Return of the Seven (1966) Reviews

• Acceptable sequel co-produced by US/Spain and filmed in Almeria where was shot lots of Westerns

  ma-cortes2013-05-11

  This is the second in the original series of four "Magnificent Seven" movies . This sequel to ¨Magnificent seven¨ is well played Yul Brynner as tough gunslinger named Chris who along with Vin , Robert Fuller, and their group set off in rescue some Mexican villagers . One day someone comes and takes most of the men prisoner . The villagers have been kidnapped by gunfighter bandits . Chico one of the remaining members of The Magnificent Seven now lives in the village that formerly helped and being also abducted . His wife named Petra (Elisa Montes replacing Rosanda Monteros) sets out to look for Chris, the leader of The Seven for help . Chris is decided to take a group and strike a blow against the Mexican bandits . Chris also meets Vin (Robert Fuller replacing Steve McQueen) another surviving members of The Seven . They find four other men and they go to help Chico (Julian Mateos substituting Horst Buchhold) , they are a womanizer (Warren Oates) , a revenger (Claude Akins), a highwayman (Virgilio Teixeira) and an orphan named Manuel (Jordan Christopher) . As Chris and his buddies , each of whom comes for a different reason , must free a Mexican village imprisoned by nasty outlaws (Emilio Fernandez , Rodolfo Acosta in similar roles to Calvera's Elli Wallach) who are devastating the small location . All of them get a chance to redeem themselves . Later on , the group develops a plan to secure the villagers defend it against enemy attack. Chris character was played by Yul Brynner in two occasions and one performed by Lee Van Cleef and George Kennedy . Brynner as a two-fisted pistolero is very good ; in fact , it was Yul Brynner who approached producer Walter Mirisch with the idea of doing a Western adaptation of Akira Kurosawa's classic, The seven Samurais. Yul insisted he would only make this film if Steve McQueen was not involved , McQueen felt the plot was too absurd and for this, and other reasons, was not interested anyway . The story is similar to previous entry , including customary outlaw band formed by an eclectic gang with diverse characters as well as speciality , as dynamite or guns . The film gets action Western , exciting riding, shootouts, it's funny and entertaining , although nothing new but displays a slight style . The movie contains some moment of violence and even touching on the relationships between the villagers and the Magnificent. Being a Spanish/US co-production , there appears several actors usual in Spaghetti-Paella Western such as Julian Mateos , Ricardo Palacios , Elisa Montes , Carlos Casaravilla and Fernando Rey playing his ordinary role as a priest . This is a passable though inferior sequel from the original and enduringly popular ¨The magnificent seven¨( John Sturges,1960) that is equally remake of ¨The seven samurais¨ (Akira Kurosawa) . After that , followed ¨The return of the seven¨(Burt Kennedy,1966), again with Brynner and ¨Guns of the magnificent seven¨ (Paul Wendkos,1969) with George Kennedy and ¨The Magnificent seven ride¨ with Lee Van Cleef by George McCowan and continued with a TV series and a Television movie realized in 1998 . As always, breathtaking and memorable musical score by Elmer Berstein ; Elmer , whose score for this movie is one of the best-known ever composed, also wrote the soundtrack for the parody of this film, 'Three amigos'. Appropriate cinematography by expert cameraman Paul Vogel , filmed on location in Colmenar , Alicante , Nuevo Baztán, Madrid, Samuel Bronston Studios, Madrid, and , of course , Almeria , Spain . Although this film revisits the village from the first movie, it was shot in Spain, not Mexico. Among the many reasons were the difficulties that occurred between the American filmmakers and the Mexican crew and government censors during the shooting of the first film . The motion picture was professionally directed by Burt Kennedy .He initially was screenwriter , his initial effort, ¨Seven men from now¨ (1956), was a superb western, the first of the esteemed collaboration between director Budd Boetticher and star Randolph Scott. Kennedy wrote most of that series, as well as a number of others for Batjac, although it would be nearly 20 years before Wayne actually appeared in the film of a Kennedy script. In 1960 Kennedy got his first work as a filmmaker on a western, ¨The Canadians¨ (1961), but it was a critical failure . He turned to television where he wrote and directed episodes of "Lawman" (1958), "The Virginian " (1962) and most notably ¨Combat!"(1962) . He returned to films in 1965 with the successful ¨The Rounders¨ , later producing and directing the pilot for the TV series of the same name and subsequently the notorious ¨Support you local sheriff¨ , it results to be one of his best Western . This good Western is a Yul Brynner vehicle , if you like his particular performance ,you'll enjoy this one .

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• The downward spiral begins

  bob the moo2002-07-27

  A friend of Chris is living peacefully in a small village. One day all the men are kidnapped and Chico's wife comes to Chris for help. Chris puts together a group of men and rides to rescue the villagers. They find that the men have been kidnapped and are being used as slaves to build a village church. Basically, following any classic film is very difficult. This does it by rehashing the basic elements as best they can without copying it letter for letter. This time the quest of the seven (well, six for most of it) is a bit more noble but it is essentially the same. We even have Chris talking down the merits of his job as well as the farmers claiming they are cowards etc. just like the first film. However that fresh feel of fun and style the first film had is worn thin here. The action is less exciting and are just like any other western. Whereas the first film had a mix of sweeping grandness as well as a sense of fun – this has both but in lesser quantities. The dialogue is OK and has some nice lines but it'll never match that used in the first film. The outcome is obvious and no real surprise. The characters are less well defined. In the first movie all of the seven had a presence – mainly due to them all trying to outdo Brynner (watch McQueen – very few lines but he is always doing something in the background). Here most of them are nameless and you would struggle to name more than three, they all seem happy to let Brynner be the star – only Fuller and Oates really stick in the memory. Even the bad guy is poor – before he was an oppressor without care or reason, here he is a slave trader but he also has a history that gives him a sympathetic edge – but do you want that in a bad guy? Overall this is an OK western but when you match it up with the original film then you automatically put it in a huge shadow that it can't get out of. As a sequel the flaws just scream off the screen because you know how much better it was last time round.

