It's with a heavy heart that I admit this, both to readers and myself: nobody cares about westerns anymore. Well, maybe Tommy Lee Jones, but he's that all-too-rare exception. It's hard to imagine that not too long ago (the 1940s and '50s) westerns were considered high entertainment, only exceeded by comedies and musicals. And though the genre was dominated by masters like John Ford and Howard Hawks, a film like Budd Boetticher's 7 Men from Now still got some attention from viewers. These days, without major critical hype and publicity, you wonder if it would even make a bleep on the radar.An obvious forbearer to Clint Eastwood's groundbreaking Unforgiven, 7 Men concerns Ben Stride (Randolph Scott), the former sheriff of Silver Springs and a recently widowed drifter. Not a drifter without purpose, however. When seven men held up a Wells Fargo office, they killed Stride's wife and ran off with twenty grand. In a chilling opening scene, Stride kills off two of them in a small cave and then heads off to find the rest. Early in his mission he runs across Annie and John Greer (Gail Russell and Walter Reed, respectively), a couple heading to California to find their fortune. He also runs across an ex-con that he locked up once, Bill Masters (the ever-brilliant Lee Marvin), who agrees to help Stride for the possibility of picking up the stolen loot. But, as always, nothing is as it seems.
Continue reading: 7 Men From Now Review