McQueen secured screen stardom in an Akira Kurosawa-endorsed remake of the The Seven Samurai deftly refitted as a rousing Western and taking its place alongside its progenitor as a classic. As a gambler, McQueen drifts into an alliance with a team of gunmen led by Yul Brynner, who have been hired to protect a Mexican village from bandit chief Eli Wallach and his thieving crew, and rises to the challenge—as does Bronson, playing a gunfighter additionally battling a crisis of confidence. With James Coburn and Robert Vaughn.