7 Men from Now

source: 7 Men from Now

An enjoyable Batjac Wester with Randy Scott, directed by Bud Boetticher. The two of them turned out a series of minor gems and this is perhaps the best example. Scott is his usual deeply tanned, taciturn, spoil-sport self. He strides rather than walks, matching his character's name. The plot has to do with his trying to recover some stolen Wells Fargo money. In the course of the robbery his wife was killed so he has plenty of reason to play the stoic. He's pretty amusing actually. He stands around grimly while people try to talk to him. It's like having a duel of wits with a piece of granite. I won't go into the rest of the plot. John Larch is such a likable actor that even when his role is ambiguous, as it is here, it's sad to see him get bumped off, especially when he's shot to pieces from opposite directions. Gail Russell is a little sad to watch too. A few years earlier she had been both sexy and vulnerable, etiolated, black-haired, with pale blue irises , slightly pained, as if suffering from a calamitous but not disfiguring disease. She seemed radiant with it. And maybe it was a disease after all, sometimes called "Jellenik's disease," named after the guy who tried to medicalize alcoholism. In any case, Russell hadn't that long to live. John Ford had two big stunt men in his stock company who were named Chuck. I forget the last name of the other, but the one who appears here is Chuck Roberson. Chuck Roberson was known as "Good Chuck" because he didn't get drunk, gamble, or become vulgar. The other was known as "Bad Chuck." Roberson had become John Wayne's traditional Western stand in. When Roberson's little kid was visiting a shoot, he asked Wayne was kind of work Wayne did. Wayne replied that he did Roberson's close ups. Good Chuck retired to a ranch in Bakersfield and lived a reasonably content life, monarch of all he surveyed. The outstanding performance, without qualification, is Lee Marvin's. What a GOOD BAD GUY he was! One of the best ever. He constantly plays with his six guns, jokingly kicks chairs out from under people, and when he's shot after some fatal words ("I don't 'spect there's any way to get that gold without going' over you") he twirls around balletically before falling to the dirt. He did a great twirl in "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," and in, "The Killers", as well, although in at least the last he was helped considerably by the self-induced chemical paralysis of his psychomotor coordination. What amazes me in these movies is how CLEAN all the men are. They can ride the range for a month and come out looking pressed and dapper in a way you wouldn't after one day behind the counter. At the end, Scott winds up wearing a matching ultra-violet blue outfit with a cowboy hat of the same color and a bright scarf as a contrasting accessory. I'm not sure I got these terms right but you know what I mean. The movie is a lot of fun, and Lee Marvin shouldn't be missed. His jaw is always slack, his mouth half open. That pendulous lower lip, bespeaking calculation, contempt, and distrust.

One of the first collaborations between Boetticher and Randolph Scott for their cycle of low budget B westerns they did in the fifties. John Wayne was to play the lead role before it went to Scott. There's nothing atypical, sophisticated or extraordinary about the story or depictions of the old west - this is still white hats, black hats territory with plot points telegraphed in pretty obvious fashion. It is however economical, unpretentious, restrained and straight to the point. The awkward love interest that develops between disgruntled sheriff and squatter's wife reminded me of SHANE. Lee Marvin turns another solid performance as the villain.

I might have seen this as a teenager, but if so I don't remember it. Reading others' reviews gave me high hopes when a chance to tape it came up. So, well, it's certainly not bad: it starts and ends with tremendous scenes and has good stuff along the way. But for my taste there are entirely too much shots of them travelling through the scenery, and Randolph Scott does seem to be playing more on a single note than in other films like the Tall T, also shown recently. Lee Marvin's character is interesting and well portrayed. But some of the scenes seem to fall a little flat; the tensions within the group travelling together are unevenly portrayed, and the robbers whose action sets Stride on their trail are barely brought to life at all. The shooting of the husband of Gail Russell's character also seems a rather transparent way of getting him out of the way, which will put the robber leader in just as much trouble as the husband's revelations would have done. Overall, then, I mark this lower than most have done, at 6.

Married couple from the east, traveling to California by horse-drawn wagon, seeks help from a mysterious man riding through Arizona with an agenda: he's a former-sheriff after the men who killed his wife. Western saga, with beautiful location shooting in Lone Pine, CA, was produced by John Wayne's company, Batjac, but seems a highly inappropriate vehicle for the Duke (one can't sense him displaying second-hand guilt over being unemployed which caused his working spouse to be killed on the job). Screenwriter Burt Kennedy brings in two sidewinders (Don Barry and a frothing-at-the-mouth Lee Marvin) to create tension between the couple and with Randolph Scott, but also throws in Apaches, bank robbers, as well as flirtations between the Mrs. (who has a 'soft' husband) and the ex-lawman. The constant clichés in Kennedy's writing--although probably a lot less stale in 1956 than today--are disheartening. Gail Russell is a lovely presence, but is given nothing to do beyond hanging laundry and offering everyone coffee; Scott is supposed to have feelings for her, but seems surprised every time she calls his name. Director Budd Boetticher has a good eye for composing action scenes, and he obviously enjoys setting up conflict between his characters (most preferably in tight quarters, to make the audience squirm), but he isn't very talented with actors. The picture revived Scott's career, but his handsomely-pained expression has no variance, and his Ben Stride is a dullard anyway. ** from ****

