The Magnificent Seven (1960)

Give The Magnificent Seven marks for being different.

Director John Sturges (The Great Escape) opens his film in an unusual way. An undertaker refuses to bury an Indian because the townfolk don't want him resting alongside the dead who have white skin.

Chris (Yul Brynner) and Vin (Steve McQueen) agree to bring the hearse to the graveyard, calmly ducking bullets and verbal barbs hurled their way. They have to face five armed men once they get to the cemetery too.

The opening minutes establish the film's theme of standing up for the little guy who is wronged, but can't fight back.

A delegation from a Mexican village appeals to Chris for help. Their community is pillaged on a regular basis by a bandido and his gang. They want him to round up, quite literally, some hired guns and free their community from tyranny.

Chris, being a gun for hire, knows where to find talent such as Britt (James Coburn), Bernardo (Charles Bronson) and Lee (Robert Vaughn). Part of his posse includes Horst Buchholz, a German actor who doesn't make much of an impression among such a stellar assembly of stars. That's a small quibble about a western that definitely stands out for its genre.

Viewers would expect these gunslingers to be tough, macho men. Instead, they definitely show signs of humanity. Lee looks like he's struggling to hold it together mentally. He's wondering if he's lost his touch with his gun and will soon be struck down by a quicker adversary. Bronson's Bernardo chews out youngsters who suggest their fathers are weak because they don't stand up for their community. This comes from a guy who has made plenty of money fighting other people's wars.

Conductor Elmer Bernstein was rightly nominated for an Oscar for best score. His music is a powerful sidekick to the action on the screen.

The Magnificent Seven helped establish McQueen, Bronson and Coburn as major screen talents. They'd be reunited for another film by Sturges, The Great Escape, in 1963.

RATING: 8/10

FUN FACTS: See if you can spot Victor French (Little House on the Prairie) in a small role in his first feature film.

Horst Buchholz also appeared in Life is Beautiful.

James Coburn was the owner of El Sleezo Cafe in The Muppet Movie.

The Misfits (1961)

Prepare to drop your jaw watching The Misfits.

That reaction will likely not be due to the film itself - it's awfully slow-going for the first 90 minutes -- but rather the cast of screen icons director John Huston assembled for this 1961 drama.

There's plenty of star power here - Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, Montgomery Clift, Eli Wallach and Thelma Ritter.

The Misfits would be the last completed film for both Gable and Monroe. Clift died a few years later in 1966.

Roslyn Taber (Monroe) is in Reno for a quick divorce from Raymond (Kevin McCarthy). "You could touch him, but he wasn't there," she says of her former flame. She's a lost soul. Guido (Wallach) is the tow truck driver who gets her and landlord Isabelle Steers (Ritter) to court when Roslyn's new car is on the fritz. He's a widower and is bowled over by Taber's looks. Guido is buddy's with Gay Langland (Gable), a rancher who bid farewell to his wife years ago and enjoys a string of affairs. When the two fellas meet the two ladies in a bar, an idea is proposed.

Taber is welcome to bunk at Guido's place in the country so she can figure out what'll be next in her life. Gay's there too. He's interested in Roslyn, but the feeling isn't mutual - at least not initially. Guido and Perce (Clift) are also interested in the newly-available young woman.

Gay appreciates the freedom the outdoors in Nevada offers, but doesn't extend that appreciation to the wild mustangs that roam around a nearby mountain. Their numbers are declining because opportunists like him are rounding them up and selling them for dog food. When Gay, Guido and rodeo cowboy Perce head off to corral six horses, the sensitive Roslyn is outraged. Gay's practical nature doesn't fit well with her love of animals.

There's a lot of boozin' and hurtin' in The Misfits. Perce's body keeps getting banged up from riding bulls and broncos. He's torn up inside too with the death of his father and getting shut out of his farm by his stepfather. Guido pines for his late wife and is jealous when other men are interested in Roslyn. Even Isabelle is banged up, with an arm in a sling because she "misbehaved" when celebrating another boarder's divorce.

There's little chemistry between Gay and Roslyn. Roslyn finds Guido to be more talk than action. She tries to save Perce before he kills himself at a rodeo.

Playwright Arthur Miller's script has some sharp lines of dialogue, but The Misfits doesn't start to get real interesting until the horse wrangling begins. By then, most viewers will have given up on this film.

RATING: 5/10

FUN FACTS: Eli Wallach, as of this writing in 2013, is still alive. He'll be 100 in 1915.

Monroe was filming Something's Got to Give when she died in 1962. Monroe was 36.

Kevin McCarthy appeared in the cult classic, The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and its remake.

Estelle Winwood is effective in a brief appearance as a woman collecting donations for a church charity. She appeared in an episode of the original Twilight Zone, Long Live Walter Jameson.