I guess I should now comment upon a 4th flick in the MAGNIFICENT SEVEN franchise; the sequels still surprise or amaze me—by their sleaze and deliberate _absurdism. They constitute or forge a 4th way—not classic, not revisionist, not European—but a sleaze Americana, kindred to the violent vigilante '70s movies, absurd trash. This installment too is bombastic sleaze—inexplicably awkward and even somewhat strange.<br /><br />Now what I find disturbing that these sequels not only have their opportunist fans; but that the fans simply do not sense any difference between the original's style and the sequels'.<br /><br />These sequels are not boring or insipid—but bizarre. They are of course very badly written—messy scripts, rubbish lines. It's straight crazy; in this installment each gunman gets several women— Van Cleef's young wife begs him to release a young prisoner; he finally does. The young man resumes his life, shoots Van Cleef, kidnaps the wife, rapes and kills her—then joins a wrongdoer. Van Cleef, who has previously refused to help defending a village, now assembles a small bunch and charges the wrongdoer's hacienda; then the wrongdoers charge the village where Van Cleef has set.<br /><br />I liked the cast.<br /><br />Van Cleef is Chris; Stefanie Powers, pretty active in the '70s screwy westerns, is Van Cleef's darling. Callan, very antipathetic, is Noah, a writer and Chris' sidekick. The rest of the aggressive bunch are Askew (one of the only three survivors), Armendariz, Lucking, Lauter; Rita Rogers is truly hot, fleshy beauty.