Shelly Reuben

I have always admired men.

When in my teens, I was attracted to – we’re talking classic movie stars from the Golden Age – the foppish type usually played by Leslie Howard in such movies as The Scarlet Pimpernel and The 49th Parallel. Men who always turned out to be daring adventurers beneath their disguises as effete snobs or clueless intellectuals.

Thanks to television and The Million Dollar Movie, I graduated to admiring Gary Cooper, Clark Gable, and those of their ilk. Big, tall, handsome guys with square jaws and craggy faces. And even though James Cagney didn’t have the height or good looks, he had that unmistakable masculine twinkle in his eyes, so he was also on my list.

As the years progressed, Golden Age actors retired or died and were followed by performers who were shorter and less handsome, but still unequivocally male.

Then, sadly began the dismal downward decline toward the anti-hero, typified by Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino, squat and banal, who stumbled through movies like neurotics in search of a therapist. But worse was to come with their successors, eternal boys like by Johnny Depp or Leonardo DiCaprio, none of whom looked as if they had sufficient male hormones even to shave.

Today (or rather, yesterday), however, I entered a time machine and, on a whim, watched the original (1960) version of The Magnificent Seven. It was like having a first row seat in a personal theater that featured the electricity and magnetism, mixed with brawn, fast-draws, and sweat, of old fashioned, get-the-job-done-unapologetically-and-with-a-swagger ... men.

M-E-N.

God. I loved it! And it was so much fun to have them back. Let me tell you about last night.

The first of these “magnificents” to stride (actually, he was standing still) onto the screen was Yul Brenner. Remember Yul? Of course, you do, and if you don’t, look him up. I had seen him before in dozens of movies, including as the immortal king in The King and I. But that was long ago, and I’d forgotten.

Yul Brynner.

His first interaction in the movie is with a traveling salesman who has come upon an unattended corpse in the middle of the street. He pays the local undertaker to bury the man, because “I’m just doing what any decent man would.” But the undertaker is stymied because town rabble-rousers object to Old Sam, an Indian, being buried on Boot Hill with white people, and they threaten to kill anyone who dares to drive the casket into the cemetery.

The Yul Brynner character, content until then to observe from the sidelines, smoothly steps forward and says, “Oh, hell. If that’s all that’s holding things up, I’ll drive the rig.”

Soon he is joined by Steve McQueen – “I’ve never rode shotgun on a hearse before” – establishing right off that whatever else these two men are, they have an indelible sense of right and wrong, and are willing to stand up for the little guy ... even if, like Sam, he is already dead.

I’ll tell you about Yul. He is all in black. Black hat. Black shirt. Black gun belt. Black gun. His body is compact and muscular, and a gun belt with a holstered gun is tight against his thigh. His face is expressionless. Except for his eyes, which observe all that he sees with piercing intelligence. He moves slowly, purposefully. Gracefully. Exactly like a panther.

Next we are introduced to the man who had volunteered to ride shotgun … a shocking reminder of who and what Steve McQueen was when he was young. In contrast to Yul Brynner’s stylized man-in-black appearance, McQueen is dressed like a conventional cowboy in jeans, chaps, a tan shirt, and a battered Stetson hat. He is slim, relaxed, and beautiful, with squinting diamond blue eyes, the hint of an impish smile, and casual, if irrepressible confidence.

The two men drive the rig with the corpse to the cemetery, intimidate the thugs trying to prevent them from entering, succeed in having Old Sam buried, and return to town. After which Steve McQueen slings himself onto a horse and rides away. Yul Brynner, meanwhile, goes back to his hotel room, where he is approached by three sympathetic Mexican farmers who want to hire him to save their village from bandits. After they explain their plight, they offer Brynner “everything we own. Everything of value in the village” for his help.

He responds, “I have been offered a lot for my work. But never everything.”

This is where we learn that not only is Yul Brynner a paid gunfighter, he is also a man of courage and character, because “everything (they) own” amounts to virtually nothing, and there is no reason for him to assume their problems except compassion and the desire to right a wrong.

However, he cannot do this alone. So he puts out the word that he is looking for gunmen to do a job that pays $20 for six weeks work ... a meager amount that one applicant remarks “wouldn’t even pay for the bullets.”

First to join Yul Brynner is Steve McQueen who, having heard that there might be a job below the border, rides back into town.

Next Brynner seeks out reputed gunman Charles Bronson, so down on his luck that they find him splitting logs for a rancher in exchange for breakfast. Like Brynner and McQueen, but not in the least resembling them, Bronson is masculine, powerful - God-like as he swings his axe - and gorgeous. His face is both soft and hard, with eyes that squint, as do those of Steve McQueen, but in contrast are dark, pensive, and brooding.

Despite the low wages, Bronson agrees to join Brynner and McQueen. But that makes only three. For their fourth, they locate James Coburn lounging against a fence post in a yard, with the brim of his hat tilted over his eyes. Coburn is rumored to be as good with a knife as he is with a gun, and when he unfolds his long, thin body from a seated position, he does so in the same manner that an assassin would unfold a switchblade knife. After a lethal exhibition of his expertise, Coburn joins the growing band of gunfighters who will accompany Brynner to Mexico.

Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, and James Coburn ... only four of The Magnificent Seven. But it is they, accompanied by Elmer Bernstein’s brilliant score, who project the purpose, compassion, and masculinity that make this movie great.

I have a friend in Australia who asked me to write a column about men. This is it.

Poor men. So often today they are under assault for doing little more than existing as members of their own sex.

I remember how, several years ago, an aging movie star made headlines by indignantly proclaiming that a male service employee had called her “Sweetheart” and ... horror of horrors ... also had called out “Nice dress.”

In her mind, apparently, those words marked him as a sexual predator. She reported him to his employer and posted an outraged complaint about him on the Internet, thereby receiving World Wide Attention and presenting herself to fans (if she had any left) as a persecuted female bravely protesting male oppression.

He had called her “sweetheart.” He’s said she was wearing a “nice dress.”

Good Grief.

Recently, I was standing in line behind an attractive man at Dunkin’ Donuts. In the brief moment when he turned to look at a wall clock, I saw that he had large, lustrous blue eyes. Oh, my God! I thought without knowing that I was thinking it, “They remind me of my late husband’s eyes!” And unaware of what I was about to do, I blurted, “You have such beautiful blue eyes!”

At that point, if I had been a man, doubtless I would have been arrested for sexual harassment. Instead, the fellow in front of me flashed me a captivating grin, and turned away to put in his order. Minutes later, I put my order in, too. But when I tried to pay for it, the counterman said, “Put your money away. The guy in front of you already paid for your lunch.”

Men. They can be so cool.

I know there are real ones out there who, beneath their cloaks of sexual neutrality, still stalk the Wild West with gun belts slung low across their hips, eyes that glint in the sun, cocky confidence, and kind hearts bullet-proofed by steely resolve.

To whom I proclaim, “Come out! Come out! Wherever you are!”

We want you back.

Copyright © Shelly Reuben, 2023. Shelly Reuben’s books have been nominated for Edgar, Prometheus, and Falcon awards. For more about her writing, visit www.shellyreuben.com