Seven Men from Now

My understanding of narrative goes something like this: a protagonist changes and grows over the course of a story. By riding along with this protagonist, we change and grow, as well.

The protagonist doesn't change and grow over the course of SEVEN MEN FROM NOW. In fact, one could argue that nobody changes and grows over the course of Bud Boetticher's SEVEN MEN FROM NOW, although a total of twelve men do stop growing altogether. But it's still one hell of a story.

Seven men walked in to the Wells Fargo office in Silver Spring. They walked out with one box of gold in their hands and one dead woman on the floor. Randolph Scott was married to that woman, and Randolph Scott saddled up and went hunting. The movie begins with the hunter finding his first prey, and it's full-bore revenge fantasy from there on out. It's got a stoic and unstoppable hero, villains both noble and ignoble, Indians, cavalry, settlers in a stagecoach, and some of the finest practical stuntwork you're likely to see in a film of its or any other generation.

This is a tight, lean narrative that knows exactly what it's about and exactly how it's going to get there. Scott and Lee Marvin (as the noble villain) are near-perfect adversaries, and the settler family caught between them like pieces on a chessboard provide a humanizing "in" to their conflict. This film is 78 minutes of flat-out adventure, and I don't care if Scott winds up the same man he was when he set out. I was just happy to ride with him for a while.

PS One of my childhood influences was a retired stuntman. Watching this film's professionally exact horse falls, horse charges, cliff falls, fights, and gunfights made me nostalgic for the days he'd tell stories of working on these kinds of pictures. I love my job, but if I had to pick another, I'd have loved to be a stuntman during the golden age of westerns. In fact, one of my fondest memories is of the time I directed an entry in Calico Ghost Town's stunt show competition. We won that year. So maybe SEVEN MEN FROM NOW really stinks, and I just loved it because it granted me 78 minutes of golden reverie. It doesn't matter. As far as I'm concerned, this is a great movie.