Chris Adams I've been offered a lot for my work, but never everything.
Played by Yul Brynner 
The Magnificent Seven (1960) · 99 quotes
The Magnificent Seven (1960) · 99 quotes
Most-quoted character in The Magnificent Seven (1960): in 29 of its 99 quotes
Most scenes with: Vin (11), Harry Luck (4), Bernardo O'Reilly (4)
The Old Man was right. Only the farmers won. We lost. We'll always lose.
More lines from Chris Adams
10 quotes Chris Adams Chris Adams Graveyards are full of boys who are very young and very proud.
Chris Adams Sorry, I'm not in the blessing business.
Chris Adams Once you begin you've got to be ready for killing and more killing, and then still more killing, until the reason for it is gone.
Chris Adams Harry, please don't understand me so fast.
Chris Adams He's a good gun. We aren't going to a church social.
Chris Adams There's no need to apologize. We weren't expecting flowers and speeches.
Chris Adams If he rides in with no idea of the reception we can prepare for him... I promise you, we'll all teach him something about the price of corn.
Chris Adams It's only a matter of knowing how to shoot a gun. Nothing big about that.
Chris Adams I'll tell you what I can do: I can kill the first man who so much as whispers a word about giving up. The very first man, so help me, I'll blow his head off!
Scenes with Chris Adams
18 scenes Chris Adams [Driving an occupied hearse to a confrontation with local bigots]
Don't worry. We'll get there (to Boot Hill).
Gettin' up there doesn't worry me. Stayin' there is what I mind.
Henry (corset salesman) Where are you from?
Chris [Points thumb toward his back]
Henry (corset salesman) Oh, well where you headed?
Chris [Points finger in front of him]
We need help.
We must buy guns. We know nothing about them. Will you buy them for us?
Chris Guns are very expensive and hard to get. Why don't you hire men?
Men?
Chris Gunmen. Nowadays, men are cheaper than guns.
...
It won't be hard to find men here. Everyone wears a gun.
Chris Sure. Same as they wear pants. That's expected. But good men? That's something else again.
Chris Adams Harry! Good to see you again. What are you doing in this dump?
I, uh, heard you got a contract open.
Chris Oh, not for a high-stepper like you.
A dollar bill always looks as big to me as a bedspread.
Chris It's just eating money, Harry. A gold eagle, room and board. Six weeks gunning for some farmers.
Ah, you old Cajun! You don't talk so good, but you always know what's going on.
Chris Now, Harry --
(to villagers)
Uh, con permiso. (he closes the door and turns to Chris) All right. All that's on top. What's underneath?
Chris Only what I told you.
Gold? Cattle? Payroll?
Chris Only what I told you.
Oh, sure, sure. Just tell me when you can.
Chris Harry, please don't understand me so fast.
Look, never mind. (winks) I'm in!
The man for us is the one who gave him that face.
Chris Adams Hey, you learn fast.
I did hear of a job below the border shooing flies away from a village, but I can't find out what it pays.
Chris Adams Twenty dollars.
A week?
Chris Six weeks. Whole job.
Well, that's ridiculous. You heard of anything?
Chris Yeah. Below the border shooing flies away from a village. Their village. (indicates Hilario and company)
Twenty dollars.
Chris You can come in right now.
Nah, that wouldn't even pay for my bullets.
Ours is a poor village.
We understand. You can make much more as a grocery clerk. And it's good, steady work.
Chris Yeah.
How many you got?
[Chris holds up one finger; Vin shakes his head and holds up two fingers.]
Did you have any luck?
Chris Adams Found a man who would have been perfect. With gun or knife, couldn't ask for any better. But he wouldn't do it.
Hilario : The money, it was not enough?
Chris He doesn't give a hoot about money.
A man in this line of work who doesn't care about money?
Chris Men in this line of work are not all alike. Some care about nothing but money. Others, for reasons of their own, enjoy only the danger.
And the competition.
If he is the best with a gun and a knife, with whom does he compete?
Chris Himself.
Chris Adams [Chris and Vin approach O'Reilly, who is chopping wood on a farm for his breakfast.]
Morning. I'm a friend of Harry Luck's. He tells me you're broke.
Nah. I'm doing this because I'm an eccentric millionaire.
Chris There's a job for six men, watching over a village south of the border.
How big's the opposition?
Chris Thirty guns.
Chris Harry tells me you faced bigger odds during the Travis County war.
Well, they paid me six hundred dollars for that one.
He said you got that Selena thing cleared up in less than a month.
Paid me eight hundred dollars for that one.
You cost a lot.
Yeah. That's right, I cost a lot.
Chris The offer is twenty dollars.
[O'Reilly keeps chopping wood. Chris and Vin turn to leave.]
Twenty dollars? Right now, that's a lot.
You need men for a job down in Mexico.
Chris That's right.
How long?
Chris Four, six weeks.
How much does the job pay?
Chris I thought you were looking for the Johnson brothers.
I found them. How much does the job pay?
Chris Twenty. We leave tomorrow.
Chris [Chico rides into the village with Petra across his saddle bow.]
So that's where they were. You hid them.
Sure, they hid them, but she won't tell where. They're afraid -- she's afraid -- of me, you, him... all of us. Farmers. Their families told them we'd rape them.
Chris Well, we might. In my opinion, though, you might have given us the benefit of the doubt. Well, just as you please.
You know, as long as you were out there, why didn't you bring 'em all in?
What for? Leave them out there. Let Calvera find them. He'll take good care of them.
Chris Bring them in. (to Petra) Show him where.
