Ed here: Anear perfect picture that holds up to many viewings.
Bronson was never as good and this is
Walter Hill in one of his finest writing-directorial moments.
July 5, 2013
Down and Out Cold in
the ’30s
By DAVE KEHR
Charles Bronson achieved stardom relatively late
in life, after surviving a harsh childhood as one of 15 children of
Polish-Lithuanian parents in the coal country of Pennsylvania, service as an
aerial gunner in World War II and close to 20 years as a hard-working
journeyman actor in Hollywood movies and TV shows. (That’s him, for example, as
Vincent Price’s evil henchman in the 3-D “House of Wax” from 1953.)
It wasn’t until the late ’60s when, as one of
several second-tier American stars who had found reliable employment in
European genre films, that Bronson began to attract a following. Seeing the
soulfulness in his sad eyes and scar-thickened face, Sergio Leone cast him as
the soft-spoken, revenge-driven hero of “Once Upon a Time in the West”
(1968), a film far more successful in Europe than it was in its heavily cut
American release; a starring role in the French thriller “Rider on the Rain”
(1970), directed by René Clément, gained him new critical respect in America,
though paradoxically in an art-house context.
Entering his 50s, and without much time to lose,
Bronson exploited his sudden popularity by appearing in a series of
undistinguished crime films, directed by assorted British functionaries
(Terence Young, Michael Winner, J. Lee Thompson), usually on European
locations. (One important exception was Richard Fleischer’s taut 1974 “Mr. Majestyk,”
adapted from a novel by Elmore Leonard.)
After the runaway success of Winner’s crude “Death Wish,” a Nixonian
law-and-order fantasy with Bronson as a New York architect turned vigilante,
Bronson seemed to abandon his ambitions as an actor and spent most of his late
career walking through routine variations on the “Death Wish” formula
(including four sequels), in frank pursuit of the paychecks that would allow
him to maintain the large family he had founded with his wife (and frequent
co-star) Jill Ireland. A waste of potential, perhaps — but for a man who had
entered the coal mines at the age of 10, a choice Charles Bronson was entitled
to make.
There
was one film, though, that gave Bronson his due, that took a full and fair
measure of his talent and significance and placed him in a context that
summarized and extended his distinctive appeal.
ed here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/07/movies/homevideo/charles-bronson-
packs-a-punch-in-walter-hills-hard-times.html
ed here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/07/movies/homevideo/charles-bronson-
packs-a-punch-in-walter-hills-hard-times.html
My favorite Bronson movie. Great cast.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I have seen "Hard Times" but I have always liked Bronson in his early films like "Once Upon a Time in the West," "The Great Escape," "The Magnificent Seven," and "The Dirty Dozen." He looked old in the "Death Wish" series. I haven't seen many of his films including those with wife Jill Ireland.
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