THE RETURN OF THE SEVEN

US, 1966, 95 minutes, Colour.
Yul Brynner, Robert Fuller, Julian Mateos, Warren Oates, Claude Akins, Fernando Rey, Jordan Christopher.
Directed by Burt Kennedy.

The Return of the Seven is a belated sequel to The Magnificent Seven, of 1960. There were two other sequels: Guns of the Magnificent Seven and The Magnificent Seven Ride.

This film was written by Larry Cohen who was later to have a career and was better known for horror films, It’s Alive, Q. The film was directed by Burt Kennedy, director of a number of very good westerns in the 1960s and 1970s including Welcome to Hard Times as well as the spoof Support Your Local Sheriff.

Yul Brynner is back but the rest of the cast is different, a number of popular B players of the period, although Warren Oates appears and was soon to become a top-lining star.

The film is conventional material, the Mexican village, the bandit chief kidnapping people to work on building a church for the memory of his son, Chris, the leader of the Magnificent Seven, rounding up another group in order to rescue the men. Familiar material – but an interesting enough western.

1. Expectations for this film because of the original? The expectations of characters, their involvement in social ideals, the western genre, the music? The value of this film as a sequel?

2. Audience interest in westerns and their conventions? Which conventions were employed here and how well used?

3. The contribution of the colour, Panavision, location photography and style?

4. The importance of the social background: the village, the men and the women as peasants, the role of the priest, Lorca and his slave labour, the building of the church etc? The picture of social oppression and the need for salvation, audience response to these themes?

5. The Seven seen in this context of righting wrongs, as necessary saviours, of administering justice?

6. Chris as leader of the Seven, Yul Brynner's style, the mystique of Chris as leader and the memory of his past enterprises? The mysterious leader in black, his hold over the others, the saviour figure? The ambiguity of his past in his story of his dealings with Lorca?

7. The members of the group, the types, their biographical explanations of themselves, their transformation once they are in the group? Vin as the close friend of Chris, the heroic type? Chico as coming from the village, yet incorporated into the Seven? Colbee and his drinking and womanizing? Frank and Lewis in jail on the murder charges? Manuel and his youth as an aspiring bullfighter? The different characters of each of these men, what they contributed?

8. The high points of the sieges and the battles, the way these were staged, heroism, deaths?

9. What special qualities of this film were most impressive as a western?