Seven Guns for Timothy (1966)

This is How Movies Should Be Made

Best movie ever!

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

When his entire workforce (and his little dog!) is massacred by land- grabbing badman Fernando Sancho, fancy-pants lawyer/mine-owner Sean Flynn is schooled in the tough-guy arts by his surviving foreman and the foreman's rowdy former Army buddies.Despite a terminally low budget and some extreme silliness, there's some mild fun to be had here, including a furniture-busting bar-room brawl, no doubt inspired by the one in Dodge City, which starred Flynn's famous dad. Sancho is always entertaining, even though he always plays the same character in just about everything he's in.It would appear that the entire music budget was spent on a snappy (though pretty bad!) theme song, with the rest of the score being some pretty obvious library music, which lends to the crackpot nature of the film.After watching Flynn here, it's easy to see why his career didn't take off. Unfortunately, his career as an adventurer was equally as short- lived.

With a title like "Seven Guns For Timothy", it doesn't take very long to determine what American movie was the inspiration for this spaghetti western - "The Magnificent Seven", of course. However, this particular rip-off decides to tell the story in a mostly comic vein. Despite all the attempts at humor throughout, this movie is a real stinker. Though it's a comedy, it opens and closes the movie with violent massacres that don't fit well with the rest of the movie. There's no real attempt to differentiate each of the seven gunfighters with each other, and as a result they act completely alike. Errol Flynn's son Sean lacks charisma and only seems to have been hired because he was the son of Errol Flynn. But the biggest sin the movie makes is how boring it is, with feeble attempts at humor and an EXTREMELY SLOW story. It's no wonder this movie has fallen into the public domain - who would ever think it was worth the expense to renew its copyright?

Spanish actor Fernando Sancho ought to be registered as a cinematic treasure. He appeared in more than dozen Spaghetti westerns, usually as the stereotypical Mexican bandit. Although he chewed the scenery with gusto as the chief villain, Sancho was always consistently a joy to watch. Indeed, he made a memorable impression in every film whether the film was either good or bad. Sancho makes a great villain in "Johnny Yuma" director Romolo Guerrieri's derivative sagebrusher "Seven Guns for Timothy," better known as "Seven Magnificent Guns." Ostensibly, a "Magnificent Seven" clone, this above-average serio-comic oater concerns the efforts of six gunmen who come to the aid of a tenderfoot attorney, Timothy Hollister Benson (Sean Flynn of "Son of Captain Blood") in the old West when he must defend himself and his ownership of a gold mine from the wealthy land-grabbing patriarch Rodrigo Rodriguez (Fernando Sancho) who is accustomed to getting anything that he wants. At one point, Rodriguez boasts, "I never get into trouble with the law - I am the law!" He owns the town sheriff of Stratton and he has at least four wives. Ironically, considering how notorious that he is, our villain decks himself out ostentatiously in a white sombrero and matching outfit. He has no qualms against killing, even when he must kill in cold blood. Guerrieri and scenarists Alfonso Balcázar of "A Pistol for Ringo," José Antonio de la Loma of "Clint the Stranger," and Giovanni Simonelli of "Any Gun Can Play" spend the first thirty minutes setting up this saga. Rodriguez and his army of gunslingers ride into a mining operation and mercilessly gun down everybody in sight except for the husky mining foreman, Corky (Poldo Bendandi of "Duck, You Sucker"), and then hightails it. Corky recruits five men to help him defend the mine from the Mexicans. He pulls the barred window out of a jail cell and rides off with Grey Eagle (Rafael Albaicín of "Navajo Joe") and a black-coated gambler Bert (Frank Oliveras of "$100,000 for Ringo") and they head off to the town of Stratton. Meanwhile, Rodriguez dispatches three gunmen to Stratton to kill another gunslinger, Slim (Daniel Martín of "A Fistful of Dollars"), because Rodriguez and he have a feud. It seems that Rodriguez had something to do with Slim's woman. Anyway, our heroes recruit a beer guzzling champion, Abel (Tito García of "Bullets Don't Argue"), and a boxer with fancy footwork, Brett Colton (Spartaco Conversi of "Once Upon a Time in the West"), to join them. While they are drinking in the saloon, Rodriguez's gun hands saunter in and Slim guns them down. The stoic Slim rides with them part of the way until he learns that they only plan to repulse Rodriguez and then he parts company with them. When Corky introduces his men to the owner of the gold mine, Timothy Hollister Benson (Sean Flynn), the men show considerable skepticism about helping him. Timothy proclaims his right to ownership of the mine that Rodriguez wants to acquire at any cost. The sight of the well-dressed, bespectacled young attorney with a fluffy white dog cradled in his arms doesn't impress these hard cases. No sooner has Timothy stated his aims than Rodriguez's men carry out a raid on Timothy's ramshackle headquarters. Just when it seems that all hope is lost, the villains do the worst thing possible. They kill Timothy's dog and this act of barbarism unites Corky's rough hewn personnel with Timothy. They transform Timothy from a man of the east to a man of the west. Abel teaches him how to quaff enormous quantities of beer. Grey Eagle instructs him in the art of tracking. Brett trains him to box. Eventually, after he rides a bucking bronco, our clean-cut young hero emerges as a swift-drawing, straight-shooting hombre. He indulges himself in a slug fest in the town saloon. Ultimately, Timothy can now ride, shoot, and box with the best of them. Timothy is literally the only well-rounded character because he implements drastic changes in his life. Timothy's girlfriend, Coralie (Ida Galli of "Rome Against Rome"), tries to convince him not to wage war against the rapacious Rodriguez. "Seven Magnificent Guns" is a tongue-in-cheek western where the heroes are virtually indestructible while the villains and innocent bystanders suffer tragically. Just like the average Spaghetti western, there is shooting and killing galore set against a scenic backdrop of rugged austere mountains and a lively little orchestral score by composer Gino Peguri of "Bloody Pit of Horror." Guerrieri and his scribes intertwine humor with heartache and Timothy's gunmen come around to liking him. The outcast of the bunch, Slim, is the one who takes care of Rodriguez during a brawl in the river. The stoic character of Slim looks like he showed up for the wrong western because he neither smiles nor makes jokes. Altogether, "Seven Magnificent Guns" is an entertaining, lightweight shoot'em up with a good performance by an obvious dubbed but agile Flynn. According to Wikipedia, Flynn made "Seven Magnificent Guns" to keep himself solvent so he can cavort about the globe in the same manner than his redoubtable matinée idol father Errol Flynn. Flynn divided his time between making B-movies in European so he can be a free-lance photojournalist in Vietnam. Reportedly, in 1970, communist guerrillas captured Flynn and his companion and neither journalist were heard of again. Flynn's mother Lili Damita had him declared legally dead when no trace could found of him after 14 years.

Errol's son Sean Flynn plays Timothy, a young lawyer who inherits a gold mine. The bandit Rodriguez (or "Sancho" in the German dubbed version, played by Fernando Sancho) tries to get hold of the mine by killing Timothy, but soon finds Timothy is not alone. Five experienced fighters teach the young man everything he needs to know about riding, shooting and drinking (!), and with the help of a silent stranger, they become "seven magnificent guns" ("Sette magnifiche pistole") to fight the bandits."I never get into trouble with the law - I am the law!", Rodriguez/Sancho once exclaims, and his oh-so typical role is pure bliss. The education of a greenhorn to turn him into a real westerner is hardly a new story, but told with enthusiasm. Even if the picture is flawed, obviously made with a low budget and suffering from lack of originality, it is surprisingly entertaining. The secret is probably its simplicity: it delivers what the audience expects. So be it.