I was staying with Ottersis, and we had planned to go spend the day on the Queen Mary. And neither of us really felt like it. So we spent the day watching movies and eating junk food instead. What a great sister!

And this was her pick. I had seen it many years before, and could remember almost nothing about it. I've never seen Seven Samurai, the Kurosawa film that it's based on, and which we had intended to watch along with it...but this is a real treat in and of itself.

The cast is great: Yul Brynner, Robert Vaughn, Steve McQueen, James Coburn, and Charles Bronson are five of the seven; the other two are played by Brad Dexter, of whom I've never heard, and a very young-looking Horst Buchholz...but at 27, he was the baby of the group. Their ages ranged up to Yul Brynner and Eli Wallach (the evil bandido) at 45 years old. But here's the thing: they all look UNBELIEVEABLY YOUNG. And thin. They really look like they're 25-30 year olds who have fallen on hard times and are looking for a job, and are in good enough shape to take on something like this.

This is a wonderful movie. Straightforward, good characters, good dialogue, a believeable bad guy, plot twists, action. nicely done. Even though by the end you can pick out who's going to get killed, it's still great seeing the final battle.

If you read my review of 3:10 to Yuma, you know how NOT to do a Western. Watch this to see how to do one right.