The Magnificent Seven 5.1
Sumflow
Posts: 64
Friday 04/18/2003 08:00 PM
Director John Sturges once theorized that it was possible to adapt any story into a Western and proved that hunch by transposing Akira Kurosawa's 1954 art-house hit, The Seven Samurai DVD (1954) to a Western setting, replacing the swordsmen with gunfighters, and titling it The Magnificent Seven DVD (1960). Although the basic plot survived the transfer intact - a poor village hires seven armed men to protect them from a marauding band of bandits - Sturges filmed his version in Panavision and color with on-location shooting in Cuernavaca, Mexico. The other main difference was purely cultural. Whereas Kurosawa's film explored samurai honor and social responsibility, Sturges turned The Magnificent Seven DVD (1960) into an elegy for a vanishing West once ruled by gunfighters. In a way, The Magnificent Seven DVD (1960) could be seen as a forerunner of such influential Westerns by Sam Peckinpah as Ride the High Country (1962) and The Wild Bunch DVD (1969).
The road to production on The Magnificent Seven DVD was a rocky one with conflicting reports of who initiated the project. By most accounts, it was Yul Brynner who first envisioned the Kurosawa film as a Western remake and encouraged movie mogul Walter Mirisch to purchase the rights from Japan's Toho Studios. Mirisch struck up a distribution deal with United Artists but then ran into trouble with Anthony Quinn, who filed a breach of contract suit against Brynner. Quinn claimed he had acquired rights to The Seven Samurai DVD (1954) with Brynner and had collaborated with him on several ideas for the remake before they had a parting of the ways. But there was no signed contract and Quinn lost the claim.
There were other obstacles to overcome. The Mexican government censors, who had some major concerns about the depiction of their country as inhospitable, demanded some script changes before granting the film crew permission to shoot in their country. The casting was touch and go for awhile too as Steve McQueen was denied permission to participate by Four Star, the production company for his TV series, Wanted: Dead or Alive (1958). He outfoxed them by crashing a rental car and claiming whiplash, which released him from his TV commitments. Although Yul Brynner had final casting decision and had approved McQueen for the film, his relationship with the soon-to-be-famous star would become fiercely competitive on the set of The Magnificent Seven DVD (1960). Brynner, who studied the quick draw with world champion, Rodd Redwing, was no match for McQueen when it came to gunplay. The latter would practice firing for hours each day and learned to shoot two rounds into a one-square-foot target in just eleven hundredths of a second. McQueen also taught Brynner the scene-stealing trick of flicking the gun backward into the holster. However, McQueen remained unimpressed by Brynner's star status at the time and said to one interviewer, "When you work in a scene with Yul, you're supposed to stand perfectly still. I don't work that way."
Perhaps the tension on the set between the two actors improved the film because both Brynner and McQueen are excellent in their roles as Chris and Vin. In fact, Brynner is so closely identified with his character in The Magnificent Seven DVD that he wore the exact same black gunfighter outfit years later as the cyborg killer in the sci-fi thriller Western, Westworld DVD (1973). The rest of the cast members are equally impressive, particularly James Coburn, who barely has twenty words of dialogue and almost steals the film as the mysterious knife-thrower, Britt. Charles Bronson, who was just a few years away from superstardom in Europe, plays O'Reilly, the stoic woodcutter; Robert Vaughn, soon to be known as TV's The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964), is Lee, an outlaw wrestling with his fear of death; Brad Dexter co-stars as Harry Luck, the hardened cynic in the group; Horst Buchholz, in the role of the reckless Chino, maintains the same high level of manic energy that Toshiro Mifune brought to the same role in the original version. Last but not least, a mention must be made of Elmer Bernstein's rousing score which was nominated for an Oscar but lost to Ernest Gold's soundtrack for Exodus (1960). If Bernstein's central theme sounds overly familiar, it's because United Artists sold the music to Marlboro cigarettes for use in their television commercials.
