Ridden

The Magnificent Seven Ride (1972)

This is the third and final sequel to The Magnificent Seven (1960) and we do not even have Yul Brynner anymore, he is replaced by Lee Van Cleef. Apparently the Chris character has gotten soft in his old age and settled down as a town marshal with his new wife, she convinces him to let some kid go free rather send him to Tuscon jail and Chris turns down the chance to help a friend defend a town from bandits south of the border. Naturally once the kid is free he and his friends decide to rob the local bank, kidnap Chris's wife, rape and kill her then run off south eventually joining up with the bandits so Chris has to go help the villagers anyway.

In general the western has a real problem with female characters and how to deal with them. In early westerns there had to be a female love interest for the male lead but it was hard to find an excuse for her to be around frontier ranch or out on the trail when the cavalry is off chasing Indians. What you tend to end up with is school teachers and whores being the only women in westerns and unfortunately this film seems to be rather sexist. The women in this film are there pretty much to be raped by the bad guys and go all doe-eyed and open their legs as soon as someone comes along and offers them a bit of protection. If the male characters in the film were not there to tell them what to do and fight for them they would be unable to survive at all.

This is slightly better than the first sequel as it does have a little more unique plot in comparison to the earlier films in the series but it does seem to be ripping off the Dirty Dozen in recruitment of the hired guns. We also have the problem that Lee Van Cleef just does not have the same presence as Yul Brynner on the screen. Despite being a better film than the first sequel there are just too many flaws in this effort to milk the franchise one last time. 2/5