One icon of the Western genre stood in for another in The Magnificent Seven Ride!, a sequel to one of the greatest Westerns ever made. Over the years, there have been five Magnificent Seven movies, one of which being the 2016 remake starring Denzel Washington. The first four, released between 1960 and 1972, were set in the same canon.

The original Magnificent Seven featured a star-studded cast, with The Ten Commandments star Yul Brynner headlining the cast. Brynner’s character served as the de-facto leader of the тιтular group, with its other members being played by Western favorite James Coburn, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn, Brad Dexter, and Horst Buchholz. Yul Brynner reprised the role in the 1960 classic’s first sequel, Return of the Magnificent Seven, which was released six years later. But Brynner’s ᴀssociation with the franchise ended there, with one of the series’ installments allowing a fellow legend of the Western genre to take over.

Lee Van Cleef Led A New Group of Heroes In The Magnificent Seven Ride!

Lee Van Cleef Became The Third Actor To Play Chris Adams

After Yul Brynner moved on from the series, a replacement was found in Cool Hand Luke star George Kennedy for the third movie, Guns of the Magnificent Seven. The next entry, The Magnificent Seven Ride!, brought in Lee Van Cleef, a mᴀssive name in the history of the Western genre. Lee Van Cleef had become a Western legend due to his co-starring roles in two of Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood’s Dollars Trilogy. After playing Colonel Mortimer in For a Few Dollars More, Van Cleef created one of the most iconic Westerns ever with his performance as Angel Eyes in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

Van Cleef played Chris Adams, the same character that both Brynner and Kennedy played in the preceding Magnificent Seven movies. However, the rest of the characters were all-new additions to the cast. This time around, Adam’s allies in “the Magnificent Seven” included characters played by Michael Callan, Luke Askew, James B. Sikking, Ed Lauter, Pedro Armendáriz, Jr., and William Lucking.

In the first two Magnificent Seven movies, the two principal members of the group are Chris Adams and Vin Tanner. Vin Tanner isn’t around in the third or fourth film, with journalist Noah Forbes (Michael Callan) standing in as the character who journeys with Adams for most of the film. As for the other five members, all of them are convicted criminals previously arrested by Adams. To defeat a bandit gang, Adams pardons them and subsequently recruits them, making them all reluctant partners in a new version of the Magnificent Seven that’s very different from the previous three iterations.

Lee Van Cleef’s Chris Adams Is Very Different From Yul Brynner’s

The Magnificent Seven Ride! Is A Traditional Western Revenge Story

Admittedly, The Magnificent Seven Ride! falls short of the greatness achieved by the original, it’s still one of Lee Van Cleef’s best Westerns. Plus, it successfully avoids becoming a repeat of the same team-up formula employed by its predecessors. In each of the first three films, Chris Adams is a lawman who puts together teams of men with diverse skills so that he bring to justice a force that he can’t conquer alone. The Magnificent Seven Ride! deviates from this course in an interesting way by making Chris Adams emotionally invested in the battle at hand, as opposed to being obligated by his duty or his moral code: his wife dies at the beginning of the movie.

This time, he isn’t trying to liberate a town from bandits or rescue innocents. Instead, Chris Adams is out for revenge in The Magnificent Seven Ride!. Heading in this direction enables the movie to show a different side of Yul Brynner’s iconic character, in that it makes things personal for him for the first time. It also lets Lee Van Cleef add his own touch to the part, bringing his expertise in playing cold and calculating gunslingers to the classic Magnificent Seven protagonist.