Director John Sturges once theorized that it was possible to adapt any story into a Western and proved that hunch by transposing Akira Kurosawa's 1954 art-house hit, The Seven Samurai DVD (1954) to a Western setting, replacing the swordsmen with gunfighters, and titling it The Magnificent Seven DVD (1960). Although the basic plot survived the transfer intact - a poor village hires seven armed men to protect them from a marauding band of bandits - Sturges filmed his version in Panavision and color with on-location shooting in Cuernavaca, Mexico. The other main difference was purely cultural. Whereas Kurosawa's film explored samurai honor and social responsibility, Sturges turned The Magnificent Seven DVD (1960) into an elegy for a vanishing West once ruled by gunfighters. In a way, The Magnificent Seven DVD (1960) could be seen as a forerunner of such influential Westerns by Sam Peckinpah as Ride the High Country (1962) and The Wild Bunch DVD (1969).
The road to production on The Magnificent Seven DVD was a rocky one with conflicting reports of who initiated the project. By most accounts, it was Yul Brynner who first envisioned the Kurosawa film as a Western remake and encouraged movie mogul Walter Mirisch to purchase the rights from Japan's Toho Studios. Mirisch struck up a distribution deal with United Artists but then ran into trouble with Anthony Quinn, who filed a breach of contract suit against Brynner. Quinn claimed he had acquired rights to The Seven Samurai DVD (1954) with Brynner and had collaborated with him on several ideas for the remake before they had a parting of the ways. But there was no signed contract and Quinn lost the claim.
There were other obstacles to overcome. The Mexican government censors, who had some major concerns about the depiction of their country as inhospitable, demanded some script changes before granting the film crew permission to shoot in their country. The casting was touch and go for awhile too as Steve McQueen was denied permission to participate by Four Star, the production company for his TV series, Wanted: Dead or Alive (1958). He outfoxed them by crashing a rental car and claiming whiplash, which released him from his TV commitments. Although Yul Brynner had final casting decision and had approved McQueen for the film, his relationship with the soon-to-be-famous star would become fiercely competitive on the set of The Magnificent Seven DVD (1960). Brynner, who studied the quick draw with world champion, Rodd Redwing, was no match for McQueen when it came to gunplay. The latter would practice firing for hours each day and learned to shoot two rounds into a one-square-foot target in just eleven hundredths of a second. McQueen also taught Brynner the scene-stealing trick of flicking the gun backward into the holster. However, McQueen remained unimpressed by Brynner's star status at the time and said to one interviewer, "When you work in a scene with Yul, you're supposed to stand perfectly still. I don't work that way."
Perhaps the tension on the set between the two actors improved the film because both Brynner and McQueen are excellent in their roles as Chris and Vin. In fact, Brynner is so closely identified with his character in The Magnificent Seven DVD that he wore the exact same black gunfighter outfit years later as the cyborg killer in the sci-fi thriller Western, Westworld DVD (1973). The rest of the cast members are equally impressive, particularly James Coburn, who barely has twenty words of dialogue and almost steals the film as the mysterious knife-thrower, Britt. Charles Bronson, who was just a few years away from superstardom in Europe, plays O'Reilly, the stoic woodcutter; Robert Vaughn, soon to be known as TV's The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964), is Lee, an outlaw wrestling with his fear of death; Brad Dexter co-stars as Harry Luck, the hardened cynic in the group; Horst Buchholz, in the role of the reckless Chino, maintains the same high level of manic energy that Toshiro Mifune brought to the same role in the original version. Last but not least, a mention must be made of Elmer Bernstein's rousing score which was nominated for an Oscar but lost to Ernest Gold's soundtrack for Exodus (1960). If Bernstein's central theme sounds overly familiar, it's because United Artists sold the music to Marlboro cigarettes for use in their television commercials.
