I magnifici sette cavalcano ancora

I recently watched all four of the Magnificent Seven movies and "The Magnificent Seven Ride!" was the last. While the first film was exceptional in every way, I can't say there was much reason for the other three films. Part of it is that the plots are pretty much the same as the first film. Part of it is that the cast kept changing. In the case of Chris, the leader of the seven, he was played by three different actors. Yul Brynner played him in the first two and was a tremendous presence. So, when he was later played by George Kennedy and Lee Van Cleef (in this film), it was a huge letdown.

While "The Magnificent Seven Ride!" is yet another attempt to squeeze a little bit of life out of a dead franchise, at least it offers SOME differences. The first three plots are pretty much clones. This one is just enough different to make it interesting....a bit. In fact, this film is a bit like the first three combined with "The Dirty Dozen"!

When the film begins, Chris (Van Cleef) has settled down. He's now a sheriff and has a young bride (Mariette Hartley). Life is good. However, after three punks rob the bank, shoot the sheriff and kidnap his wife, the usual routine is disrupted. When he sufficiently recovered from the shooting to give chase, Chris sets off to catch the creeps. Unfortunately, his wife's body is found along the trail and the trio brutalized and raped her. When Chris finds two of them, he soon dispatches them--but isn't sure where the third is. Perhaps he's gone across the desert to Mexico.

Inside Mexico, Chris meets up with an old friend that tried earlier in the film to recruit Chris for another Magnificent Seven-style fight against some stupid Mexican gang of bandits. He refuses--as he's got revenge on the brain. But, when Chris later finds the friend and others murdered AND rescues their women (who have all been repeatedly raped), he isn't going to walk away this time. But he needs help--and goes back over the border to get prisoners to help him with the fight! What will happen next? See the film...though there really isn't a whole lotta doubt!

"The Magnificent Seven Ride!" ends up being pretty much what you'd expect after the prisoners were recruited. They are a pretty much forgettable cast doing EXACTLY what previous incarnations of the series had already done. And, the film looks a lot more like a made for TV movie than anything else. Very slight and forgettable.

By the way, when you watch the film, you might have a similar reaction to me. After this group of women have been brutalized, raped, had their men murdered and just barely avoided death, showing them romantically pairing up with the surviving members of the seven seemed pretty sick.

I shall say that Lee Van Cleef and a bunch of beauty women hold the picture, we must forget as sequel of Magnificent Seven, it was a masterpiece, this picture is quite good entertainment for many reasons, it has the most elements to make a good movie, the plot is aceptable, apart Cleef the casting is second class but still good and finaly a great western lanscape, but this one has a great virtue than the previous, it has a bunch of women, all them young widows including Stefanie Powers and Mariette Hartley, look on Ed Lauter & Gary Busey in the early years!!

Resume:

First watch: 2005 / How many: 2 / Source: DVD / Rating: 6.25

Despite sporting "The Magnificent Seven" in it's title, this is basically a B-movie with a budget, albeit a very good B-movie. This throws in revenge elements and a little Dirty Dozen style criminal recruitment to spice up the usual heroics of the title protectors.

After seven or so years of mainly spaghetti westerns, it's nice to see Lee Van Cleef (taking over hosting duties from Yul Brynner and George Kennedy) headlining a major American western.

It's also a lot of fun to see a slew of familiar faces sharing the screen with Van Cleef, like Gary Busy, Luke Askew, Ed Lauter, and William Lucking (who's finally getting some recognition as a co-star on "The Sons Of Anarchy") among others.

It's too bad that second-billed Stefanie Powers isn't given anything much to do besides looking good and kissing Lee Van Cleef, who's wife has been dead less than a week!

Another Dirty Dozen western knock-off, this one being Italian, is Massacre At Fort Holman, also known as A Reason To Live, A Reason To Die, starring James Coburn, Telly Savalas, and Bud Spencer. If you liked this, then that one is highly recommended too.

Just when you think they're releasing more and always inferior "Magnificent Seven" sequels solely because people can't get enough of Elmer Bernstein's legendary musical score, comes the final and (in)arguably best follow-up of the whole franchise. John Sturges' 1960 original, although merely just a blatant imitation of the Japanese milestone "Seven Samurai", can righteously be considered as a true American western classic, but parts II and III are downright shameless, uninspired and totally redundant rehashes without any entertainment value whatsoever. The character of Chris Adams, twice depicted by Yul Brunner and once by George Kennedy, grew out to become some sort of philosophical prophet who always does the right thing and the rare highlights of the sequels were just vague copies of similar moments featuring in the original. With this fourth and final installment, we arrived in the decade of 70's cinema and is this ever noticeable or what? What the Italian directors already knew throughout the entire 1960's had now suddenly become clear in the USA as well: westerns need to be mean and dirty, with despicable characters (even the heroes!), graphic violence and plenty of sleaze and smut! Even the traditional goody-two-shoes Marshall Chris Adams has suddenly become an embittered and narcissistic persona, though admittedly the performance and natural charisma of Lee "the Bad" Van Cleef adds a great deal to this transformation. Not once but twice Chris rejects the cry for help of an old pal, who begs him to come and fight an unfair battle against a Mexican posse that terrorizes a small little town near the American border. Instead of that, he chooses to go after one sole juvenile delinquent who raped and murdered his own wife. Only when Chris discovers that his pal killed off the youthful thug because he joined the posse, he feels responsible to take over the good cause and defend the remaining widows of the little community. Chris' six "noble" helpers aren't heroic lonesome cowboys, but convicted criminals who only participate because it's their only chance for parole. This minor chance in the formula actually makes this final entry more like a crossover between "The Magnificent Seven" and "The Dirty Dozen". And last but not least, the allegedly poor and defenseless town women are actually more like luscious and horny widows. They don't exactly appear mournful over their brutally slaughter farmer husbands and pretty much throw themselves at the robust macho thugs. It also has to be said that they don't really look like Mexican farmer women, but more like the ensemble staff of a luxury brothel. All this is perhaps a bit of an abrupt alternation of the franchise, but it's the best damn thing that could have happened to it! The gunfights are quite nasty, with lots of blood spurting out of people's stomachs and heads, and the climax is short but exhilarating. Van Cleef is awesome as always (by God, I love that guy) and there are terrific supportive roles for Luke Askew, Ed Lauter and William Lucking. And, not to forget, a modest but memorable cameo appearance of a still very young Gary Busey.

By-the-numbers western has the chintzy look of a cheap Aaron Spelling made-for-TV opus. A good cast of veteran "heavies"--Luke Askew, William Lucking, Pedro Armendariz Jr., Ed Lauter--can't save this extremely ordinary oater from poor direction and atrocious hack writing. Predictable at every turn,