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
FAIL-SAFE
Failing at Safe. Bombing Moscow: the dream of every American chickenhawk politician during the Cold War. Bombing New York: the dream of every other country. In FAIL-SAFE, a grim parable about a war triggered due to a computer glitch, everyone’s dreams come true. Released in September 1964, only a few months after Stanley Kubrick’s DR. STRANGELOVE (Jan 1964), Sidney Lumet’s … Read More