Seven Men from Now

Seven Men from Now is a 1956 American Western film directed by Budd Boetticher and starring Randolph Scott, Gail Russell and Lee Marvin. The film was written by Burt Kennedy and produced by John Wayne's Batjac Productions.[1]

Seven Men from Now
Theatrical release poster
Directed byBudd Boetticher
Produced byRobert E. Morrison
Andrew V. McLaglen
Written byBurt Kennedy
StarringRandolph Scott
Gail Russell
Lee Marvin
Music byHenry Vars
CinematographyWilliam H. Clothier
Edited byEverett Sutherland
Color processWarnerColor
Production
company
Distributed byWarner Bros.
Release date
  • August 4, 1956 (1956-08-04)
Running time
78 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Plot

Ben Stride (Randolph Scott) walks into a desert cave encampment during a nighttime rainstorm. He encounters two men taking shelter next to a fire and asks to join them. Stride tells the men he is from the town of Silver Springs, which provokes a mysterious reaction from the two men. They discuss a robbery and murder that recently occurred there. The men become suspicious of Stride, and when they realize his intentions, he guns them down.

The following day Stride tracks someone through the Arizona wilderness and comes upon a wagon stuck in the mud. Stride uses the two horses he confiscated from the men at the encampment to help pull the wagon clear, and the wagon's owners, John and Annie Greer, are grateful. Travelers from Kansas City, they admit they are inexperienced at frontier life and ask Stride to ride with them as they head south to the border town of Flora Vista on their way west to California. Greer says he hopes to find a sales job there, but has been taking odd jobs along the way. The mention of Flora Vista arouses Stride's curiosity and he agrees to take them to the border. As the trio travels, Annie shows a growing attraction to Stride. At one point they are stopped by a US Army detail, whose commanding officer (Stuart Whitman) tells them to go back, as Chiricahua Apache have been spotted in the area and he cannot guarantee their safety.

Stride and the Greers travel on, finding a stagecoach relay station and encountering Bill Masters (Lee Marvin) and Clete (Don Barry), two former nemeses of Stride's. As they all spend the night at the station, Masters tells the Greers that Stride was once the sheriff of Silver Springs, and his wife was killed during the robbery of the Wells Fargo freight office. Stride has been tracking and killing the seven men who performed the robbery, and Masters intends to abscond with the $20,000 dollars in gold they stole once Stride has accomplished his task. Annie feels sympathy for Stride, who confesses that he feels guilty about his wife's death because at the time he was no longer sheriff and didn't have another job, so she took one at the freight office and was working the night of the incident. Before the wagon heads out of the station, with Masters and Clete tagging along opportunistically, they are met by Chiricahua warriors. The Apache leave when Stride gives up one of the horses to the hungry tribesmen.

The group encounters one of the Wells Fargo robbers, who is being chased by Indians. Unaware of the man's part in the robbery, Stride saves him from the Apache. The man, however, recognizes Stride and nearly kills him, but Stride is saved when Masters shoots the man in the back.

One night, Masters "reminisces" about a woman stolen away from her husband by a tall stranger, clearly suggesting that Stride is doing just that with Annie Greer. Furious at Masters's impropriety, Stride sends Masters and Clete away into the night.

Masters and Clete reach Flora Vista ahead of the wagon, and they meet with the Wells Fargo bandits waiting for delivery of their gold. Masters tells their leader, Payte Bodeen (John Larch), that Stride is heading in their direction to kill all of them and avenge his wife's death. Bodeen dispatches two of the bandits to meet Stride before he can reach Flora Vista. Meanwhile, Stride leaves Greer and Annie, telling them to continue on without him. Stride rides ahead into a canyon alone and is ambushed by the two bank robbers but kills them both. Wounded in the leg, Stride is knocked unconscious while trying to ride away with one of the bandits' horses.

Bodeen tells Masters that Greer is the man he paid to deliver the gold from the robbery to Flora Vista, and Masters berates himself for letting this escape him. Meantime, Greer and Annie's conversation gets overheard by Stride who sneaks up on them, having recovered consciousness despite a blow on his forehead leaving a wound. Greer has admitted to his wife and unwittingly to Stride that he was paid $500 to deliver the Wells Fargo box containing the gold hidden in the wagon. Stride takes the gold away from Greer to draw the rest of the bandits out from town, and Greer and Annie head into Flora Vista to notify the local sheriff.

Greer arrives in town without the gold, telling Bodeen that Stride has it, and as he walks down the street toward the sheriff's office, Bodeen guns him down. The last two bandits, Bodeen and Clint, ride out to confront Stride. Stride shoots Clint but Bodeen is surprisingly killed by Masters and Clete having shown up in the Canyon. Masters, blinded by greed, then kills his companion Clete and walks out into the clearing where Stride has placed the box of gold. They face off, and Stride kills Masters before he can pull his guns.

Stride returns the gold to Wells Fargo and tells Annie that he is going to take a job as a deputy sheriff in Silver Springs. He puts her on a stagecoach bound for California, then rides away. Annie, however, tells the stage driver she is not going.

Cast

Production

John Wayne and Robert Fellows's production company Batjac purchased the Burt Kennedy screenplay with the intention of having Wayne star as Stride. It was Kennedy's first film script. However, Wayne was locked into doing The Searchers for John Ford. According to Kennedy, Wayne wasn't particularly interested in the script until he became aware that Robert Mitchum's representatives were interested in it, at which point Wayne perked up and suggested going to Warners and casting Randolph Scott instead.[3] Scott insisted on Budd Boetticher as the director. As with their previous collaboration, Bullfighter and the Lady, Wayne, in his role as producer, recut Seven Men From Now without Boetticher's approval, although it has since been restored to the director's original vision.[4]

Seven Men from Now was the first in a seven-film collaboration between Scott, Boetticher, and producer Harry Joe Brown, with five of the films written by Kennedy.

The movie was shot in the Alabama Hills and other locations near Lone Pine, California in the last months of 1955. Gail Russell was cast as the female lead due to her previous work with Wayne in Angel and the Badman and Wake of the Red Witch, which had also included having an affair. She had not worked on a movie for nearly five years prior to Seven Men from Now, due to her struggles with stage-fright-induced alcoholism. Boetticher worked very hard to keep her from drinking during the filming.

See also

References
  1. "Seven Men from Now". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved July 31, 2012.
  2. "Full cast and crew for Seven Men from Now". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved July 31, 2012.
  3. Joyne, C. Courtney (2009). The Westerners: Interviews With Actors, Directors, Writers and Producers. Jefferson NC: McFarland. p. 131. ISBN 978-0786443031.
  4. Rausch, Andrew (2008). Fifty Filmmakers: Conversations With Directors from Roger Avary to Steven Zaillian. Jefferson NC: McFarland. p. 34. ISBN 978-0-7864-3149-6.
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