Celebrating the 35th Anniversary of ‘Death Wish’
by S.T. KarnickAmerican Movie Classics is marking the 35th anniversary of the release of Death Wish, the controversial and highly influential 1974 film featuring Charles Bronson as a liberal architect in New York City who becomes a vigilante after a group of thugs murder his wife and rape his daughter.
The film was highly successful with audiences, making Bronson a big star and inspiring several sequels. Critics hated it.
Both reactions were caused by the same thing: the film’s uncompromising truthfulness. Death Wish marked the death of liberal illusions about crime and punishment: the idea that crime is caused by disadvantageous social environments and that the solution is to pour even more taxpayer money into bad neighborhoods in an attempt to buy submission from the poorer elements of society.
Death Wish showed that process to be an absurd sham. The film, based on a novel by Brian Garfield, clearly showed that giving in to such political extortion was making social conditions worse and exacerbating the nation’s already terrible crime problem.
Death Wish and its sequels refused to sugarcoat the villainy of the criminals the architect Paul Kersey pursues, nor did it state that he was justified in what he was doing. It simply showed the characters doing what they were inclined to do, making their choices and following the consequences. Such truth was impossible for Pauline Kael, Roger Ebert, and other elitist critics of the time to stomach.
As direct and truthful as Death Wish is, it is not simplistic or political, despite the ravings of critics at the time. It is a story that was all too plausible, and the characterizations and situations were accurately and insightfully portrayed.
In the years since its release, Death Wish and its sequels have received some of the positive reconsideration they deserve—long after I wrote a lengthy article defending Death Wish, Dirty Harry, and other vigilante films in Chronicles magazine in the mid-1980s.
AMC will show the film several times in the coming days; click here for a synopsis and schedule, and click here to have AMC send you a reminder to watch it.
Death Wish: Highly recommended.
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23 Comments
I gotta tell you I just recently saw this flick and I couldn’t believe that it existed. It was awesome!
Truthful, to the point, and I BET that it freaked alot of people of the most “civilized” left.
Dealing with the dregs of the universe that deserve to be “dealt” with, especially when they are about to kill you…awesomeness.
Think about the new overturning of the Good Samaritan law…gah…I’m rambling
Political correctness would have completely de-balled such a film today. RIP Charlie Bronson!
I don’t know if Death Wish 3 deserves any positive reconsideration. It’s a live action cartoon, basically. Fun as hell to watch, though.
This film along with the Dirty Harry films were created by the publics response to leftwingnut crime policies that set criminals and loons loose on society to prey on the weak and defenseless. While the masses cheered the East Siders sniffed. No one remembers their hommages to the poor criminals but these films remain popular.
Bernie Goetz Personified.
Thomas, speaking of Leftwingnut crime policies & crime in NYC in the 1970s, I recall an author on Cspan2 talking about Mayor John Lindsay in the book he was hawking; he said that one of Lindsay’s aides said in effect that ALL Blacks & other Minorities SHOULD be on welfare so “American Society” could ‘pay them back’ for ‘all the wrongs done to them in the past’; With a mindset like that, no wonder NYC was overrun by crime;
Another reason the Liberals hated Death Wish: it portrayed a strong, courageous husband defending his home, family, and community. That was, and is, offensive to those who preach that men are unnecessary, that women are to look to the State for protection.
Anything after Death Wish 1 is just idle vengeance porno. DW2 with its 5 minute defilement of the housekeeper is disgusting. Yes — I know it happens — I’ve worked in and around law and law enforcement for 15 years — but depicting it like that was a bridge too far. That being said. I love Death Wish 1. We need to take more responsibility for the safety of our families and neighborhoods — maybe not quite like DW, but a well-armed lawful citizen need not fear scum or police.
I believe John Nolte had quite the recap of the entire series on his blog (or was it on Libertas?).
What’s the prob with “idle vengeance porno?”
What did Aquinas say of the wicked, that “the punishment of the wicked is praiseworthy.”
Was Aquinas merely speculating idly?
What did Sixtus V say of the criminals outside Rome’s Leonine Walls?
He said “as I live the criminals must die.”
And with him, that wasn’t merely a dead letter, he strung and or executed over 20,000 criminals in the Papal states, thus ensuring safety for travellers and pilgrims.
It may not be as deep and as meaningful as some other flicks, but any movie where the evil doers get it good in the end reinforces the moral code.
And anymore, that moral code is in some desperate need of reinforcement.
Mr. Nolte’s reviews of the Death Wish films were on Libertas, Mr. Hutchinson.
