Seven Things You Didn't Know About The Magnificent Seven

                                           

                                                   One of the seven....

Ok so before you read this, I want to you to hum the theme for The Magnificent Seven.  Have you just hummed the theme for The Big Country?

No?  There's a link to check at the end.

I have an deadline creeping ( well it is sprinting!) very close so  I asked my pal to blog for me. He has just published this...

                                             

He wrote  The Making of Lawrence of Arabia, The Making of The Guns of Navarone, Hitchcock’s Hollywood Hell and Darkness Visible: Hitchcock’s Greatest Film.  But now he has landed a huge deal with an American publisher about this...

The Making of The Magnificent Seven: Behind the Scenes of the Pivotal Western.

It is a huge book, I confess about a film I don't think I  have ever seen but I think there is some galloping, some shooting and lots of very good looking men in  hats. Are you all now trying to remember who the seven were?

Here's what Brian has to say. I will try not to be too caustic about men on  horses in the desert keeping their trousers very clean!

                                            

                      

                                              

                            When there's mockery like this, it's well in the cultural consciousness

So here's            Seven Things You Didn’t Know About The Magnificent Seven (1960)

                                                          By Brian Hannan

                             

                                    Was he one of them? Some bloke with a Death Wish?

1) It was a flop. 

United Artists had a bust-up with the film-makers and refused to give the movie a big premiere. Instead of a glitzy launch in New York or Los Angeles it was turned loose in the southwest in what was called a “saturation” release which at the time was primarily reserved for exploitation pictures that died the death once word got round. In major cities films you’ve never heard of thumped it at the box office  – Freckles topped it in St Louis and The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come in Louisville. When the figures were tallied up for first year of release, it was beaten in the annual box office stakes by a host of less expensive films lacking proper stars. These included British stiff-upper-lip war picture Sink the Bismarck starring Kenneth More, Italian sword-and-sandals epic Hercules Unchained starring Steve Reeves, an adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle’s  The Lost World starring Michael Rennie and a young Jill St John, the special effects relying on photographically enlarged lizards, Richard Burton drama The Bramble Bush and anaemic Disney true-life adventure Jungle Cat. 

                                         

                                                         Etc etc etc....

 2)  John Sturges was third choice to direct the film. 

Initially, star Yul Brynner was going to direct.

                                           

                                               The King Of Siam and some other guy (hats on)

                                        He also wore a hat while putting out fires in NY while 

                                       DR Kildare came to a sticky end.

3)  Composer Elmer Bernstein was fourth choice. John Sturges wanted Dmitri Tiomkin (High Noon) to write the score but they fell out when Tiomkin insisted of having a song over the opening credits.  Classical composer Aaron Copland, one of Bernstein’s influences, was next in line and Alex North (Exodus) got as far as seeing the completed film before Sturges turned to Bernstein. Despite the music making an impact, the original soundtrack was not released for many years. Initially, guitarist Al Caiola was more associated with the music than Bernstein, having released a single that sold well while Bernstein, signed to a competitor to the UA label, was originally refused permission. Bernstein was nominated for an Oscar for the sequel Return of the Seven even though there was little original about the music since it was mostly lifted from the first picture.

                                                   

                                                          Not a bit of horse drool on him.

4) Among those reported to be in the running for a role were Swedish world heavyweight boxing champion Ingemar Johansson, who had won the title in 1959 after beating the American Floyd Paterson, and singer Sammy Davis Jr., a member of Frank Sinatra’s Rat Pack.

Was he one?

                                            

                                                             And him?

5) The famous tagline “They were seven…but they fought like seven hundred” was virtually a direct copy of the tagline for a Gregory Peck western Only the Valiant nearly a decade before which ran “They were six…but they fought like six hundred.” Curiously, the Peck film also concerned seven men faced insuperable odds.  

  

                                          

                                                              Yip,  that's three!!

6 ) Sturges received a critical drubbing in one of the most influential books ever written about film.  Andrew Sarris in his landmark study American Cinema, published in 1968, which assessed every notable director, commented: “It is hard to remember why John Sturges career was ever considered meaningful.”

                                       

                                                    Is he a  goodie or a baddie?

7) Local cinemas did not feel obliged to stick to the advertising text supplied by United Artists. The Baker theater in Lockhart must have confused The Magnificent Seven with some other movie to dream up the following advertisement: “A message picture (and) handsomely mounted social drama.” Cinema owners could choose what picture to play it with though I wonder how many people were attracted to a double bill of The Magnificent Seven and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

                                                 

                                                 

Brian ( Get him on your team in a pub quiz!!)

YEEEEE HAAAAAA, 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iteRKvRKFA   for the theme tune. Did you get it right?

