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Steve McQueen, Yul Brynner, and Eli Wallach in The Magnificent Seven (1960)

Eli Wallach: Calvera

The Magnificent Seven

Eli Wallach credited as playing...

Calvera

Photos15

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Quotes18

  • [Calvera has just captured the Seven]
  • Calvera: What I don't understand is why a man like you took the job in the first place, hmm? Why, huh?
  • Chris: I wonder myself.
  • Calvera: No, come on, come on, tell me why.
  • Vin: It's like a fellow I once knew in El Paso. One day, he just took all his clothes off and jumped in a mess of cactus. I asked him that same question, "Why?"
  • Calvera: And?
  • Vin: He said, "It seemed to be a good idea at the time."
  • Calvera: If God didn't want them sheared, he would not have made them sheep.
  • [the village Calvera's raiding has changed]
  • Calvera: New wall.
  • Chris: There are lots of new walls, all around.
  • Calvera: They won't keep me out!
  • Chris: They were built to keep you in.
  • Calvera: Generosity... that was my first mistake. I leave these people a little bit extra, and then they hire these men to make trouble. It shows you, sooner or later, you must answer for every good deed.
  • Calvera: [dying - to Chris] You came back - for a place like this. Why? A man like you. Why?
  • Calvera: Last month we were in San Juan. Rich town. Sit down. Rich town, much blessed by God. Big church. Not like here - little church, priest comes twice a year. BIG one. You'd think we'd find gold candlesticks. Poor box filled to overflowing. Do you know what we found? Brass candlesticks. Almost nothing in the poor box.
  • Sidekick: But we took it anyway.
  • Calvera: I *know* we took it anyway. I'm trying to show him how little religion some people now have.
  • Sotero: That I could see for myself.
  • Calvera: Now, to business! I could kill you all. You agree?
  • [Dead silence]
  • Calvera: Well, you don't disagree!
  • [as the seven are about to leave the village]
  • Calvera: You'll do much better on the other side of the border. There you can steal cattle, hold up trains... all you have to face is sheriff, marshall. Once I rob a bank in Texas; your government get after me with a whole army... whole army! One little bank. Is clear the meaning: in Texas, only Texans can rob banks. Ha ha.
  • [they look at him in silence]
  • Calvera: Adios!
  • Calvera: I should have guessed. When my men didn't come back I should have guessed. How many of you did they hire?
  • Chris: Enough!
  • Calvera: Somehow I don't think you've solved my problem.
  • Chris: Solving your problems isn't our line.
  • Calvera: We have a saying here: a thief who steals from a thief is pardoned for one hundred years.
  • Calvera: What if you had to carry my load? The need to provide food, like a father, to fill the mouths of his hungry men?
  • Calvera: Religion! You'd weep if you saw how true religion is now a thing of the past.
  • Calvera: So much restlessness and change in the outside world. People no longer content with their station in life. Women's fashions? Shameless.
  • Calvera: The days of good hunting are over. Once there was horses, cattle, gold, fruit from the trees. No more. Now I must hunt with a price on my head, Rurales at my heels.
  • Chris: Ride on.
  • Calvera: You hear that, Sotero? You hear what he said? Ride on. To me! You tell him to ride on before I become angry. Him, and the others!
  • Calvera: Things are turned around now, uh? You're wondering how. Your friends, they don't like you very much any more. You force them to make too many decisions. With me, only one decision. Do what I say.
  • Chris: What about these people?
  • Calvera: What happens to these people will happen whether I kill you first or not.

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