This seminal western, long out of circulation, was recently restored by the UCLA Film Archives. It reappeared in August, 2000, at UCLA and played in the 2000 New York Film Festival, with director Budd Boetticher on hand. It was the first of a series of westerns directed by Boetticher and starring Randolph Scott. All are excellent, but this may be the best. The script by Burt Kennedy is genuinely surprising, exciting, and funny. Boetticher smartly uses the landscape as a character in his story, portraying the craggly, rocky plains as a visual metaphor for the sense of entrapment that envelops the characters. Lee Marvin is a first-class villain with a great speech in a covered wagon scene which is one of the best scenes Kennedy ever wrote. This is a must-see. If you like it, also check out THE TALL T and RIDE LONESOME.

This is one of my favorite westerns. Since it has been out of circulation until recently, few of the new generation have got to see it. Hopefully now that it has been restored on DVD it will receive its just desserts. If at all possible, see the wide-screen version. Budd Boetticher believed that as many shots as possible should be made outside. His movies have few interior scenes. He shot his best westerns in Lone Pine, California, second only to Utah's Mounument Valley for natural beauty that fulfills anyone's fantasy of how the Old West should appear on the big screen. "Seven Men From Now" also contains one of my favorite movie shots highlighting the genius of Boetticher. When Ben Stride (Randy Scott) draws against Bill Masters (Lee Marvin) the viewer never sees Stride draw. His/Her imagination must be used to visualize just how fast Stride's draw is. It's sort of like the old joke used on the Steve Allen Television Show by Don Knotts. He never moves his hands and asks the viewer, "Wanna see it again?" These were the early days of Lee Marvin's film career when he was still trying to prove himself as a viable actor. In "Seven Men From Now" he succeeds beyond one's wildest expectations. Though he deserved the Oscar for "Cat Ballou" a few years later, he is actually better in "Seven Men From Now" than he was in that award-winning flick. After "Cat Ballou" his acting deteriorated somewhat, though from time to time he turned in an admirable performance especially in the neglected classic "Point Blank." Second only to Lee Marvin, is Randolph Scott who never gave a poor performance. He plays to perfection his role as a revenge seeking, self-pitying Marshall who still believes in fair play and romance. John Wayne was originally slotted for the role, but it is doubtful that even such a great actor as Wayne could have played Ben Stride the way he was meant to be portrayed, the way Randy Scott plays him. The finely honed well-written script is by Burt Kennedy who would go on to make one of the funniest westerns ever, "Support Your Local Sheriff." What a team Boetticher, Kennedy, and Scott made. Though it is good to see the old cowboy star Don "Red" Barry on the big screen once more, his part as Bill Masters' weak-minded sidekick does not fit him. He is sadly miscast. A character actor such as Strother Martin would have fit the role much better. This is one of those films not to be missed whether you're a western fan or not. It can be viewed repeatedly and enjoyed more each time.

I'm going to jump right into my criteria for watching any movie: 1. Do I believe the story? Not really, kinda, maybe, if I'm suspending disbelief as I do for animation, perhaps? So many unbelievable elements to it -- the token Indian threat; screaming Hollywood from the Joshua Tree National Park (or nearby) in the first 5 minutes; one minute we're in the desert, next minute we're in a torrential downpour, and more. The whole setup was so rigged, I actually found myself paying close attention to sunlight & shadows on the cardboard characters' faces. Questions such as: How can that guy see in the desert with the sun in his eyes? Are they really travelling south, based on which way the shadows are cast? 2. Do I care about the story? No way! I don't think I had ever seen a Randolph Scott movie before, unless in childhood. But that song has been with me all my life, "Whatever happened to Randolph Scott, ridin' them trails alone?..." So I figured I'd check out Randolph Scott hunting down 7 bad guys, just for a look. Otherwise, I wouldn't have lasted more than 15-20 minutes. By the end of the film, I didn't really care how things turned out. Without spoiling, I will say I was mostly engaged in predicting what would happen (as opposed to simply watching what happened) -- I got 100% of my predictions right! 3. Do I believe the characters? Not really, with one exception: Lee Marvin's character, Masters. I hated him -- and since he was the villain, that's exactly the way I was supposed to feel about him. A nasty old scoundrel from the Wild West. Yep, I believed Lee Marvin! 4. Do I care about the characters? No. I wanted to care about Randolph Scott, 'cause he does seem like a cool dude type, right from the start, and his mission was righteous. Naturally, Mrs. Greer is pleasing to the eye, and Gail Russell did the job she was hired to do, but nothing more. On a positive note, I did care about Lee Marvin's Masters. He was the villain, and I was rooting against him, as I was supposed to. A pretty straightforward villain, but very well played, nonetheless. Overall, I'm disappointed, with the exception of Lee Marvin's performance -- the only reason I scored this movie 4/10 and not lower. I strongly disagree with the 7.5 out of 10 rating which enabled me to watch the movie. I believe that average rating to be exaggerated sentimentalism. Indeed, even I began by giving this movie 6 out of 10 -- but realized I had done so for two reasons: (1) I almost felt duty-bound not to give it a lower rating, given its status as a "classic western"; and (2) I know IMDb applies a weight to ratings -- which works in the case of Bollywood and such -- but I honestly felt that giving "Seven Men From Now" the rating I truly felt would somehow diminish the value of my vote. The more I think about it -- even the title is contrived. Most or all negative connotations of "Hollywood" as being a contrived industrial production of cinema as opposed to art, are present in this movie, with the exception of Lee Marvin's performance. My recommendation: Don't waste your time with this one!