Brian Hannan on behalf of Caro Ramsay,  05 06 2015

The Ugly Duckling

Two weeks ago I wrote about an iconic South African wine of the eighteenth century that was reborn in the twentieth and is becoming iconic again.  This post is about a wine that has never received much recognition outside South Africa, but that does have some rather intriguing features and quite an enthusiastic local following – Pinotage.  Like many cultivars it doesn’t occur naturally, but has been created as a new variety.  Genetic engineering if you will, but not the type involving splicing genes that gets all the bad press.

The story starts in 1925 with the first professor of viticulture at the University of Stellenbosch – Abraham Perold – who was trying out ideas to improve the success of growing pinot noir in the Cape.  As you know, pinot noir is the great red cultivar of Burgundy with various delicious new world styles from the cooler parts of the US, Australia, and especially New Zealand.  To this day it's a big problem to grow in the Cape.  Except for a few special locations, it is simply too warm here for this cool-climate grape to do well.  And it’s finicky in any case – low yields and sensitivity to pests and damp make it a winery nightmare.  So Perold was looking for some way to toughen up the cultivar and tried crossing it with cinsaut – called hermitage here at the time.  Cinsaut is a rough and ready sort of grape making big tannic wines in South Africa that are usually best drunk in the form of brandy.

Anyway, Perold obtained four seeds from his cross, and planted them in the garden at his official residence at the experimental farm – Welgevallen.  Apparently he forgot about them and a few years later he left the university for a position elsewhere.  However, his successor knew about the plants and rescued them obscurity.  In 1935 he grafted them onto healthy root stock and sat back to see what would happen.  What happened was that they made the first wine from these vines a few years later and named it Pinotage.  Kanonkop – now one of South Africa’s top wine estates has been producing pinotage wines since the forties.

At its best pinotage can exhibit rich berry fruit characters and elegance.  But it has its own problems.  In the past the wine often had a banana aroma which many people (including me) found highly unattractive. (“Tropical fruit” is supposed to mean things like grapefruit, peaches and melons not bananas!)  At its worst, as the wine aged, it could produce a smell of acetone.  A group of visiting wine masters in the seventies thought the wines were awful – and said so – and it started to look as though pinotage would never amount to much more than a local curiosity.

Probably pinotage’s fortunes changed because of two different reasons.  The one had to do with wine making, the other with politics.  More care at the winery produced much better wines.  It turned out that while pinotage had inherited the robust nature of its cinsault parent in the vineyard, it had the delicacy of its pinot parent in the cellar.  The banana and acetone aromas were often due to impurities in the wine – they were flaws not characteristics (like the prized asparagus aromas in some sauvignon blancs) – and they could be avoided.  Also when Neslon Mandela became president, South Africa was the flavor of the month in many areas including wine.  So more people tried – and liked – the by then much improved wines.  There is now even a category called “Cape Blend” – any blend of cultivars that includes pinotage.  Several of them are very good.

Personally I don’t think pinotage will knock the heavyweights off their pedestals.  But it’s now grown in a variety of countries – including the US and New Zealand – and well supported at home.  So the ugly duckling has turned into - if not exactly a swan – at least a reasonably presentable duck.

Michael – Thursday.

The Heart of Darkness

No, this off schedule appearance is not the proof EvKa is looking for of the dark side of AmA.  That is coming next Monday.  At least that’s the plan.

Today is Lisa’s turn, but she has caught a bug and needs to rest.  We all want her to save her strength for her upcoming launch, and I volunteered to be her understudy for this Wednesday.

I reread the classics on a regular but very random basis.  My latest foray into my literary past is Joseph Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness.  I remember loving the book when I first read it as a student.  What particularly bowled me over was the fact that the Polish man born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, who could not speak English fluently until he was in his twenties, wrote in his adopted language as brilliantly as he did.  Now that I am a novelist myself, rereading his masterpiece is even more stunning than before.  It seems like a magic trick.

I just started the book last night and am only just into the third chapter, but I have found new reasons to both identify with and stand in awe of the master.  Here are a couple of quotes from the Part One, Chapter One that knock me out.

As many of you know, I am writing a series that takes place in British East Africa (now Kenya) just as the Brits are moving in and taking hegemony over what had been “unconquered” territory.  Here is how Conrad describes such an endeavor.  He was talking about the Roman invasion of the British Isles:

"They were conquerors, and for that you want only brute force— nothing to boast of, when you have it, since your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others. They grabbed what they could get for the sake of what was to be got. It was just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale, and men going at it blind—as is very proper for those who tackle a darkness. The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it; not a sentimental pretence but an idea; and an unselfish belief in the idea—something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to. ...’"

Oh how I wish I could have said something to compare even remotely with that!

