Return of the Magnificent Seven

Amazon.com

Yul Brynner returns to lead a new band of gunfighters in this sequel to the classic Magnificent Seven, which delivers enough Western action to please genre fans. Return has Brynner's Chris recruiting a new Seven to rescue original member Chico (Julian Mateos, replacing Horst Buchholz), who has been kidnapped by a bandit (Emilio Fernandez). The Magnificent Seven is such an established critical and fan favorite that comparisons between it and Return will inevitably yield negative reactions, and while some aspects of the second film are inferior (in particular, a colorless new Seven, save for veteran scene-stealers Claude Akins and Warren Oates), it's capably directed by Western specialist Burt Kennedy, who is aided in no small part by returning composer Elmer Bernstein's rousing score. Two sequels followed--Guns of the Magnificent Seven and The Magnificent Seven Ride!--with George Kennedy and Lee Van Cleef, respectively, in the Brynner role. --Paul Gaita

Description

The legendary Magnificent Seven thunder through Mexico and make cinematic historyagain! StarringAcademy AwardÂ(r)winner* Yul Brynner and a stellar supporting cast that includes Robert Fuller, Warren Oates and Claude Akins, Return of the Magnificent Seven features Elmer Bernstein's OscarÂ(r)-nominated** score and raises the bar for rugged western adventure to a new, heart-stopping level!It's been six years since Chico (Julian Mateos) rode with Chris Adams (Brynner) and his band of gunslingers. It was then that he married the beautiful Petra (Elisa Montes) andpromised to lay down his weapons forever. But when the cruel outlaw Lorca (Emilio Fernandez) beginsto terrorize his village, Chico, Chris and five new brave gunmen must ride again. Now, with the odds against them, the heroic seven emerge with guns blazing to face the shootout of their lives and what may be their final battle!

Customer Reviews:

Shades of WWII and Vietnam.......2007-05-16

As I watched this rather unusual western, it occured to me that the main characters and plot bore a striking resemblance to that of the European theater of WWII. For example, like Hitler, Lorca is a madman, willing to sacrifice his fortune, the lives of many of his employees and even his own life to accomplish his obsessive goal: in this case,to build a monument to his supposedly cherished slain sons. But,like Hitler, his obsession really has more to do with salvaging his own bruised ego than about his offficial justification for his evil acts. Like the Nazis, Lorca uses slave labor to help accomplish his goal. In this case, it is the unarmed peons of several villages whom he kidnaps. The peons are analogous to the seemingly helpless Jews and Slavs. The hastilly organized "Gang of Seven"(really 6) American gunslingers represent the Western Allies. In trying to free these slave villagers, they put themselves at great risk. However, as in the case of the USSR, the
peons unexpectedly play the major part in the final defeat of Lorca's "army". However, they need the help of the Gang, just as the USSR needed the help of the Western Allies to crush the Nazis.... As has been pointed out by another, there are also certain parallels with our then increasing involvement in Vietnam. At one point, there is a plea by the slaves that everyone would be better off if the Gang left, as Lorca threatens to kill them as well as the Gang if they continue to resist.If they don't resist, Lorca promises to return them to their homes unharmed after they finish his project. The Gang must then decide whether it is likely in the interests of the villagers as well as themselves to stay and fight against seemingly impossible odds...
Toward the end of the film, Brynner reveals that he has a complex past relationship with Lorca and his sons. In the end, he fulfills his interrupted obligation to Lorca's deceased sons(see the film, to find out what this is). In fact, toward the end, I think this is his chief motivation for doing what he his doing....
If you can stomach all the many implausibilities in this story, it is a reasonably entertaining film with a complex set of personal stories to tell, if you take the effort to absorb them all. Given all the gunplay, both the Mexicans and Americans must have been incredibly bad shots and incredibly foolhardy in openly exposing themselves to gunfire that should have killed them several times over. At times, Lorca is standing so vulnerable that he seems to be asking to be killed. One gets the impression that the chief antagonists would much rather have settled their differences with swordplay than with bullets.

sequels usually suck-and this is no exception to that rule.......2007-03-29

In the original film the seven were played by seven top-notch actors..even
Brad Dexter,the most colorless of the original seven was head and shoulders above this new bunch...Oh,yeah,Yul Brynner replays his role as the leader,but the other two surviving members from the original film are played by new,and inferior actors.."Vin"the role that helpled make actor Steve McQueen's reputation,is taken over by Robert Fuller,the scout on the old"Wagon Train" teevee show..While McQueen started out on teevee himself(In "Wanted-Dead or Alive"),he had that "something" which Fuller lacks.."Chico"the half-breed mexican,who also survived the first film's shoot-out was played in that film by Horst Buchholtz..in this film the charismatic Buchholtz has been replaced by the colorless Julian Mateos..Claude Akins and Warren Oates try to fill out roles played better by James Coburn and Charles Bronson...Another thing that first film had going for it was Eli Wallach as the bad guy.. ,the bad guy in this film is about as menacing as a housefly,which tends to make the whole film seem a total waste of time...

