CHARLES BRONSON movies - Page 2

what no love for Chato's Land?
rles Bronson + Jack Palance

Breakheart Pass

or House of Wax (1953)

Dying here. I wish there was a book dedicated to Bronson related trailer/dressing room stories.

Love this youtube bit I found, it's a Bronson blooper from Caboblanco (near the end of the clip).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1cz56k_6-M

There's a throwaway line in Death Wish that says so much about the guys from Bronson's time:

"Which war was yours, Korea?"

Just this patent understanding, buried in small talk, that "we're men; we have absolutely seen some shit happen." Not glamorizing it, or whining over it; just a matter of fact.

I need to be a part of tis thread.

I've always wondered if that's what I responded too so much in the work of Bronson, Lee Marvin, etc. An innate understanding that I was a big soft lump of poop. Now don't read this and tell me to step back from the ledge, but it's true, the American male has went through a defanging process in the latter half of the twentieth century, there's no denying that.

Or I'm just a big homo who likes the rough hewn types.

Great bit about his in Mad Men when Sterling pulls rank, like "I was in WWII, don't talk to me about your pussy korean war".

Absolutely. I was A) raised by my grandparents who fucking ruled and were WWII vets, and B) I grew up watching these dudes in movies, so I always kinda had that rough-hewn male role model in my life in some capacity. Granted, my grandparents were pretty progressive compared to their peers, so at least they got that part taken care of without me turning into a bigoted dickhead.

So, in conclusion, I'm probably gay too, but at least I can go without shaving for a couple days and likely get a date with you.

How on earth can the same guy have directed the first three Death Wish movies? The first one was a little meat and potatoes in its direction (a plus, for me) but there's something completely believable about how Kersey becomes what he does. It feels human, it has something to say, and there's some effective, albeit unsubtle, parallels made to Western iconography (notice how the thugs are constantly whooping and hollering like B-Western Indians).

Death Wish II is polished sleaze, pretty well shot and tightly executed for what it is.

Death Wish 3 feels so much like an Italian knock-off, I half expected to see Enzo Castellari listed as the director. Just a completely unreal, over the top Italian action vibe across the board, from the performances to the backdrops (where the eff in Brooklyn is this supposed to be, anyway?), to the goofy zoom shots of Bronson blowing everything away with his machine gun. He's also become a 64 year old badass at hand-to-hand combat, whereas I don't think he throws a single punch in the original film.

I'm now morbidly curious to check out 4 and 5. He's 73 in that one.

Ed Lauter tells a nice Charles Bronson story in the latest Shock Cinema.

4 is a howl, though the lack of Jimmy Page's guitar licks hurts it a bit. John P. Ryan is mesmerizing though. Pretty sure you'll hate it.

5 is a bust. Some cheap laughs here and there and Michael Parks is an alright foe but it just has too much of that mid-90's everything-filmed-in-Canada feel to it.

I'm not loving Page's score in 3 either. I love Herbie Hancock going berserk when the violence erupts in the original. These sequels don't benefit from watching them close to the original. I should have waited eleven years between 1 and 3.

More shit: Batman Begins and The Dark Knight both have scenes where Bruce Wayne discusses the "Batman vigilante" with his bourgeois friends over dinner. Lifted directly from Death Wish. And is this franchise singularly responsible for the "scary deserted parking garage" trope?

The only thing I remember about V is he executes a death by cannoli. Also, the mild but guilty chuckle about the subtitle THE FACE OF DEATH next to Bronson's increasingly weathered and bloated visage.

Damn, after reading those true stories about Bronson, I think he must have been an intensely shy man. Either that or he just looked at it as a total job.

I suppose now it's obvious why Yul Brynner kept starting shit with Steve McQueen on the set of The Magnificent Seven but didn't fuck with Bronson. Brynner would've had to do the rest of the movie with a black eye.

Just realized why I thought he caught up with Goldblum's mugger character in Death Wish.

I'm not sure if he was shy other than maybe around certain women, but from everything I've read, the silence and the stoicism was not practiced like it was with say Clint Eastwood (and I love Clint). He lived a very hard life before he became a movie star, and becoming a movie star didn't change him at all. He was very private, he didn't schmooze or much mix with people on sets. And you really would not want to be on his bad side. Bronson was the real deal.

From wikipedia:

he made him say U.N.C.L.E.

