The Magnificent Seven Ride!

The end of a franchise that should never have existed.

It is often said that there is no love like the first, and really “Magnificent Seven” was an excellent film, which deserves to be remembered and that is part of the great Western films, for me. The film had several sequels, as we know, but none of them were necessary, and the truth is that it would have been better if they had never been made.

This film was the third and final sequel to “Magnificent Seven”. Again, we witness an absolute renewal of the cast, in a radical break with everything that was done previously: here we already see Chris (always the same character, despite the rotation of actors) aged, as sheriff, about to get married. A local bank robbery, followed by the kidnapping of his fiancée, will force the retired gunfighter back into action. He fails, however, to save the bride, who has been raped and killed by thieves. The plot continues, there are a few more deaths that motivate Chris to hunt for his target, which associate rapes with homicides.

The only good thing about this film is the plot: the script ultimately presents a different story than the one that was done in the first film, and repeatedly chewed up in the immediate sequels. We can even dispute the quality and detail of the script, but I think it's much fresher and more acceptable material. Even so, it is in the details that the problems lie: and there are many points where the plot really feels bad, far-fetched and forced.

Lee Van Cleef is a good actor, and it wasn't difficult for him to take the lead here. However, it does not seem to me that the film allows him to shine. I haven't seen much of the actor's work, but it's hard for him to make Brynner's performance in the same character forget. For the rest, he is the only actor who deserves a minimally positive mention. The rest of the cast is overwhelmingly average.

Filmed entirely in the USA, the film is the typical Western, where everything ends in a hail of bullets, looking for the massive action to effectively replace the weaknesses of the script and the rest of the material. Obviously, it doesn't work. The film has clearly fake sets and, on more than one occasion, I felt that the costumes are excessively anachronistic and even uncharacteristic or difficult to accept in a period production. Besides, there isn't much quality here, so it's not a film that I feel capable of recommending to anyone.

Lee Van Cleef takes on the famous Yul Brynner role as "Chris" - this time a US Marshal who is drafted in to recruit a team to protect a small agrarian township from the marauding "De Toro" (Ron Stein). The casting is oddly unconvincing. Stefanie Powers just doesn't cut it at all as love interest "Laurie", nor does Mickey Callan as "Noah" (he should just have stuck to fighting over-sized chickens and Herbert Lom) and, unfortunately, I just cannot take Ralph Waite seriously even though this was made before we became accustomed to his performances with his wholesome "Paw Walton" characterisation. It is stodgily directed, drearily written and is an exceptionally slow burn for an action film, and though it does pick up slightly for the last fifteen minutes or so it is not really much of a worthy successor and I found that it was a film that I am sure I must have seen before, but remember not at all.