Newt's John Wayne Site

Seven Men From Now (1956)

Not many Westerns can claim to be original, Seven Men from Now can. Its making, for the B-picture arm of John Wayne's Batjac company, was a modest enterprise. The screenwriter, Burt Kennedy, was just starting out; the director, Budd Boetticher, was a matador-turned-filmmaker with only one film of distinction (The Bullfighter and the Lady, also produced by John Wayne) in a journeyman career; the star, Randolph Scott, was regarded as "over the hill." Yet the three men's talents blended uncannily, producing not just a terrific Western but a cinema masterpiece--an ironical, beautifully spare bit of storytelling that became the ideal showcase for Scott's sandy reticence.
We know, from a memorable first scene, that Scott is hunting down seven men who did something terrible. He will be thrown together with several other characters, including Lee Marvin as an affable but deadly rascal with whom he shares some history. Everybody has private reasons to be traveling through Apache country. Savor every syllable of the laconic dialogue, what people say and what they don't quite say--what they think they understand about one another's motives, except that that understanding keeps getting rearranged.
Seven Men from Now went missing after Wayne's death in 1979. (Its success had inspired Scott, Boetticher, and Kennedy to collaborate on three other remarkable Westerns--The Tall T (1957), Ride Lonesome (1959), and Comanche Station (1960)--which, because they weren't made for Batjac, we've had little trouble seeing over the years.) This film became legendary, a Holy Grail for film buffs. Now, with a beautiful restoration on DVD, it gets to be a movie again. A great one. The Seven Men From Now DVD was released on December 20, 2005 by Batjac and Paramount Home Entertainment.
For those of you who are fans of Gail Russell there is a great featurette on the DVD that covers her career and relationship with John Wayne. If you can't wait for the DVD, see my Gail Russell page.

DVD SPECIAL FEATURES

Year: 1956
Running Time: 1 Hours 18 Minutes
Special Collector's Edition
Format: Color, Dolby, Widescreen, NTSC
Encoding: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. This DVD will probably NOT be viewable in other countries. Click Here for explanation of global regions).
Available subtitles: English
Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono)
Commentary by James Kitses, film historian and author of "Horizons West: Anthony Mann, Budd Boetticher, Sam Peckinpah
Budd Boetticher: An American Original - Interviews with Clint Eastwood, Quentin Tarantino, Taylor Hackford, Peter Bogdanovich and other industry veterans
The John Wayne Stock Company: Gail Russell
Lone Pine
Batjac trailer
Original theatrical trailer
Photo gallery

Your comments or suggestions are always welcome and encouraged.

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