"At the first bend, I had the clear sensation that Tazio had taken it badly and that we would end up in the ditch; I felt myself stiffen as I waited for the crunch. Instead, we found ourselves on the next straight with the car in a perfect position. I looked at him, his rugged face was calm, just as it always was, and certainly not the face of someone who had just escaped a hair-raising spin. I had the same sensation at the second bend. By the fourth or fifth bend I began to understand; in the meantime, I had noticed that through the entire bend Tazio did not lift his foot from the accelerator, and that, in fact, it was flat on the floor. As bend followed bend, I discovered his secret. Nuvolari entered the bend somewhat earlier than my driver's instinct would have told me to. But he went into the bend in an unusual way: with one movement he aimed the nose of the car at the inside edge, just where the curve itself started. His foot was flat down, and he had obviously changed down to the right gear before going through this fearsome rigmarole. In this way he put the car into a four-wheel drift, making the most of the thrust of the centrifugal force and keeping it on the road with the traction of the driving wheels. Throughout the bend the car shaved the inside edge, and when the bend turned into the straight the car was in the normal position for accelerating down it, with no need for any corrections."
Enzo Ferrari
Enzo Ferrari
Post edited by Sumflow on
Comments
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This is really hard to read my friend... Although I understand the intent my eyes are going crazy over here.
HBomb***WAREMTAE*** -
I just used the front L/R when watching it on DVD, & thought it sounded great. The only reason I give a hoot about centers & surrounds is that movies made in the surround age are mixed in a way that often makes it very difficult for me to hear dialogue unless a center is used. Older movies, as long as the original soundtrack has been cleaned up, sound great in mono or 2-ch, as far as I'm concerned.Testing
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Between the small print and coloredness.....i dont want to read this. Im sure its interesting tho. Although I feel its about 5.1 on old movies, which I dont care about newayz....hmmm....I cant stand 2.1!!!!!! lol!Damn you all, damn you all to hell.......
I promised myself
No more speakers. None. Nada. And then you posted this!!!!
Damn you all! - ATC -
I think I'm blind now.
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Justin,
Please take Sumflow's crayons away from him...
More later,
Tour...
Vox Copuli
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. - Old English Proverb
"Death doesn't come with a Uhaul." - Dennis Gardner
"It's easy to get lost in price vs performance vs ego vs illusion." - doro
"There is a certain entertainment value in ripping the occaisonal (sic) buttmunch..." - TroyD -
Meestercleef is that from Jeff Beck?
Mastered live to 2-tr analog tape 15 ips, 18-42,000 Hz (+/- 3db); digitized on custom ..."At the first bend, I had the clear sensation that Tazio had taken it badly and that we would end up in the ditch; I felt myself stiffen as I waited for the crunch. Instead, we found ourselves on the next straight with the car in a perfect position. I looked at him, his rugged face was calm, just as it always was, and certainly not the face of someone who had just escaped a hair-raising spin. I had the same sensation at the second bend. By the fourth or fifth bend I began to understand; in the meantime, I had noticed that through the entire bend Tazio did not lift his foot from the accelerator, and that, in fact, it was flat on the floor. As bend followed bend, I discovered his secret. Nuvolari entered the bend somewhat earlier than my driver's instinct would have told me to. But he went into the bend in an unusual way: with one movement he aimed the nose of the car at the inside edge, just where the curve itself started. His foot was flat down, and he had obviously changed down to the right gear before going through this fearsome rigmarole. In this way he put the car into a four-wheel drift, making the most of the thrust of the centrifugal force and keeping it on the road with the traction of the driving wheels. Throughout the bend the car shaved the inside edge, and when the bend turned into the straight the car was in the normal position for accelerating down it, with no need for any corrections."
Enzo Ferrari -
from the specs for Mapleshade/Wild Child records, a small label that makes very high quality recordingsTesting
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from the specs for Mapleshade/Wild Child records, a small label that makes very high quality recordings
www.mapleshaderecords.comTesting
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