Far East becomes Old West. John Sturges remakes Akira Kurosawa’s SEVEN SAMURAI as a western, THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN. Katanas become guns, samurai become gunslingers, Far East becomes Old West. A small Mexican farming village, tired of being ransacked annually by a marauder and his henchmen, hire seven gunslingers to repel them. Soon enough, the villagers realize meeting violence with violence … Read More
KINGS OF THE SUN
The Sensitive 2000’s Male… 2000 B.C. that is. His exotic masculinity tapped different chords, promising the danger and excitement of all that was uncommon. –Rock Brynner, writing of father Yul in the biography, “Yul: The Man Who Would Be King.” Yul Brynner’s entertainer uncle gave the young gypsy one piece of laconic advice: “When you play for a crowd, lead … Read More
VON RYAN’S EXPRESS
Training Brahs. In WWII, prisoner of war Frank Sinatra enters an Italian prison camp and starts doing things His Way. VON RYAN’S EXPRESS is an audacious prison escape movie, an original trinket amongst the morass of World War II movies culled from supposedly “true events.” British and American prisoners of war hijack their own prison train and outrace Germans to … Read More