Death Wish, 1974 directed by Michael Winner (Paramount/Columbia Pictures)
WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOILERS FOR THE BOOK AND MOVIE
July 2024 marks the 50th Birthday of one of cinema's most influential vigilante movies - Michael Winner's Death Wish.
Adapted from Brian Garfield's 1972 book and released in 1974, Death Wish follows Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson) a middle-aged architect, pacifist and "bleeding-heart liberal".
Paul lives a quiet, comfortable, upper-middle-class life in New York City, until the day his family are the victims of a brutal home invasion that leaves his wife, Joanna, dead and his adult daughter, Carol, traumatised.
When the police admit they will probably never find his wife's killers, and the hospital staff caring for his daughter treat him with cold indifference, Paul is stunned. Why does no one want to help him? Why don't the authorities care about what happened to his family?
His son-in-law, Jack, who is also grieving, tries to be the voice of reason. He implores Paul to remember that everyone is doing their best, but all Paul can see is how the the system has failed him.
After his wife's funeral, perhaps tired of being cooped up with his grief or perhaps looking for a confrontation, Paul arms himself with a home made weapon (two rolls of quarters in a sports sock) and takes a late night stroll through Central Park. When he's confronted by a knife-wielding mugger, Paul whips out his make-shift club, whacks the thief across the head and sends him packing.
This brief burst of non-lethal violence appears to pull Paul from his funk. When he returns to his apartment he bounces around in child-like glee, apparently having found a kind of catharsis in his act of self-defence.
Before he can take another midnight stroll, Paul is sent to Arizona on a work trip. While there, he meets affable, urban cowboy businessman, Ames Jainchill (Stuart Margolin). Ames takes Paul to a Wild West show and a gun range, and the two men talk about crime, guns, and preventing crime with guns.
Later, Ames gifts Paul with a nickel-plated Colt .32 and when Paul returns to New York and learns that Carol has fallen into a vegetative state, he slips the gun in his pocket and goes for a walk.
The movie initially sets Paul up as an avenging angel, intervening in muggings and assaults and dispatching a series of anonymous thugs and low-lifes. Soon though, he's hunting for sport. In one scene, he flashes a wallet full of cash in a seedy diner and leads two potential thieves down into the subway so he can orchestrate a stand-off with them.
As his body count grows, the NYPD assemble a task force to track down what they believe is a vigilante killer. But not everyone is entirely convinced he should be stopped. After all, muggings have halved since he took to the streets.
Source: Paramount/Columbia Pictures
Paul watches news reports about his crimes, and the effect they are having on his city and its citizens, with bemusement. Cleaning up the streets one scumbag at a time has given him a purpose and a break from his grief, but he can't do this forever. He may be armed, but so is his prey. And if a stray bullet or blade doesn't get him, the law will.
Or will they?
Image generated on Freepik
Having not seen Death Wish in many years, I was pleasantly surprised to find it wasn't quite as exploitative or nasty as its reputation suggests. Don't get me wrong, it is an exploitation movie, and it is nasty, but time has dulled its edges. It's also far less gratuitous than its sequels, the 2019 remake, and the slew of urban vigilante movies that followed in its wake, such as The Exterminator (1980), Vigilante (1982), and The Class of 1984 (1982).
Unlike the majority of the movies it spawned, the original Death Wish has more on its mind than just bloody vegeance. Firstly, there are repeated allusions to the Old West. Paul's trip to Arizona, and the casting of Charles Bronson, who had appeared in more than 20 Western movies, being the most obvious.
However, there are more subtle nods too, like Pauls "quick draws", the stand offs, and the inclusion of the Colt revolver - a gun that was used in multiple Western's such as Shane (1953) and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). Even the plot (ordinary man seeks justice for crimes the authorities can't or won't punish) is a riff on a common Western storyline. Only in this case, Paul doesn't hire a lone gunman to avenge his family - he becomes one.
The film's conversations and debates about rising street crime, violence, retribution, personal safety, and whether it is ever right to take the law into your own hands are as relevant today as they were in 1974. And dialogue in the film would be repeated almost verbatim a decade later as news pundits and talk show hosts debated the actions of real life New York subway vigilante Bernie Goetz.
None of this is to say that, Death Wish is a perfect film. It deviates in some major ways from the book, which is a far more thoughtful meditation on grief, fear and anger. In the novel, the attack on Paul's family is never discussed in detail, but author Brian Garfield makes it explicitly clear that Carol's assault was physical NOT sexual. Death Wish director Michael Winner is, unfortunately, not so restrained.
Futhermore, Paul (surnamed Benjamin in the book) is a tragic figure. He might gain some much needed release from violence, but his actions don't set him free and they don't erase his pain. By the end of the novel, Paul is alone, isolated, trapped in his own mind with only his pain for company. Winner chooses to do away with Paul's inner turmoil in favour of a final shot that suggests Paul has a sense of humour about what he does...
- and he's probably going to keep doing it.
The lack of condemnation of the main character along with the film's subject matter incensed many film critics of the era, such as Vincent Canby of the New York Times. Much as they did with Todd Phillip's Joker in 2019, film commentators and critics tried to stir up a moral panic around the film. They accused the movie of being a potential call to violence, and worried it could lead to a rash of copycat crimes.
It's message, simply put, is: KILL. TRY IT. YOU'LL LIKE IT.
Vincent Canby, New York Times, August 4, 1974
A few weeks later, perhaps hoping to find a cinema-goer infected with "Death Wish Fever", The New York Times sent an intrepid reporter to interview people as they left a screening.
Let's read what these glassy eyed, brainwashed, killers-in-waiting had to say:
"I don't necessarily agree with the vigilante philosophy, but the movie is so entertaining that I don't bother with the morality." George Flynn, Poet, 47 years old.
"I like Charles Bronson. I don't approve of killing, but at least the people he killed were not good people." Anne Mitchell, Secretary, 62 years old.
"I realize movies have the poetic license to exaggerate, but they stretched it a bit. I never come across those situations in the New York I know." Joe Brennan, Security Guard, 20 years old.
"This picture stinks. I wish we had our $8 back." Vonnie Delon, 30 years old.
Image generated on Freepik
After speaking with over a dozen moviegoers, none of whom were thinking about gunning down a stranger in the subway on their way home, the paper consulted with a trio of psychiatrists who had also seen the film. All were in agreement: there was nothing particularly dangerous about Death Wish or films like it.
"This kind of movie plays out the fantasy of getting even," said Dr. Harvey Schlossberg, director of psychological services for the New York City Police Department. "...people cheer when the bad guy gets his come‐uppance...For most people it's the equivalent of a very satisfying dream."
Dr Harvey Schlossberg quoted in the New York Times 'What Do They See in Death Wish?" article, September, 1, 1974
When asked to comment on the critics' condemnation of the film, Charles Bronson had this to say -
"We don't make movies for critics; since they don't pay to see them anyhow."
Well played, Sir. Well played.
So, Happy Birthday Death Wish.
I'm not sure I'd call you a classic, but 50 years on you still pack a punch.
Image Generated on Freepix (hence the weird spelling)
RESOURCES AND FURTHER READING:
Death Wish. (1974). [ DVD] directed by Michael Winner. USA: Paramount and Columbia Pictures.
Garfield, Brian. (1972) Death Wish, Philadelphia: David Mackay.
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