At the time of its release I was living in New York City, Liberal Capital of the Northeast, if not North America. I saw the movie on the upper east side of Manhattan–not exactly conservative territory. And yet people were cheering every time Bronson pulled the trigger. I think the “professional liberal” class were honked off because the movie was moral. Paul Kersey didn’t shoot anyone unless they attacked him or attacked someone else first. The Professional Liberal class would have preferred the movie Kersey to have been a bigot like Peter Boyle in JOE (Liberal Stroke-Film of the Era), gunning down hippies and Blacks simply because he didn’t like their lifestyles or their skin color.
Pauline Kael never reviewed “Death Wish.” Penelope Gilliat did. But invoking Penelope Gilliat wouldn’t set off the necessary Pavlovian responses, so I understand Mr. Karnick’s need to make stuff up.
Also:”[Death Wish] portrayed a strong, courageous husband defending his home, family…” Yeah, that didn’t quite work out, did it? The wife DOES die, after all…
That said, the picture’s a pretty juicy exploitation thriller. Look for early turns from Jeff Goldblum and future funnyman Christopher Guest!
Kael did not review Death Wish directly, true (and I did not say or suggest that she did), but she referred to it disparagingly in other reviews and essays. For example, as late in her life as in her review of Thelma and Louise, she is still going after it, writing that the film “distorts the issues it poses much as the Charles Bronson Death Wish movies used to.” She repeatedly used the word “fascistic” to describe vigilante films such as Dirty Harry and Straw Dogs. My lengthy Chronicles article on the subject extensively documents the leftist response to vigilante films.
When we ran this film at our drive in theatre, when the scene with Charlie shooting the boom box finished, the “theatre” errupted with
horn honking and head lights flashing.
Glenn Kenney,
“Also:”[Death Wish] portrayed a strong, courageous husband defending his home, family…” Yeah, that didn’t quite work out, did it? The wife DOES die, after all…”
You get kudos for pointing out the stupidly obvious…
TH1567
Don’t fade away, burn out.
Except AMC to edit the hell out of this film, since they no longer show films uncut. That will probably please a lot of readers on this site since there are so many complaints about too much violence, sex, and language in today’s films.
Death Wish would make a fine title for a documentary about fundamentalist Christians and their belief that the end of the world is near. It sure makes governing easier. It means you can gut the clean air act, the clean water act and the endangered species act because if the world is going to end tomorrow, who needs to save anything?
BTW, a very good friend of mine was the woman killed in Death Wish 2. Too bad she got cut out of the sequels. The movie was quite the franchise for awhile.
The ignorance of people who rag on the fundamentalist Christians is truly amazing.
The hypocrisy of the non-violent left is laughable. Reminds me of when Sharon Stone marched down to the police station and turned her gun in after the Columbine tragedy…..followed by her armed body guard.
Roger Ebert liked ‘Death Wish’. He gave it three stars.
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19740101/REVIEWS/401010313/1023
I have three autographs hanging right here in my office/kitchen. Charles Bronson’s is one of them. Pure movie star. And a great actor by my measure which is whether or not the performance is convincing. Unlike Meryl Streep, Bronson always convinced.
My favorite of the five, though it is like singling out a child, is Death Wish II which is set in Los Angeles to an incredibly inventive and bad ass score courtesy of Led Zep’s Jimmy Page.
The film is pure pulp with director Michael Winner (who did the first and third) going for the iconic moment at every turn.
Bronson wears all black and prowls the streets of seedy downtown L.A. looking for the thugs who raped and killed his daughter. 88 minutes of all-kinds-of-cool.
Incredibly, Death Wish 4 is directed by J. Lee Thompson, the director of The Guns Of Navarone, and who worked frequently with Bronson during his 80’s Golan-Globus days.
There’s a reason Charles Bronson became the #1 star in the world at the age of 50. Never be another like him.
[...] S.T. Karnick popped in to remind us of a less politically correct time — 35 years ago — when Charles Bronson’s “Death Wish” debuted on the big screen. [...]
Here's Ebert's take on Death Wish sequels:
Death Wish II: "The movie is underwritten and desperately underplotted, so that its witless action scenes alternate with lobotomized dialogue passages. The movie doesn't contain an ounce of life. It slinks onto the screen and squirms for a while, and is over. " and ". . . so ineptly directed and edited that it was an insult even to audiences that were looking for a bad movie." No stars.
Death Wish III: "[Bronson] looks very tired in this movie. In interviews, he has expressed his unhappiness with it.." One star.
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