Akira Kurosawa's rousing Seven Samurai was a natural for an American remake--after all, the codes and conventions of ancient Japan and the Wild West (at least the mythical movie West) are not so very far apart. Thus The Magnificent Seven effortlessly turns samurai into cowboys (the same trick worked more than once: Kurosawa's Yojimbo became Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars). The beleaguered denizens of a Mexican village, weary of attacks by banditos, hire seven gunslingers to repel the invaders once and for all. The gunmen are cool and capable, with most of the actors playing them just on the cusp of '60s stardom: Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn. The man who brings these warriors together is Yul Brynner, the baddest bald man in the West. There's nothing especially stylish about the approach of veteran director John Sturges (The Great Escape), but the storytelling is clear and strong, and the charisma of the young guns fairly flies off the screen. If that isn't enough to awaken the 12-year-old kid inside anyone, the unforgettable Elmer Bernstein music will do it: bum-bum-ba-bum, bum-ba-bum-ba-bum... Followed by three inferior sequels, Return of the Seven, Guns of the Magnificent Seven, and The Magnificent Seven Ride! --Robert Horton
The Magnificent Seven effortlessly turn samurai into cowboys (the same trick worked more than once: Kurosawa'sYojimbo became Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars) and Akira Kurosawa's rousing Seven Samuri was a natural for an American remake through this movie--after all, the codes and conventions of ancient Japan and the Wild West (at least the mythical movie West) are not so very far apart. The beleaguered denizens of a Mexican village, weary of attacks by banditos, hire seven gunslingers to repel the invaders once and for all. The gunmen are cool and capable, with most of the actors playing them just on the cusp of 60s stardom: Steve McQueen, JamesCoburn, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn. The man who brings these warriors together is Yul Brynner, the baddest bald man in the West. There's nothing especially stylish about the approach of veteran director John Sturges (The Great Escape), but the storytelling is clear and strong, and the charisma of the young guns fairly flies off the screen. If that isn't enough to awaken the 12-year-old kid inside anyone, the unforgettable Elmer Bernstein music will do it: bum-bum-ba-bum, bum-ba-bum-ba-bum... followed by three inferior sequels, Return of the Seven, Guns of the Magnificent Seven, and The Magnificent Seven Ride!--Robert Horton, Amazon.com
SHE who must be obeyed! ...SHE who must be loved! ...SHE who must be possessed! A Cambridge professor and his friends hear tales whilst travelling in Palestine of a lost city in deepest Africa ruled by a beautiful woman seeking her one true love. Intrigued by the legends they set off across the desert in search of the strange land: however little do they know they are being led into a trap of the immortal She the cold blooded queen Ayesha who is pining for the return of the lover she murdered long ago.... A spectacular adaptation of H. Rider Haggard's classic fantasy novel.
Robert Walker, Herbert Lom and Christopher Lee all feature in this spectacular adventure of lost treasure set deep in the Amazon jungle, but the undeniable star of The Face of Eve is screen goddess Celeste Yarnall later immortalised as the blood-thirsty temptress in cult horror classic The Velvet Vampire. Scripted by legendary British B-movie mogul Harry Alan Towers, The Face of Eve is presented here in a brand-new transfer from the original film elements in its as-exhibited theatrical aspect ratio.Mike Yates, a pilot and adventurer searching for lost Inca treasure, is saved from savages by a beautiful white jungle goddess who wields a strange power over her subjects. Soon both Yates and the mysterious Eve are involved in a dangerous race deep into the jungle to locate the hidden treasure...SPECIAL FEATURE: Image Gallery
In his first effort at directing a feature-length film William (Ted) Kotcheff best-known for movies like The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz does an excellent job in making this drama effective. He is helped in no small part by James Mason as Brett Aimsley a sophisticated at-ease former junior partner in a brokerage firm and John Mills as Lt. Col. Clifford Southey a former clerk in that same company. During the war the lieutenant carries his sense of inferiority from his peacetime job as a clerk with him. So when he has a chance to nail Brett (a junior officer now) for trying to bring some censored goods back into London he takes the chance and Brett is drummed out of service. Brett heads for Tahiti and a pretty good life in the sun until Clifford shows up on the island with big plans to build a hotel -- bringing with him the same defensive attitude.
From acclaimed director Luis Bunuel comes another tale about morality and the church. Nazarin is one of Brunuel's quartet of adaptations of the great 19th century Spanish writer Benito Perez Galdos and with Simon Of The Desert forms the best of his explorations of religion. The story told in the manner of a Christian parable is about a humble and unworldly priest who attempts to live by the precepts of Christianity but is despised for his pains. The film was ambiguous enough to win the International Catholic Cinema Office Award - a supreme irony for the cinema's most famous anti-Catholic atheist - and also won the Grand Prix Internationale at the 1959 Cannes film festival// The theme of the impossibility of leading a pure Christian life was further explored in Viridiana (1961).
Hammer's She might be a travesty of Rider Haggard's epic adventure novel, scaling things down to fit into a budget lavish only by the studio's low standards. At least the film opens with the unexpected sight of Peter Cushing and Bernard Cribbins in a dive in Palestine in 1919, shimmying with belly-dancers and brawling with the locals John Ford-style. Less entertainingly the film then switches attention to blonde clod John Richardson who is dreamily visited by blonde goddess Ursula Andress--her eerie beauty enhanced by the usual Hammer trick of dubbing the foreign crumpet with a posh voice.Our adventurers are given a map which leads them through deserts and mountains to the lost city of Kuma, an Egyptian-style civilisation ruled by Ayesha. This immortal She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed has been unaccountably waiting for Richardson to be reincarnated ever since she pettishly killed him thousands of years ago. In this reading, She is an Aryan fascist given to tipping those who displease her into a pit of molten lava. Her final comeuppance--as she bathes again in the blue flame of immortality and finds the process reversed so she suffers one of Hammer's patented Dracula dissolves to dust--takes place during a native uprising which overthrows her whole corrupt regime.The leads look terrific but can't act for beans so it's a mercy that stalwarts Cushing and Christopher Lee (as the treacherous High Priest) are on hand, not to mention Cribbins (comedy servant in bowler hat), Andre Morell and Rosenda Monteros.The James Bernard music is enchanting in a way Robert Day's direction sadly isn't, but the sets and (especially) costumes are splendid and the film has its moments of magic and terror: as the centurion pours out the remains of Morell's daughter from a jar, as the flame burns blue and the lovers bathe in it.On the DVD: the 2.35:1 widescreen print is in very good shape. Otherwise, there's not even a trailer. --Kim Newman
Yul Brynner stars as one of seven master gunmen who aid the helpless farmers of an isolated village pitted against an army of marauding bandits in this rousing action tale based on Akira Kurosawa's classic Seven Samurai. Released in 1960 John Sturges' masterpiece garnered an Oscar nomination for Elmer Bernstein (for Best Score) and launched the film careers of Steve McQueen Charles Bronson Robert Vaughn and James Coburn.
Screen legend Boris Karloff plays a blind sculptor who uses skeletons as the basis for his unorthodox works of art. Unbeknownst to him his wife Tania (Viveca Lindfors) and her lover provide the skeletons by murdering people and dumping them in an acid bath they keep in the basement laboratory. A journalist played by Jean Pierre Aumont and his girlfriend are the straight couple who trigger the climax after their friend Helga has been given the acid treatment. 'Colonel March of Sc
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