My second excerpt tickles me for a completely different reason.   If you read my post a few months ago about my vagabond nature, you may recall my childhood fascination with maps.  I imagine my peripatetic blogmates may have had similar childhood fixations.  Here is how Conrad describes his character Marlow’s:

"Now when I was a little chap I had a passion for maps. I would look for hours at South America, or Africa, or Australia, and lose myself in all the glories of exploration. At that time there were many blank spaces on the earth, and when I saw one that looked particularly inviting on a map (but they all look that) I would put my finger on it and say, ‘When I grow up I will go there.’"

Yup!

I’ll be going up the river with Conrad’s Marlow over the next few days.  If you have never been there, I highly recommend you join me.

Annamaria, standing in for Lisa.  Feel better SOON, darling friend.

Pantheon Resistance

At the Pantheon last week two men and two women, were honored for their roles in fighting the Nazi occupation during World War Two. They joined the 'Greats' of France' in a reburial ceremony in the Pantheon.

Last year, President Francois Hollande promised that they would receive the honor of being buried among the "national heroes" entombed in the Pantheon mausoleum.

Germaine Tillion, Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz, Jean Zay and Pierre Brossolette – "embodied the values of France during their time on earth", Hollande said. "I wanted the spirit of the Resistance to be celebrated," he added.

A procession made up of family members, former Resistance fighters, students and school pupils accompanied the coffins into the Pantheon. Until now only two women were buried there: Nobel prize-winning scientist Marie Curie

 and Sophie Berthelot, the wife of chemist Marcellin Berthelot. Two women previously out of hundreds of men including: Voltaire, Rousseau, Victor Hugo, Émile Zola, Jean Moulin, Louis Braille, Jean Jaurès and Toussaint L'Overture the slave who freed Haiti among many others.  

The move to include two women resistance fighters followed protests from feminist groups and a complaint from an official body for France's monuments urged the president to fix what it called a "wide gender imbalance" at the almost exclusively male-dominated Pantheon.

But while the coffins of the men, Jean Zay and Pierre Brossolette will be laid to rest alongside some of the country's most famed writers, artists and scientists only soil from the graves of the two women will be buried in a symbolic move.

It comes after the families of De Gaulle-Anthonioz and Tillion objected to having their bodies removed from the family graves where they currently lie.

Tillion, an ethnologist who died aged 100, was a founding member of a famed Resistance cell of intellectuals and academics. She was sent to the Ravensbruck concentration camp for women, escaped and eventually wrote an insightful account of her time there.

De Gaulle-Anthonioz, a niece of General Charles de Gaulle, was another Resistance member who was sent to Ravensbruck and also wrote a memoir of that time.

Cara - Tuesday

PS at our Bay Area Book Festival this weekend I'm moderating a Nordic Noir panel with none other than our own YRSA - can't wait to see her and instead of Oli she's bringing her 18 yr old daughter.

BEA2015: Murder at the Javitt’s Center

A small part of the China Booth 

Let’s be clear.  Ordinarily in my life for the past few years, and into the foreseeable future, BEA stands for British East Africa—the scene of my Tolliver historical mystery series.  But in this instance, it means Book Expo America—the biggest annual publishing convention in North America.  It takes place in May, frequently at the Javitt’s Center on the banks of the mighty Hudson.  It is a great favorite with Mystery Writers of America.  You are about to see why?

There were 26 aisles of exhibitors!

The first lift to our spirits occurs on entering the building.  The event is HUGE!  Hundreds of exhibitors from twenty-three different countries.  Many thousands of attendees—from the publishing industry, libraries, universities, critics, bloggers, and on and on.   One glance at the enormity of the convention dispels all the prognostications of doom about publishing being a moribund industry.  The atmosphere crackles with energy.

The MWA booth, just before it opened on Friday

Typical of the line of readers waiting for autographed books

The Mystery Writers of America booth is home base for us.  Thanks to the organizational skills of our administrative director Margery Flax, we have a constant flow of author signings.  This year, in three days, we gave away over 8000 books, which were largely donated by our publishers.

Your reporter with Lucy Burdette and M.J. Rose

There are people lined up to collect books and get them autographed.  The warmth of the gathering of writers is a delight to behold and revel in.

Not our Michael Sears, but Michael Sears nonetheless

The last of the day's authors: Wendy Corsi Staub, Reed Farrell Coleman, and Ken Wishnia.
The number of readers waiting in the line has never let up from 10 AM and 4 PM.

For a few years now, I have volunteered to work the booth for one of the days, and I wouldn’t miss doing that.

 

Tim O'Mara provides refreshments at the end of a great day.

Those smiles tell it all.

Next year, the conference will be in Chicago.  I am planning on being there. 

Annamaria - the Monday after BEA