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• It Can't Ride With 'The Magnificent Seven'

  flickershows2004-08-18

  One of my all-time favourite music scores is Elmer Bernstein's thrilling theme from 'The Magnificent Seven'. I was practically dancing in my seat when I got to hear it again during the opening sequence in 'Return Of The Seven', the first of 3 sequels to John Sturges' classic western. My enthusiasm was short-lived. Bernstein and star Yul Brynner are the only major players to return for this 1966 rehashing of the first picture. Their work is solid---even though they just do the same things they did in Sturges' film---but writer Larry Cohen and director Burt Kennedy don't have any new ideas of their own. It's impossible to replace actors like Steve McQueen, Eli Wallach, James Coburn, and Charles Bronson with Warren Oates, Fernando Rey and a slew of unknowns, but that must have been the best they could do. It's just as foolish to remake the remake (let's not forget that 'Magnificent' was a redo of Kurosawa's 'The Seven Samurai'). A completely different story might have worked better. Since only 3 of the original 7 survived---and neither McQueen or Horst Buchholz return as Vin or Chico)---you can't help noticing that the B team is just not good enough to match what the A team did with Brynner in 1960. So brace yourself as Chris Adams (Brynner) and company ride into battle against Mexican bandits all over again. This time they've got to save Chico and the other male villagers they saved years before. Same result? Not telling, but there are 1 or 2 fun moments along the way. Any excuse to hear Bernstein's music is a good excuse, especially when the movie is on free TV. All the same, I think I'll skip the other sequels. 'Return Of The Seven' isn't horsepoo, but it's certainly not worthy of riding with 'The Magnificent Seven' either.

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• Poor script, good action

  rmahaney42002-02-10

  In some ways, it almost seems unfair to compare a sequel to the original, that we should judge it on it's own merits. However, usually the only reason we are watching a sequel is because of the original, so my review consists primarily in comparison. The most interesting thing about Return is how hard the makers tried to make it like the original. They were largely successful. Burt Kennedy's direction is good and recreates the visual feel of the original. Of course, Bernstein's score highlights the film. The story, different in particulars, is goes through essentially the same stages: armed men attack the village, the call for help, the gathering of the seven, traveling to the village, defying the villain, the first attack beaten off, a pause where we get to know the characters and their motivations better, the final attack. The only difference is that the villagers do not 'betray' their protectors, as in the Magnificent Seven. A character even sneaks into the enemy camp in much the same fashion as in the earlier movie. The real weakness of the sequel is the script. Along with the excellent acting and music, the dialogue in the first film was very well written and something of a departure from earlier westerns. It was terse, oftentimes funny, filled with meaning. In Return the delivery and the tone is the same, but the words spoken so solemnly are utterly commonplace and with no humor. Robert Fuller would have been a good replacement for McQueen, but the character is written completely differently and is far less interesting. The acting, also, is inferior to the first film. Another problem with the film is the portrayal of the peasants. They are a not characters, as in The Magnificent Seven, but a mass. This film is solely about the 7 Americans riding to the rescue to the rescue of defenseless peasants and at times seems to have a pro-intervention (pro-Vietnam?) political subtext that the in first film, which was a translation of Seven Samurai to the New World, was either absent or more subtle. All this said and out of the way, film has lots of action, a good score, and Yul Brynner, who is always fun to watch in a western whether it is The Magnificent Seven or Adios, Sabata. Fans of westerns and action films will probably find it entertaining. Familiar face Emilio Fernandez, who played Lorca, acted in over 70 films, starting in Mexico, and wrote and directed many of them. The relationship between his character, his dead sons, and Chris could have made a very compelling film. Unfortunately it was not expanded on.

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• Those Farmers Have More Trouble

  bkoganbing2007-09-09

  Do you remember how the first Magnificent Seven ended? Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen rode off after polishing off Eli Wallach and his group of bandits. Horst Bucholtz as Chico stayed in the village and married a girl from there. The other four also stayed in six by four graves. Flash forward now to the present. One day another group of bandits sweep down on the village, they take Chico and the rest of the men as workers on a little project. They've taken the men from two other villages as well. The call is sent out for help again. Yul Brynner and Robert Fuller in Steve McQueen's role recruit four others and ride back to where they fought that battle many years earlier. Instead of the eminently practical Eli Wallach whose interest in these poor villages was for supplies during the winter for his gang. This time we're dealing with a fanatic played Emilio Fernandez who Yul Brynner has had dealings with before. He's got all these peasants working as slave labors to rebuild a church as a monument to his two dead sons. The man's trolley has definitely slipped his tracks. I guess I miss Eli Wallach from the original. I found Fernandez's character to be just too off the mark for me. I can't believe his own men are standing for what he wants. Just as Steve McQueen came from western television so does his replacement Robert Fuller, fresh from the Laramie series. Fuller is competent enough, but does not have McQueen's charisma by a stretch. Too bad they couldn't get Steve McQueen to repeat his role. The other four of the new Seven are Jordan Christopher, Claude Akins, Warren Oates, and Rudolfo Acosta. All of them fill roles that we've come to expect of them. Julian Mateos takes Horst Bucholtz's part, a more mature Chico to be sure. You could not have done this film without that wonderful Elmer Bernstein theme again. What I can't understand is why his score was nominated again as there was nothing original in it. Return of the Seven is a decent enough remake, but it ain't a patch on the original.

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