The other night, AMC aired "The Magnificent Seven," the brilliant 1960 Western which for years had been shown often but in recent years seems to have disappeared from TV. If you missed it, or have never seen it, I recommend it. Based on the famous Japanese movie "The Seven Samauri," it was transposed to a small Mexican village terrorized by a group of bandidos led by Calvara. He was a gold toothed thug atop a black horse and a huge Mexican sombrero.

In today's world, the part would've naturally gone to a Latino actor, but in 1960, New York-born Eli Wallach got the role. And it remains the greatest performance in such a part by a non-Hispanic actor ever recorded on film! Wallach, at 92, is the oldest working actor, with two new movies, "Vote and Die: Lizst for President" and "Tickling Leo," opening later this year.

Wallach is the only man in history who can state that he cut in on Clark Gable to dance with Marilyn Monroe. It was in "The Misfits," the ill-fated farewell performance by those two mega-stars, as well as Montgomery Clift. In real life, Wallach was one of Marilyn Monroe's favorite dancing partners. Coincidentally, her closest friend, Brad Dexter, the actor everyone forgets when asked to name the "Magnificent Seven," was Marilyn Monroe's closest friend.

The only surviving member of the title players of the gunfighters the villagers hired is Robert Vaughn. He told me that he had just 16 lines, including the most famous. It comes in a scene where he talks about his character's miserable life, and three flies alight on a table. He grabs at them, then opens his palm. "One," he says, reflecting on his slowing reflexes. "There was a time when I would've caught all three." It was he who alerted director John Sturges about a young actor kicking around New York who would be just right to play the seventh gunfighter: an unknown named James Coburn. When he kills Robert J. Wilke, the veteran character actor with a stiletto early in the film, you know this slim, stoic star would be a character in the film to be reckoned him. His stardom in "Our Man Flint" would some at the end of the '60s.

Steve McQueen was a rising star fresh off TV stardom in the western series "Wanted, Dead or Alive" as bounty hunter Josh Randall, and that "Hogleg" sawed off rifle he used as a sidearm. Yul Brynner, who starred as the black clad "Chris," had won the Oscar for best actor for "The King and I" three years earlier. German actor Horst Bucholtz also appeared in the Billy Wilder comedy "One, Two, Three" that same year with James Cagney and was a bit miscast as the brash member of the group, but he somehow pulled it off. He would never become as big star, however. Nor would Dexter.

Charles Bronson, a Lithuanian-American from Scooptown, Pa., got his start acting under his real name, Charles Buchinski in "Pat and Mike" with Tracy and Hepburn, and many appearances on episodic TV. It was late in his career that he became a huge star in those "Deathtrap" movies, but look for him in "The Dirty Dozen." But I first saw him when I was a child as the real life Modoc leader in "Drum Beat," a "B" Western with Alan Ladd; a brilliant performance.

Now you know all of “The Magnificent Seven.” John Sturges was one of the great directors of all time. Consider "The Great Escape" (also with McQueen), "Gunfight At the OK Corral" (Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster) and another movie about that episode called "Hour Of The Gun." If you get to see "The Magnificent Seven", listen for the great Al Caiola score (unfortunately used for years in a cigarette commercial before TV banned them in 1971) and marvel at the way Calvera dies. "Dad," Eli Wallach's young son said to him when the scene was finished, "Why did you let Yul Brynner beat you to the draw!”