Bronson was the lead in one of my favorite Twilight Zone episodes, "Two"

Speaking of Bronson, is there an actual Bronson anime out there? (i have no idea what the image is from)

Which of these would you start off with?

The Great Escape
The Mechanic
Mr Majestyk
Death Hunt

All of them are sitting on my desk right now.

Majestyk is my favorite of those.

When ever i think of Mr Majestyk, i get the theme stuck in my head. Good little movie.

I'd say "The Great Escape" is the best film, but Bronson's really just a supporting character. If you want to revel in a lead role, I'd say go with "Majestyk".

Just make sure you watch DEATH HUNT at some point. Think of it as FIRST BLOOD in the 30's.

Yes, Death Hunt is great. Marvin and Bronson, you can't go wrong with that pairing. Pretty much my favorite Bronson film.

This intrigued me, so I did some searching and found out it is from an anime called Crayon Shin-Chan the Movie: Sunset of the Kasukabe Boys.

Do make room for THE MECHANIC at some point. One of my favorite Bronson. Such a good little potboiler, and Jan Michael Vincent is even effective.

I'm gonna watch all of them, just asked for a preferred order!

Mr. Majestyk is a really fun little movie. I loved his performance. He really sells the "i just want to go home and pick some melons" attitude. His annoyance at the reporter when he's trying to get into the jail bus killed me.

The Mechanic is not as good, but still fun. The way he kills is really good and effective.
But fuck the movie, i want that hooker's apartment. Those movie posters framed were fucking great.

I watched Breakheart Pass (seriously, someone at MGMHD loves the fuck out of Charles Bronson). Wanted to love it more, since it's got a really cool premise (someone is killing off people on an Army train full of soldiers which is also transporting wanted criminal Charles Bronson), and a twist an hour in that should have had me cheering. But despite all that, as well as a great supporting cast of character actors, the execution felt a bit pedestrian.

Airing on Fox Movie Channel Fri night/Sat morning at 4AM eastern.

And for early Bronson, MGM HD is running Kid Galahad a few times in the next week or two.

Death Wish 4? More like Death Wish...Chore! Late period J Lee Thompson phoning it the hell in while Bronson gingerly runs around on what seem to be some painful bunions, turning slimy drug dealers against each other. More deserted parking garage menace, and possibly an all-time low black criminal body count for a Death Wish film.

As much as I enjoyed the way the film straight up ignores Death Wish 3, this one is just as far removed from the original as 3 was, but in a different direction. Kersey is now a merc-level avenger of justice (for hire, I guess?), proficient in all manner of weaponry as well as hand to hand. He even has exploding wine bottles he carries in a specially made case, and which he uses to blow up a young Danny Trejo.

Next to the unimaginatively staged action of 4, it's a little easier to understand the love for 3. Nice seeing Kay Lenz on the back end of her hot period, though.

Another thing that bugged me about The Mechanic is the ending. He knew the kid was after him and he still falls for the trap?
He left the trap at his home and all, but he was presented as too smart to fall for it.

You must have missed the existential angst. He was ready to die.

Besides, I fucking love that ending.

One of my film-savvy wrestling buddies was up from Melbourne a few months back and staying at our place. We were up late one night watching a bunch of my Bronson DVD's and we started on the idea of a range of t-shirts for the film nerd with logo's or quotes/slogans/whatever that would only appeal to the niche film geek. Not your common, everyday stuff like "May The Force Be With You", but stuff that only a fan of a certain film would recognise . . .

First idea off the bat - a tight-fitted girlie T with "Majestyk Brand" emblazoned across the chest in the exact same simple font as on the truck.

Keith F, To each his own, but what do you mean by...Jan Michael Vincent was even effective? I find JMV is a dynamic actor and held his own with...Ernst Borginine in Airwolf, George Peppard in Damnation Alley, Robert Mitchum in The Winds Of War, Tough Charles Bronson in The Mechanic, and John Amos in...The World's Greatest Athlete. It is a shame what happened to Vincent.

I have a friend who's into Crayon Shin-Chan. It's about a sort of Bart Simpson style character, except Shin Chan is also very sexually precocious and spends much of his time hitting on adult women. An acquired taste - I don't really go for the kind of humor it uses - but it's not your average samey anime, at least. A western Shin-Chan movie with Charles Bronson might actually be worth cheking out.

Assassination, any good?

Not really. Been a minute, perhaps a notch above other 80's Bronson programmers, but nothing spectacular.