[Calvera meets Chris Adams and Vin as he rides into the village.]
I should have guessed. When my men didn't come back, I should have guessed. How many of you did they hire?
Chris Enough.
New wall.
Chris There's lots of new walls, all around.
They won't keep me out.
Chris They were built to keep you in.
...
Chris There won't be any trouble... if you ride on.
Ride on? Where am I going to get the food for my men?
Buy it or grow it!
Or maybe even work for it.
Hm, seven. Somehow I don't think you've solved my problem.
Chris Solving your problems isn't our line.
We deal in lead, friend.
So do I. We're in the same business.
Only as competitors.
Why not as partners? Suppose I offer you equal shares.
Chris Of what?
Everything. Down to the last grain.
And the people of the village? What about them?
I leave it to you. Do men of our profession worry about things like that? It may even be sacreligious! If God didn't want them sheared, He would not have made them sheep. What do you say?
Chris Ride on.
...
If I leave here with empty hands, everyone in this village will answer to me when I come back.
Chris You won't come back.
Why not?
Chris Won't have any guns. Take them off right now and drop them.
Your gun has gotten you everything you have. Isn't that true? Hmm? Well, isn't it true?
Sure. Everything. After a while, you can call bartenders and Faro dealers by their first names. Maybe two hundred of 'em. Rented rooms you live in, five hundred. Meals eaten in hash-houses, a thousand. Home, none. Wife, none. Kids... none. Propects, zero. Suppose I left anything out?
Chris Adams Yeah. Places you're tied down to, none. People with a hold on you, none. Men you step aside for, none.
Insults swallowed, none. Enemies, none.
Chris No enemies?
Alive.
Now that's the kind of arithmetic I like!
Chris Yeah. I did too, at your age.
Chris Adams [Chris hears O'Reilly's three local boys call him "Bernardo".]
You've been adopted. "Bernardo O'Reilly".
That's my real name. Irish on one side, Mexican on the other, and me in the middle.
[A faction of villagers, led by Sotero, wants to make peace with Calvera; the Seven discuss their next move.]
You want to go?
Well, there comes a time to turn Mother's picture to the wall and get out. The village will be no worse off than it was before we came.
Chris Adams You forget one thing. We took a contract.
Not the kind any court would enforce.
Chris That's just the kind you've got to keep.
That's a noble thought, but the way things are right now... I don't know.
The odds are too high!
Chris Much too high.
Then we go?
Chris No. We lower the odds.
[The Seven return from a raid to find Calvera's men holding the village.]
You should not be surprised. My good friend Sotero, he, ah, arranged for them to come in. Comprende? Well, anyway, to business. I could kill you all. You agree? (a long pause) Well, you don't disagree. Anyway, I don't want to kill you.
Chris Adams Why so generous?
Practical. They hear about it up north, maybe some friends of yours make more trouble for me -- a man who never wants no trouble. We, ah, have a saying here: "A thief who steals from a thief is pardoned for one hundred years." All right, what does that leave? Only one thing. I pardon you. Ride on.
Chris Just like that? (snaps fingers)
Si, just like that! (snaps fingers) I'll make it easy for you. You want food? (to henchmen) Give them food. Water? All right, water. Horses? Saddled and waiting. Guns? Your guns, your gunbelts you take off and you put here, now.
...
What I can't understand is why a man like you took this job in the first place. Why, huh?
Chris I wonder myself.
Oh, come on, come on. Tell me why.
Fella I once knew in El Paso, one day he took all his clothes off and jumped in a mess of cactus. So I asked him the same question. "Why?"
And?
He said it seemed to be a good idea at the time.
Go get your clothes, your saddlebags. Anything you want, take. Your friends in there owe you at least that much.
[Calvera's men have escorted the Seven well outside the village and tossed their guns on the ground.]
Nobody throws me my own guns and says ride on. Nobody. (puts his gunbelt back on)
Took me a long time to learn my elbow from a hat rack. Right now, I belong in that border town, sleeping on white sheets. (puts his gunbelt on) But I'll ride back to that village.
You're crazy. all of you! They won't lift a finger to help. Think of the odds!
Harry, nobody's asking you to go back.
Chris Adams Ride on, Harry. It's all right.
You bet your sweet life I will! (grabs his gear and mounts) Come on, Lee. If they want to get killed, let 'em.
Chris Go ahead, Lee. You don't owe anything to anybody.
Except to myself. (dismounts and puts his guns on)
You're crazy! ALL of you!
[Harry has been shot riding to Chris' rescue in the final battle against Calvera.]
Chris... I hate to die a sucker. We didn't come here just to keep an eye on a lot of corn and chili peppers, did we? There was something else all along, wasn't there?
Chris Adams Yes, Harry. You had it pegged right all along.
I knew it. What was it?
Chris Gold. Sacks of it.
Sounds... beautiful. How much?
Chris At least a hundred and fifty.
My cut would have been what?
Chris About seventy thousand.
I'll be damned. (he expires)
Chris Maybe you won't be.
[The surviving gunmen are preparing to ride out of the village.]
You could e-stay, you know.They would not be sorry to have you e-stay.
Chris Adams They won't be sorry to see us go, either.
(nods)
The fighting is over. Your work is done. For them, each season has its tasks. If there were a season for gratitude, they'd show it more.
We didn't get any more than we expected, old man.
Only the farmers have won. They remain forever. They are like the land itself. You helped rid them of Calvera the way a strong wind helps rid them of locusts. You are like the wind, blowing across the land and... passing on. Vaya con Dios.
Chris Adios.
