Magnificent Seven plays in the antiquated mode. With hindsight, it’s obvious now there was no more room for that, that the western of the ‘70s would be dominated by bleaker Clint Eastwood-directed efforts, ceding the popular box office it enjoyed once.
The death of the western is actually a fascinating subject to me, as it’s one of the few “major” genres which seem so cyclical (the other being the musical). Is it even a genre, like action or horror or comedy? Likely not, as a “western” demands a specific time and place. It is a contextual genre, not a tonal genre. That is, it’s free to mix with setting-independent styles, to be a drama, tragedy, thriller, you name it. Most post-modern westerns are about the western as a movement, and that includes the rare modern holdouts like the Coens’ recent True Grit and No Country for Old Men. Guns of the Magnificent Seven hardly fits into this broader late-stage discussion, except as an example of why the average western is no longer viable. But maybe I’m jumping the six shooter with this diatribe, for there’s one more Magnificent movie ahead, hailing from 1972…when things were far more dire.
RELATED POSTS:
• No. 1 The Magnificent Seven (1960)
• No. 4 The Magnificent Seven Ride! (1972)
(see also Seven Samurai)
No comments:
Post a Comment