I had missed out on this Western's TCM showing while in Hollywood (since I was busy editing my own short!), though I did catch parts of it - and, following it was the excellent feature-length documentary BUDD BOETTICHER: A MAN CAN DO THAT (2005), the sub-title of which, incidentally, is a line from this very film! At this point, I only have THE TALL T (1957) - ironically, the most highly-regarded title - still to watch from "The Ranown Cycle" films. SEVEN MEN FROM NOW emerges as a classic Western, and certainly a cut above star Randolph Scott's typical vehicle. At a mere 78 mins., it's terse, economical and unpretentious - but the script is anything but simple-minded! Scott doesn't exert his acting abilities any more than usual, but his presence is quietly commanding (proving an obvious influence on Clint Eastwood's "Man With No Name" persona in Sergio Leone's "Dollars Trilogy" [1964-66]) - and as much an iconic Western figure as John Wayne or James Stewart (in a series of 5 films directed by Anthony Mann). He also creates an interesting contrast with Lee Marvin's memorable - and oddly likable - rogue; the tragic Gail Russell, too, is fine in her last prominent role (her untimely death occurred 5 years later). The epic and versatile "Lone Pine" location served Boetticher extremely well, in much the same way that Monument Valley did John Ford. The film also features a wonderful score (though it includes a couple of resistible tunes, a standard practice in Westerns from that era, that were disliked even by the film-makers themselves!) and at least three memorable sequences: the scene in the wagon where Marvin tells the story of a three-way romance that is full of double-meaning to the present situation involving Scott, Russell and her weakling husband (Walter Reed); the opening and closing gunfights, first in which Scott kills two of the men he's after (the seven of the title who robbed $20,000 worth in gold and killed his by-stander wife) and his inevitable showdown with Marvin's over-confident quick-draw - both of which, amazingly, occur off-screen: for a scene to be effective, sometimes it's all in the editing! The film's open-ended conclusion was also not typical of the genre. While the film had languished in the Batjac vault for decades, its eventual DVD presentation - along with the rest of their productions (I followed this with the 4 John Wayne titles already out) - has ensured a quality edition (though the Audio Commentary - taken from Jim Kitses' book on the genre "Horizons West" - while certainly interesting is rather a heavy-going listen, and would perhaps best be digested on the printed page!), unlike the rest of "The Ranown Cycle" films - the property of Sony and Warners - which are still M.I.A. on the format and would most probably only be bare-bones releases, if still essential purchases... BUDD BOETTICHER: AN American ORIGINAL (2005), the accompanying documentary (whose makers are uncredited), is basically a reduction of BUDD BOETTICHER: A MAN CAN DO THAT, with some new footage pertaining to the restoration of SEVEN MEN FROM NOW and recollections about its writer Burt Kennedy. Although it doesn't go into much detail with respect to individual films (apart from the 8-year in-the-making ARRUZA [1968], which for the director constituted a veritable exile and, thus, an essential phase in his life and career), it's still worth viewing.

Routine, matter of fact western starring Randolph Scott, who loses his marshal's job in an election. Out of work, he wife is forced to go to work and soon catches a fatal bullet in a robbery.Scott devotes the rest of his time to track down the bad guys. Lee Marvin wants the money and knows the guys who stole it and killed Scott's wife. Gail Russell, who died at age 36, plays a woman going with her husband to California and they meet up with Scott. Trouble is that the naive husband had taken a job with the crooks beforehand to deliver the goodies. He did not know that he was delivering stolen goods. Naturally, Russell falls for Scott but she is faithful to her husband. The latter tries to get out of the situation only to catch a bullet in the back by the head of the gang, John Larch. The film shows how Scott guns down the killers one by one including Marvin. It's the old line of money is the root of all evil. With beautiful cinematography as always in the colorful westerns, the story is routine.