Overlooked Classics: Seven Men from Now (1956)

 

When one thinks of great director/actor combinations in western film history, the first that comes to mind is John Ford and John Wayne. However, there are other great combinations that don't get as much attention. One of these is that of Budd Boetticher and Randolph Scott. The duo would make seven films together, of which their first would be the wonderful and too often overlooked Seven Men from Now. 

In this movie ex-sheriff Ben Stride (Randolph Scott) is hunting down and killing the seven men responsible for a Wells Fargo robbery that resulted in the death of his wife. On his mission he travels with young husband and wife couple John and Annie Greer (Walter Reed, Gail Russell) and runs across a criminal he had previously put behind bars named Bill Masters (Lee Marvin). 

This deceptively simple storyline hides a real emotional and moral complexity. This is not a simple western where the good guys wear white hats and the bad guys wear black. While Ban Stride is very clearly the hero, he is not that we envy or would aspire to be. His is cold and stoic, letting nobody truly in, not even the audience. Though he is on the side of right, he is doing so with a heart full of pain and revenge. Watching though we know that even if he completes his mission, it will relieve him of nothing. Randolph Scott is absolutely perfect in this role, capturing the heart and pain of this character so well in a very minimalist performance. On the contrast, Lee Marvin as the villain is fun to watch being truly dynamic and compelling. In fact, his character even gets the best comedic moments in the film. The young married is also very compelling, as their relationship is not the typical romantic western leads, especially as their relationship to each other is more complex than that. For a movie that really focuses on just these four characters each of them is extremely well defined and complex. The basic storyline serves as a catalyst for studying these four characters and it does this masterfully. 

This movie also greatly benefits from some absolutely beautiful location shooting at Lone Pine California. About Lone Pine Boetticher would later state, "If you're going to make a western, you can't make a bad shot in Lone Pine. It's the greatest western location in the world. You had the mountains, the volcanic rocks, and across the road you had sand dunes and rivers. I [could] do my whole picture there.... In Seven Men from Now, I wanted one of my villains to get shot as he tries to escape through a crack in the rocks. And when he's dead, he just hangs there - he never falls to the ground. I found the crack and then I built the rest of the scene around [it] and it really worked."

This film's writer was Burt Kennedy, a screenwriter and actor, who had been working for John Wayne's production company, Batjac. Kennedy later remembered, "they just put me in a room with a title, a legal pad and a pencil, and six weeks later I had written Seven Men from Now." At first the script received little attention. However, Robert Mitchum found it and offered Kennedy $150,000. When John Wayne heard about this, he reread the script and loved it. On the last day of shooting the movie, The Killer Is Loose (1956), Budd Boetticher received a message from John Wayne. Since John had given the director a chance and produced Budd's movie Bullfighter and the Lady (1951), Budd felt he owed it to The Duke to meet him. John handed the director the script for Seven Men from Now and told Budd to read it. Budd came back in an hour and told, Wayne that he loved it. Wayne explained that Boetticher couldn't have read it in only an hour. Boetticher explained "I read 35 pages. That's all I had to read to know that it's great. I'd like to meet this Kennedy fellow." Wayne stated, "So shake hands with him," and motioned to the man standing next to him. That began a major partnership and the two would go on to work on many films in the future. The casting of Lee Marvin was Burt Kennedy's idea. Budd Boetticher later wrote, "Burt and I agreed that western heavies over the years had been portrayed as much too heavy. They rode black horses and wore black hats. You never saw anything good about any of them. Well, we set out to make our villains extremely attractive. Sure they were going to get killed - eventually - by our hero, but we wanted our audience to really love 'em while they were still kickin'." 

John Wayne was hoping to play the main role but was busy filming the John Ford classic, The Searchers (1956). Boetticher remembered, "Wayne said, 'Let's use Randy Scott. He's through.' Well, the Duke's desire to throw poor Mr. Scott a crumb was the basis for five of the finest films I've ever made." Budd would add,  "I thought the Scott character, before the pictures we made with him, was a pretty stuffy guy."

Boetticher and Scott's future collaborations would be The Tall T (1957), Decision at Sundown (1957), Buchanan Rides Alone (1958), Ride Lonesome (1959), Westbound (1959) and Comanche Station (1960). 

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Used

Leonard Maltin's Best 151 Movies You've Never Seen by Leonard Maltin

https://www.tcm.com/articles/111462/seven-men-from-now

Cowboy Church #176

 Hello my friends and welcome back for another service of Cowboy Church. 

