Brad Dexter

Four centuries ago, in a barbaric age ruled by violence, vast armies clashed in desperate battles and fierce men struggled to regain their freedom. Taras Bulba, a breathtaking epic that engulfs the screen with high adventure that enthralls from beginning to end. Set in the Ukraine of the 16th century, Taras Bulba stars Yul Brynner (The King and I) in one of his most colorful roles as a powerful Cossack chieftain determined to regain his land from treacherous Polish invaders. Despite bitter dissension in the ranks, he is soon leading his soldiers into savage warfare.

Akira Kurosawa's rousing Seven Samurai was a natural for an American remake--after all, the codes and conventions of ancient Japan and the Wild West (at least the mythical movie West) are not so very far apart. Thus The Magnificent Seven effortlessly turns samurai into cowboys (the same trick worked more than once: Kurosawa's Yojimbo became Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars). The beleaguered denizens of a Mexican village, weary of attacks by banditos, hire seven gunslingers to repel the invaders once and for all.