Yul Brynner and Emilio Fernández Excel in True Sequel.......2006-12-06

RETURN OF THE SEVEN was made when sequels to popular films were seldom made. RETURN OF THE SEVEN was a true sequel and not just another story made in the spirit of the original. RETURN OF THE SEVEN revisits characters and the setting of THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN ten years hence. Yul Brynner as Chris tells Vin, now played by Robert Fuller, that he hasn't been going anywhere for ten years. Chico, now played by Julián Mateos, is captured and rounded up with the rest of the men from the village and mysteriously taken off into the desert by the wealthy land owner Emilio Fernández' hired cohorts. Chris and Vin now take up where they left off forming another band of "Seven" and search for Chico and the others. Both Chris and Vin no longer have any aspirations of settling down yet Chris is still the noble gunman while Vin now questions the purpose of his existence as a gunman. The mold can not be broken or so it would seem. Emilio Fernández is Lorca the misguided villain of the piece. Fernández' unlike Eli Wallach's Calvera is not a down and out bandit but a wealthy landowner looking to literally construct a monument to his past failures. Chris and Lorca's paths have crossed once before and the much now wiser Chris must try to set him back on a moral path. Of the seven, they seem to have more specific reasons, consciously or unconsciously, for "coming along for the ride." Claude Akins must put both his conscience and life to rest. Warren Oates learns he has more value as a man than just living a rough and roguish lifestyle and someone like himself must help the downtrodden in the world. Chico wishes to leave his seemingly humble existence as a farmer and return to making a living with his gun. Bandit and killer Virgilio Teixeira finds it is time to repay those he has transgressed and be able to ride with respect and not disdain. The young Jordan Christopher wants to accepted and welcomed into the village and leave his orphaned background behind him. Brynner once again is the cohesive force and strong individual representing rational judgment and reason while Fernández' self destruction threatens harmony but makes the irony of all their oblique ambitions possible.

Pass the popcorn........2006-03-10

Return of the Seven is great Saturday afternoon entertainment. Pass the popcorn, more Coca Cola please. I really didn't expect much heavy thinking and I got relaxation and beautiful Southwest scenery. That's what I paid for and I'm a happy customer. Not as good as the first "Seven" but good enough.

This one's a great deal of fun!!.......2005-12-05

This one has the odds stacked against it - it is the sequel to one of the best known of all westerns, most of the stellar cast from the original film didn't return and it was shot in Spain at the start of the spaghetti western cycle.

But guess what, it is still a great deal of fun and works, if its taken on its own merits. Or put more simply, there could be worse ways to spend two hours than spinning "Return Of The Magnificent Seven" on your DVD player.

Yul Brynner, he of the bald head and steely stare, is the only one of the original seven to return (this film's original title was "Return Of The Seven" - it didn't even have the 'magnificent' in it) and director Burt Kennedy is in no way in the same league as John Sturges, who helmed the original.

"Return..." was made six years after the original, but is set 10 years after the events of that film. Chico (played in the original by Horst Buchholz and by Julián Mateos in this sequel) is happily settled in the village when his idyllic life is shattered by the men of rich landlord Francisco Lorca (Emilio Fernández), who kidnaps hundreds of men to rebuild a church as a memorial to his dead son.

Chico's wife tracks down Chris (Yul Brynner) and seeks his help. Chris teams up with old pal Vin (played here by Robert Fuller) and rounds up four more men (okay they aren't a patch on the original seven, but Claude Akins and Warren Oates are pretty solid) for the rescue mission. And the seventh man? Well that's Chico.

That leads to the climactic shootout, and things lead up to it pretty speedily, with a few pitstops in between to reveal the back-story between Chris and Lorca.

The Spanish locations are nice and colourful, but the video on this DVD has quite a few specks and scratches. On the plus side it is anamorphic. The video is extremely bare bones - just Dolby two-channel mono - and full of hiss and pops.

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