Today's musical selection begins with The Sons of the Pioneers with their 1937 recording of Heavenly Airplane. This song was written by Bob Nolan, one of the group's founding members and one of my favorite songwriters. As well as writing this song, Bob also sings lead. Also in the group at this time was Leonard Syle, who would later become known as Roy Rogers. This was towards the end of his time as a member of The Sons of the Pioneers. He would leave the band with dreams of movie stardom and dreams that he certainly would reach. Roy would later write, "Seventy-five dollars a week, each and every week! That's what Republic agreed to pay me for the next seven years. I was sitting on the top of the world. Before I signed, I had to wrangle out of the contract the Sons of the Pioneers had only recently signed with Columbia Pictures. Actually that was easy. Harry Cohn the studio boss, was happy to release me so long as I promised to find someone to replace me in the group. His decision made my move to Republic possible, and also underscored why I wanted to be at Republic rather than Columbia. I would have been just another cowboy singer at Gower Gluch - easily replaceable - rather than the potential leading man the way they were talking at Republic. Besides Republic made the best most action packed westerns in those days." To replace him in the Sons of the Pioneers, Roy got Pat Brady, who would later become his "comical sidekick" on Roy's TV show. There was no hard feelings between Roy and the Sons of the Pioneers. Though Roy was no longer a member of the group, they would appear together in many films and record many songs together. This is followed by Charlie Rich with Amazing Grace. This hymn was written by John Newton in 1772. It is no coincidence that John Newton wrote this hymn, as he was someone who badly needed God's grace. Looking at his life before he gave it to God, there is not much to find that is admirable and in fact some of what we see is downright horrific. He played a part in one of the darkest (if not the darkest) parts of American history. He was a slave trader. To say that slavery in the United States was a tragedy and a horrible part of our history is an incredible understatement, and this man was a part of that horrific system. Later he even admitted that he treated the human beings that he was bringing over harshly. If there is anyone, we in our humanness would think is beyond God to reach it would be this guy. Yet God did reach him and being God completely changed him. He not only abandoned his job, but he gave his life to God's ministry and helped fight slavery every step of the way. If God could do this with him who is to say that any of us or anyone we know could possibly be out of God's power to reach. Next comes the Hee Haw Gospel Quartet with There's Power in the Blood. This song was written in 1889 by Lewis Edgar Jones while at a camp meeting taking place at Mountain Lake Park, MD. This is followed by George Jones with Give Me Just One Day. We only have so much time on this Earth and none of us know how long we will be here. Therefore it is important for us to let God use us any way he can, during our time on Earth. Now for Randy Travis with Precious Memories. Though this is a sweet uplifting song, it was based upon a tragedy. In 1922, John Wright lost his five year old son. Wright would later say about this song, “’Precious Memories’ was born in the midnight hours as I bathed by pillow with tears, likewise all my songs came through life’s severest tests.” Though this is a very famous hymn, John Wright only received $36 for writing it. He would remain a janitor that was always struggling to make ends meet for his entire life. Next comes The Charlie Daniels Band with Jesus Died For Me. This song cam from their first gospel album, The Door.  In his memoir, Never Look at the Empty Seats, Charlie Daniels wrote, "I think the most pressure I was ever under as a songwriter was when I wrote the songs for our first gospel album, The Door. It was such a special project to me. I wanted it to be much more than just another gospel album. I wanted the lyrics to have impact and hopefully speak to some of the people who, like me, had such a hard time understanding the gospel message and were falling through the cracks." Charlie worked very hard on each song and rewrote some multiple times. The effort paid off. This fantastic 1994 album shows The Charlie Daniels Band at their best and it won them their first Dove Award. Next we join the Maddox Brothers and Rose for their 1949 recording of the southern gospel classic I’ll Fly Away. This song was written by  Albert Edward Brumley and was first published in 1932. He grew up in Oklahoma and when he wrote this song he was living in Rock Island, Oklahoma where he was helping his family plant and pick cotton. This was hard and grueling work and Brumley later admitted, “Actually, I was dreaming of flying away from that cotton field when I wrote ‘I’ll Fly Away.’” Today’s musical selection ends with Roy Rogers singing Peace in the Valley. he hymn was written by Thomas A. Dorsey who later explained the origins of this song, “Peace in the Valley,” “It was just before Hitler sent his war chariots into Western Europe in the late 1930s. I was on a train going through southern Indiana and saw horses, cows and sheep all grazing together in this little valley. Everything seemed so peaceful. It made me question, “What’s the matter with mankind? Why can’t men live in peace?” Out of those thoughts came “Peace in the Valley.” 

Now for a discussion of the classic western, 7 Men From Now (1956).

Motion Picture Daily, 1956

Now a message from Pastor Greg Laurie. 

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. 2 Corinthians 5:17

Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:13-14

You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Ephesians 4:22-24

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20

A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. Proverbs 17:17

You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,  so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.  For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?  You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." Matthew 5:43-48

“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.  “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?" Matthew 6:24-25

Thanks for joining me. Come back next week for another service of Cowboy Church. Happy trails to you until we meet again. 

Resources Used

Happy Trails: Our Life Story by Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. 

http://www.trialanderrorcollective.com/collective-collab-blogs--playlists/ill-fly-away-a-brief-history-of-the-quintessential-gospel-song-and-ten-great-renditions

https://dianaleaghmatthews.com/peace-in-the-valley/#.YmbFre3MK3A