SETTE DEL TEXAS 1964 Robert Hundar Gloria Milland Paul Piaget Fernando Sancho
Directed : Joaquim Romero Marchent Spain/Italy SW
Extremely influential, classic, cult SW made in 1964 by the prolific Spanish director
Joaquim Romero Marchent it is inspired by the masterful MAGNIFICENT SEVEN 1960.
A rich landowner from Texas needs to transport his desperately ill wife across a desert
and through bands of savage Indians. He hires seven men to help him and his wife.
Along the danger strewn route, death, love, passion, betrayal all make this a classic film
No not exactly mainstream, they were low-budget genre-movies, but of course they did well financially with audiences.
On the other hand they were more looked-down on than today by critics for example, not considered to have any artistic qualities, too violent and nihilistic.
But I already had said that the SW as a whole is now a cult genre.
On the other hand I would only a few of the films describe as cult movies. And there is no clear definition which particular movie is cult and which not. You decide.
What i hadn’t understand is the difference between Cult and Cult Following. The latter is imo only another paraphrase for Cult.
Cult and cult following are both derived from the latin ‘cultus’, adoration, care. Still I have the feeling that ‘cult’ is used for (rather strong) enthusiam of a relatively homogeneous and large group of people, and of a more temporary character; another aspect of ‘cult’ seems to me that it’s related to films that are mainstream nor middle brow, so neither Peter Jackson nor Woody Allen can be called cult. And it certainly isn’t avant garde.
The chop choy movies, Bruce Lee and the likes, were cult in the early seventies; I guess there are still people devoted to them, but they have become very rare: in Holland some ten or twelve Shaw brother movies were released, and they weren’t particularly succesful, in fact they became dead stock very soon. (I saw Bruce’s The Big Boss for 2,99 € this morning).
To have a cult following, is an expression that has - to me - a less temporary, more structural meaning; the group of people worshiping the movie(s) usually is very variable (moviegoers, critics, filmmakers, reverends, philosophers) and the movie(s) can be pulp, mainstream, any kind of brow or even avant garde. Jackson, Allen, Leone, Tati, Fellini, Tarantino, they all can have a cult following.