The Magnificent Seven Ride! (UA, 1972)

Last and least

The third of the sequels to The Magnificent Seven (1960) that the Mirisch company put out was The Magnificent Seven Ride! When a title ends with an exclamation point it’s a sign that the producers are desperate to pep it up and evoke some interest in an otherwise lackluster product. In any case it was now definitely a case of flogging a dead horse, and this go-round was the last – at least until the TV series in the 1990s and the remake in 2016.

The only thing this picture had in common with the sparky original was the Elmer Bernstein music, but even that didn’t help much. George Kennedy had replaced Yul Brynner as Chris in Guns of the Magnificent Seven (the second sequel) but he had no interest in doing so again and it fell to Lee Van Cleef to take the role. Since the late 1960s Lee had been in full spaghetti mode, appearing in some really bad pictures. The last goodish one he was in was Barquero in 1970, and he was now nearing the end of his career. As Chris he does his Van Cleef act, smoking his Col. Mortimer pipe and grunting. He is now a besuited marshal in Sheridan, with a glam young wife (Mariette Hartley), and a friend of the governor. He is very far indeed from the original Yul/Chris in 1960, that drifting cigar-smoking gun for hire dressed all in black.

Burt Kennedy had directed the first sequel, and Paul Wendkos the next. This one was helmed by George McGowan – his only big-screen Western. None of these directors was a patch on John Sturges, and McGowan probably the weakest of all. Similarly, the writing, by Arthur Rowe, who did Mission Impossible and The Six-Million Dollar Man episodes on TV but was now writing his only feature Western, was a very pale imitation of what had gone before.

As to the cast, the six gunmen Chris hires are played by actors to whom most viewers’ reaction would have been, Who? Pedro Armendariz Jr as Pepe was the only one Westernistas would have recognized, maybe from Chisum or The Undefeated. Because of the acting, writing and direction, they are hardly established as distinct characters, so that we don’t really distinguish one from the other much, and don’t really care who lives and who dies at the end.

At least it was shot in the US, not in Spain, up at Vasquez Rocks and Joshua Tree, with the Universal backlot Western town here and there. It was in Color DeLuxe, but not Panavision like the other sequels, and was shot by Fred J Koenekamp (The Towering Inferno, Patton, and, in the key of Western, a few minor pictures about the best of which was Heaven With a Gun in 1969). It looks OK, though the modern print (at least the one I saw) has fared the worst of the Mag 7 survivors.

Marshal Chris (of course we never learn his surname) kills two lowdown bushwhackers, thus saving the life of his old pal Jim (Ralph Waite), who has come to ask for his help. Yup, you guessed, his village south of the border is being plagued by bandits, led by the wicked De Toro (Ron Stein). Chris says no, though. He is newly married and has given up all that gun-for-hire business and settled down. Hell, he even wears a brown suit and smokes a pipe. Even when Jim reminds him that he once saved Chris’s life, he still declines. Jim is disappointed.

Now the marshal has imprisoned a fellow aged 18, Shelly (Darrel Larson) for robbing a store. Chris’s wife and the robber’s mother both beg for him. He’s only a boy, etc. Chris sets his jaw and refuses to release the chap. Later, however, he succumbs to the blandishments of his fair wife and lets the kid go. Mistake. The lout robs a bank with some friends, kills a man and flees, grabbing Chris’s wife as a hostage. See? The marshal should never have had compassion or listened to them durned women.

A writer turns up, Noah Forbes (Michael Callan, Riff in West Side Story, Hetherington in They Came to Cordura, Clay in Cat Ballou) and wants to do a Buntline job on Chris, writing a lurid dime novel about him. Chris tells Noah all about how he and Bat Masterson won the Battle of Adobe Walls.

Well, Chris, accompanied now by biographer Noah, ride out in pursuit. They find Mrs Chris, raped and murdered. Now all thoughts of settling down are forgotten, as Chris sets out after Shelly.

He catches up with two of the malefactors, and shoots them without a qualm, but Shelly is not there. He’s gone to Mexico. Now, who should Chris meet up with over the border but Jim. “I knew you’d come!” And yes, Shelly has joined with De Toro. So now Chris will be fighting the bandido after all.

Noah counts as one gun, even if he is a dudish Eastern writer, but where to get the other five? Ah! Of course. Where he got recruits in Sequel No. 1. Tucson Territorial Prison. But this time he gets a job lot, all five. They are Elliott, a dynamite expert (Ed Lauter), Walt, a dumb ox (William Lucking), Hayes, an ex-soldier (James Sikking), Pepe, a Mexican (Armendariz) and Skinner, a, er, crook (Luke Askew). See what I mean about an uncharismatic bunch? But The Dirty Dozen had come out in 1969 so viewers were used to renegades and lowlifes being recruited.

Chris decides to get at De Toro by kidnapping his woman (Rita Rogers). Then it’s to Jim’s village, inhabited now pretty well only by women (in early 1970s hair and make-up). Chief among them is Laurie (Stephanie Powers) and Chris doesn’t mourn his dead wife very long because straight away it’s lerve.

As usual, Chris and the men (and in this case the women) prepare the village for the coming onslaught, building walls, putting up nets, etc, as was their wont. They also set dynamite charges. The seven teach the ladies how to shoot, Guns of Fort Petticoat-style.

De Toro and his men attack and so there are many loud bangs and people falling off horses. Some of the seven are hit and some are not. But we don’t really mind. Chris gets De Toro, but this bandit leader is a feeble paper-thin character with no lines. Never mind Eli Wallach’s charismatic Calvera, this bandido isn’t even Emilio Fernandez’s Lorca or Michael Ansara’s Diego. Poor writing and direction.

There’s a cheesy happy-ever-after ending and that’s that. It really wasn’t very good, I fear.