In a bucket-of-blood Mexican cantina, Chico (Horst Buchholz) drunkenly faces down good-guy gunman Chris (Yul Brynner), who's rejected the kid's application to join a group of hired guns he's putting together. Enraged at not making the cut, the greenhorn aims a pair of wide-of-the-mark shots at Chris. The unflappable gunslinger lights a cigar and doesn't even turn to look. Chico is reduced to pleading: "Turn around and face me!" Brynner's cowboy sangfroid is typical of his character—as well as the movie. Engaging with questions of race and suggesting the ultimate futility of heroism, John Sturges' revisionist 1960 Western transposes Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai to a Mexican village under siege by cutthroat bandit leader Eli Wallach; standing against him is a brigade of outnumbered bad-asses, including Charles Bronson, James Coburn and Steve McQueen (in the role that made him a star). Elmer Bernstein's thrilling score earned it an Oscar.
Sat., July 4; Sun., July 5; Mon., July 6, 2009
