Charles Bronson is The Man

Once I've read a story about Charles Bronson, that someone tried to rob him in Italy. He just calmly turned to the thief and said: "No, you give me your money!" The thief was scared and ran away. Charles Bronson was so cool that I have to believe it.

Even in his first movies in 1950's his parts were memorable, although being small. He didn't speak in House of Wax, but you had to remember the face. He was memorable in Vera Cruz, Jubal, Run of the Arrow, where he played one of Indians. Hollywood didn't know what to do with an actor with such face, and although his ancesters were Lithuanians and Poles, he was usually cast as a Mexican or an Indian. Not in the war movies where he was always a Pole. But Europe showed the world that he doesn't need to be cast as a foreigner. He can own the pictures.

Jill an Charles, always together. You don't cast Jill, you don't get Charles.

 In 1967 he began his "European Tour" and between 1967 and 1973 he made dozen of movies, among them some of the greatest classics like Once Upon a Time in the West, The Valachi Papers or Rider on the Rain. When he returned to the US, he began his work with the British director Michael Winner and they did a few movies that brought Bronson to the top: Chato's Land, The Mechanic, The Stone Killer and finally Death Wish, THE Bronson Movie. Unfortunately his following movies were not so succesfull and in the early 80's he had to go to the Cannon Group and start shooting real trash for them, beginning, with Death Wish II and three other sequels, from which Death Wish 3 is a really campy classic, and other movies like 10 to Midnight, Murphy's Law, Assassination or The Messenger of Death. For 1983's 10 to Midnight he had a plastic surgery and he lost a lot of his charisma.

I didn't mean to write a biography, and I think it's not necessary to make a top 10 movies or something like that. But I picked my favorite Bronson moments in his pictures, that are some of the reasons why he was so great. It will of course contain spoilers.

Well, let's begin with Death Wish 3, a movie that has a lot of these moments. And I mean a lot. The most classic is the ice cream scene. Bronson goes to kill. He has to attract his prey. So he goes to the local shop in the middle of the night. With an expensive camera on his shoulder. Buys an ice cream. Goes like he was on a promenade. The mugger runs to him, steals the camera, runs away. Bronson just drops the ice cream, pulls out his huge weapon (ehm, it's a handgun....) and shoots the mugger in the back. Classic.

Let's stay with Death Wish 3 and let's take a look on another scene. Bronson needs to attract the prey again. So he buys a car and leaves it in front of the house. When he hears the muggers stealing it, he comes out like he didn't know what was happening. "We're stealing this fucking car, what's it up to you?" "It's my car!" he says with his funny gesture. Then he just takes his gun and shoots both of them. Finished.

IT'S MY CAR!!!

Gee, I could make a top 10 just from Death Wish 3. There are a lot of these moments. But let's skip for Death Wish II for now. When the muggers raped and killed his daughter, they made the biggest error of their miserable lives. Bronson finds one of them and goes slowly toward him. The mugger is unarmed and scared. He begs for his life. Bronson notices a cross on the mugger's neck. "You believe in Jesus?" "Yes," replies the mugger. "Now you're gonna meet him!" BANG! Nobody fucks with Bronson.

The fourth moment will be the most classic one from Once Upon a Time in the West. For 14 minutes have been Jack Elam, Woody Strode and Al Mulock waiting for Bronson to arrive to Flagstone. When the train arrives, nobody comes out. The three gunmen turn and walk away. Suddenly a harmonica tune. They turn again and Bronson is suddenly there, just playing harmonica. When he finishes his Morricone melody, he asks: "And Frank?" Elam: "Frank sent us." "Did you bring a horse for me?" asks Bronson. Elam smiles: "Well, looks like we're shy on one horse." Bronson just slowly shakes his head and replies: "You brought two too many." Series of closeups, shootout. Everybody on the ground. Magnificent. Of course, Bronson isn't dead.

Mr. Majestyk is not one of my favorite Bronson movies, but it has some of the moments. Bronson plays a melon farmer and the bad guys are trying to destroy his farm. What does Bronson? Takes a shotgun and a pick-up and goes to send them to hell. Both of these funny moments include Paul Koslo as an annoying bad guy. When he comes to his fields and annoys Bronson, Bronson comes to him and his car. Then he picks a shotgun and hits Koslo in his crotch. Ouch. Then he shoots the amplifier the bad guys brought to distract the hired workers.

The second moment is at the very end of the movie. Koslo is the only living bad guy and tries to escape. He jumps in a car and wants to leave, but suddenly he notices that the keys are missing. He turns to the house and sees Bronson in the window, smiling and holding the keys. Great.

I couldn't find any screenshot of the scene, so here is Paul Koslo.

The Mechanic wasn't my favourite of Mr.B's movies, but I'm intending to give it a second chance. The best moment is of course the very ending. Ehm, I said I'm going to spoil he movies, didn't I? SO, the moment is AFTER Bronson dies, poisoned by Jan-Michael Vincent. Vincent arrives to Bronson's house, goes to his car, gets in and reads a message, written by Bronson, telling him, that he has broken a filament controlling a 13-second delay trigger. End of game. Bang! You're dead. BOOOM The car explodes, and end credits appear. Only Charles Bronson can kill you after his own death.

We've had a lot of killing, the next moment is rather funny and contains another cool guy and a favourite actor of mine, James Coburn. They did three movies together, The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape and Hard Times, the only one, where they were the stars. This moment is from The Great Escape. The British prisoners were brought to the Nazi camp, the Russian prisoners, who have built it, are leaving. Bronson takes his coat on and tries to leave with them being in the crowd. Coburn joins him and asks: "Hey, Danny (=Bronson), can you speak Russian?" "One sentence." "What?" "Ja vas ljublju." "What does it mean?" "I love you." "I love you?!" "I didn't mean to use it." 

Ok, we're back at Death Wish 3 and let's concentrate on the rocket launcher. Bronson orders it through mail. Perfect! I'll do it too. Then the main bad guy enters the flat and threatens Bronson and another cool motherfucking dude and a often Bronson's co-star, Ed Lauter, with a gun. Bronson just turns around with the rocket launcher and blows the asshole to hell. With half of the house. Can you imagine a better ending for such movie?

And the last one is the only great moment of this lousy movie, 10 to Midnight. Bronson is interrogating the suspect (=the killer), who is a prick. Bronson shows him some tool he found in his flat and screams at him: "What's it for, Warren? Jerking off?" You have never expected Bronson to say such words.

That was the ten, but I'll add one lesser known as a bonus. Charles Bronson has appeared in one episode of the series Rawhide. Unfortunately he didn't fight with the lead, Clint Eastwood himself, but he has had a funny scene nevertheless. Bronson, the bad guy, is dining in his house and one of his cowboys comes. As he delivers his speech, he puts his leg on a chair. Bronson doesn't even look at him and says: "Don't put your feet on my chair!" The cowboy obeys, continues his speech, but then he does it again. And Bronson, cool as always, again says: "I told you not to put your feet on my chair!" He knew how to handle lousy amateurish actors with more dialogue than they could handle. And that's it for today.