FILM 1373: SEVEN SAMURAI

TRIVIA: Akira Kurosawa's original idea for the film was to make it about a day in the life of a samurai, beginning with him rising from bed and ending with him making some mistake that required him to kill himself to save face. Despite a good deal of research, he did not feel he had enough solid factual information to make the movie, but came across an anecdote about a village hiring samurai to protect them and decided to use that idea. Kurosawa wrote a complete dossier for each character with a speaking role. In it were details about what they wore, their favorite foods, their past history, their speaking habits and every other detail he could think of about them. No other Japanese director had ever done this before.

After months of research, all of the seven major characters in the film wound up being based on historical samurai.

First use of a scene which is now commonplace in cinema: The approaching horde coming into view as they crest a hilltop, specifically when Kikuchiyo sees the mounted bandits approaching.

This was the first film on which Akira Kurosawa used multiple cameras, so he wouldn't interrupt the flow of the scenes and could edit the film together as he pleased in post-production. He used the multiple camera set-up on every subsequent film.

The movie is set in 1586. We learn during the scroll scene that the real Kikuchiyo was born in year two of the Tensho era (1574) and is now 13 years old. Japanese convention considered a child to be one year old when he was born and advanced his age one year each new year.

Filming had to be stopped several times due to a shortage of horses for the final battle sequences.

The three writers, Akira Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto and Hideo Oguni, wrote the final script over 45 days taking no phone calls or visitors, with few exceptions. The constant writing took a toll on their bodies and sickness was rampant in post-war Japan; at one time Kurosawa wound up in the hospital with roundworms.

The favorite film of producer George Lucas.

Director Trademark: Akira Kurosawa:  [names]  Kikuchiyo is a girl's name made up of two parts, like Betty Sue in America. That's why the samurai laugh so hard at the name. Obviously Toshirô Mifune's character is illiterate, and it's a very subtle thing that the other samurai choose to tease him about the age and not choosing a girl's name! Kiku translates to Chrysanthemum and Chiyo to one thousand generations. This is in fact one of several occasions in which Mifune's character in a Kurosawa film has a name composed of a plant and a number of years.

FILM 1282: ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST

TRIVIA: Al Mulock, who played one of the three gunmen in the opening sequence, committed suicide by jumping from his hotel window in full costume after a day's shooting. Production manager Claudio Mancini and screenwriter Mickey Knox, who were sitting in a room in the hotel, witnessed Mulock's body pass by their window. Knox recalled in an interview that while Mancini put Mulock in his car to drive him to the hospital, director Sergio Leone said to Mancini, "Get the costume! We need the costume!" Mulock, who had appeared as the one-armed bounty hunter in Leone's "The Good, The Bad & The Ugly", was wearing the costume he wore in the movie when he made his fatal leap.

For the opening sequence where the three dusters waited for the train, filmmakers lightly coated the face of Jack Elam with jam and began filming close-ups while letting a fly out of a jar filled with flies, attempting to get Elam's reaction as one would land on his cheek.

John Landis was one of the stunt men on this film.

FILM 1223: THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY

TRIVIA: Clint Eastwood wore the same poncho through all three "Man with No Name" movies without replacement or cleaning.

Because Sergio Leone spoke barely any English and Eli Wallach spoke barely any Italian, the two communicated in French.

Eli Wallach would have been decapitated during the train scene if he had lifted his head up. In the wide-shot, you can see the step that would have impacted his head.

Eli Wallach was almost poisoned on the set after drinking acid used to burn the bags filled with gold coin to make them rip open easier when struck with the spade. The acid had been poured into a lemon soda bottle and Wallach didn't know it. He drank a lot of milk and filmed the scene with a mouth full of sores.

The three man gunfight scene is called either a "Mexican standoff" or a truel (game theory). There are several mathematical papers covering the many complex outcomes of a truel. Other movies that use a truel are Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994).

The three principal actors are the only ones who speak actual English in the film: Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Eli Wallach, with the exceptions of Al Mulock (the one-armed man) and John Bartha (the sheriff). Everyone else in the film is really speaking their native language, mostly Italian and Spanish, and was later dubbed into English.

When Blondie and Angel Eyes are traveling to the cemetery, Blondie shoots a skulker, then counts the number of people that will be traveling together. He says, "Six. A perfect number." In mathematics, a number is perfect if the sum of its factors (excluding itself) equals itself. Six is a perfect number because 1, 2, and 3 are factors and 1 + 2 + 3 = 6. (The next perfect number is 28.)

Director Trademark: Sergio Leone:  [Large circles covered in pave stones]