Magnificent Movie

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I'd never seen The Magnificent Seven before this evening. Wonderful story --and not a line of it could conceivably be uttered in a movie today. Sensibilities are utterly changed (need I say and not for the better in my humble yet vociferous opinion?).
The script is based on The Seven Samurai, but as presented here, the action centers around a Mexican farming town being terrorized by a gang of bandits. Being poor and having no weapons, they gather all they have and head for Texas to buy guns. While there, observing the honor & bravery of Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen (who risk their lives to get an Indian buried over the town racists' objections), they conceive the notion of paying hired guns to help them. Brynner, McQueen, James Coburn, Charles Bronson and 3 other guys to the rescue. I saw Brynner in The King & I on Broadway shortly before he died, and I'd forgotten that he has a voice even deeper than James Earl Jones' --and much flintier. He & McQueen define cool. And when you see Coburn, you understand the old expression, "He's a tall drink of water."
From the point of view of political philosophy, the movie is about how a bunch of Americans re-found the city --which has been founded inadequately in that it can't defend itself and doesn't know how to be free. Significantly, the 7 arrive during the fireworks display for the anniversary of the town's founding. They help fortify the city, teach the men to shoot, and gradually persuade those who live outside the city that they'd be better protected within it (civilization: good, it allows man to reach his fullest potential).
At a key point in the action, the city fathers weigh the odds of winning a protracted battle and opt to capitulate to the bandits. Charles Bronson is loading his pack and three boys beg to come with him. "We're ashamed of our fathers, " one boy says. "They are cowards!" At which point Bronson turns on a dime and paddles him but good, saying (roughly), "You think I'm brave 'cause I carry a gun? Your parents carry a much heavier thing called responsibility and it's like an enormous rock they twist under until it buries them. They work their fingers to the bone every day never knowing if it will even pay off. No one asks them to take it on, they do it because they love you. That's bravery. Don't ever call your father a coward." And there are many more extraordinary pro-family sentiments uttered totally unselfconsciously.
Sacrifice, honor, courage, redemption of sin (four of the seven have bad pasts to atone for), civic duty, tolerance in its proper sense, defense of the family, not one word of self-pity or self-congratulation, no hugs (except for one exchanged by lovers), all done with warm good humor. What's not to love? Watching a movie like that, you come to see in stark relief the difference between adults and adolescents. (The kids loved it, although obviously it's a shoot-em-up, so use your judgment about whether yours should see it. No contemporary style gore, where the camera lovingly leers at the flecks of flesh splaying out after the bullet hits, but the dying does take place on camera).