I love Kim Morgan's take on Death Wish:

"Though known to many as an overly simplistic portrait of pro-vigilantism, there's more to this incredibly brutal Michael Winner picture, chiefly a disturbed look at a man who has absolutely and understandably flipped his lid. A perfectly cast Charles Bronson plays a mild-mannered architect who turns vigilante after his wife is killed and his daughter is raped. Taking to the streets of New York, he seeks out violent offenders, and makes a huge impression on the police and public after continually blowing away thugs (or positional thugs) in a sadness turned to fury. Death Wish was an important step for the fascinating Bronson, an actor who hadn't found huge success in America until this movie (he was a big star in Europe and known as “Il Bruto”). Showing that fame wasn't just a young man's game, Bronson became an unusual leading man, both in his offbeat looks (which were fantastic -- I love Bronson's face) and his ascending age. He would make five Death Wish movies of varied quality, but none was as powerful and controversial as the original. Watch it again -- it’s a lot more complex than given credit for. And Bronson is violently touching."

After his wife is killed, doesn't Bronson redecorate his apartment and start dressing like a mid-life crisis having swinger?

He doesn't change his clothes but yeah, he paints his apartment orange. "It'sth Chtheerful!"

I love the ending. Just arrives in LA and those thugs bump into him and he makes his hand into the shape of a gun and mock fires with a sinister grin.

Chicago. There's a wole Untold Tales Of Death Wish waiting to get fanfic'd!

Death Hunt was pretty fantastic.
An awesome team up of grizzled actors, fake gray hair for Weathers included.

Ridiculously fun and violent. It's like Rambo meets Cliffhanger. Only with more bad ass men.

Red Sun is on Instant, as part of Starz Play. Death Hunt also on Instant. Dunno wtf this is about, but added to the queue:

Twinky
aka Lola
(1972) NR
In this 1969 romantic comedy-drama, a 38-year-old American porn novelist (Charles Bronson, in an offbeat, non-tough guy performance) living in London meets and falls for a 16-year-old nymphet named Twinky (Susan George). Before you can spell statutory, they get married and move to New York City -- and that's when their problems begin. Michael Craig, Honor Blackman, Jack Hawkins, Orson Bean and Kay Medford co-star. Richard Donner directs.

Tati, you should check out 10 TO MIDNIGHT. One of Bronson's sleaziest, from 1983, directed by (take a wild guess) J. Lee Thompson. Bronson plays a cop willing to do just about anything to put away a psycho-sexual killer played by underachiever Gene Davis (of nothing more notable than a Trooper role in THE HITCHER, and apparently a part in UNIVERSAL SOLDIER. His amatuer, awkward performance actually adds to the creepiness of his character.

Also starring Lisa Eilbacher, Geoffrey Lewis, Wilfrom Brimley, and most importantly one of his costars from Death Hunt, Andrew Stevens!

It's most notable for its sleazy demeanor and its era appropriate ending, but it doesn't get enough credit for its portrayal of a cop that will literally do any and everything to put away a guy he knows is killer. The movie doesn't work on a mystery payoff, you know who the killer is from the get go, the movie is about Il Bruto as the bullheaded and tough as nails morally questionable cop.

Red Sun is on the DVR. Only saw it in its entirety about two years ago. It's a slow burn picture, and I knid of love it. I mean, fucking Bronson and Mifune squaring off for the entirety of the movie.

I still need to get the dvd of 10 To Midnight. I've got the time on my hands. I'll be ordering it soon.

I've got Red Sun on my Instant queue. Phil, do you know if it's in widescreen or not? Starz Play is some random shit. First it gives me a good anamorphic Instant offering of The Fly II, then I see Devil In A Blue Dress 2 days ago, and it's in fullscreen!

I'm pretty sure it's been talked about on here, but Violent City is also required viewing.

That sounds like a prequel to Boogie Nights.

Well, I didn't, but I just opened another tab and played it, you lazy bastard. It's fullscreen, looks like ass. As Vern said in an article, 70s B movies tend to look like tv shows when they're pan & scan. Drag.

Yeah, I know I'm lazy, but thanks for checking it out! Friggin' crap fullscreen. At least I'll be able to see it.

Anyway, that description for "Twinky" has perked my interest. Going in my queue right now. I refuse to watch Instant movies on my laptop when I have my PS3 disc. Only thing that sucks is that there is no actual Instant queue once I put the disc in. I have to go through the search function.