Death Wish (1974)

Director:

Michael Winner

Writers:

Brian Garfield (novel)
Wendell Mayes (writer)

Release Date:

24 julio 1974 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Crime | Drama

Frase comercial:

Vigilante, city style -- Judge, Jury, and Executioner

Plot:

A New York City architect becomes a one-man vigilante squad after his wife is murdered by street punks in which he randomly goes out and kills would-be muggers on the mean streets after dark.

Plot Keywords:

Punk | Vengeance | Female Nudity | Death In Title | Architect

Awards:

1 win & 1 nomination

Comentarios de los usuarios:

An interesting take on personal justice

Cast

Charles Bronson	...	Paul Kersey
Hope Lange	...	Joanna Kersey
Vincent Gardenia	...	Detective Frank Ochoa
Steven Keats	...	Jack Toby
William Redfield	...	Sam Kreutzer
Stuart Margolin	...	Ames Jainchill
Stephen Elliott	...	Police Commissioner
Kathleen Tolan	...	Carol Toby
Jack Wallace	...	Hank
Fred J. Scollay	...	District Attorney
Chris Gampel	...	Ives
Robert Kya-Hill	...	Joe Charles
Edward Grover	...	Lt. Briggs (as Ed Grover)
Jeff Goldblum	...	Freak #1
Christopher Logan	...	Freak #2
Gregory Rozakis	...	Spraycan
Floyd Levine	...	Desk sergeant
Helen Martin	...	Alma Lee Brown
Hank Garrett	...	Andrew McCabe
Christopher Guest	...	Patrolman Jackson Reilly
listado alfabético del resto del reparto:
Ken Ackles	...	(uncredited)
John C. Becher	...	(uncredited)
Robyn Blythe	...	(uncredited)
Bruce Brown	...	Newsman (uncredited)
Robert Dahdah	...	(uncredited)
Paul Dooley	...	Cop at hospital (uncredited)
Olympia Dukakis	...	Cop at the precinct (uncredited)
Beverly Goodman	...	Little Bo-Peep (uncredited)
John Herzfeld	...	Train mugger (uncredited)
Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs	...	Mugger (uncredited)
Marcia Jean Kurtz	...	(uncredited)
Eric Laneuville	...	Mugger (uncredited)
Damien Leake	...	Mugger (uncredited)
Sonia Manzano	...	Grocery clerk (uncredited)
George Payne	...	Extra (uncredited)
Lee Steele	...	Office Security Guard (uncredited)

Dirigida por
Michael Winner

Créditos del guión (in alphabetical order)
Brian Garfield		novel
Wendell Mayes		writer

Producida por
Hal Landers	....	producer
Bobby Roberts	....	producer
Michael Winner	....	co-producer
Dino De Laurentiis	....	producer (uncredited)

Música original por
Herbie Hancock

Fotografía por
Arthur J. Ornitz

Montaje por
Bernard Gribble

Casting
Cis Corman

Diseño de producción por
Robert Gundlach

Decorados
George DeTitta Sr.		(as George DeTitta)

Diseño de vestuario por
Joseph G. Aulisi

Departamento de maquillaje
Phil Rhodes	....	makeup artist (as Phillip Rhodes)

Dirección de producción
Stanley Neufeld	....	production manager

Ayudante de dirección
Larry Y. Albucher	....	second assistant director (as Larry Albucher)
Charles Okun	....	first assistant director
Ralph S. Singleton	....	second assistant director (as Ralph Singleton)

Art Department
Connie Brink	....	property master (as Conrad Brink)
Sante Fiore	....	scenic artist

Departamento de sonido
Alfred Cox	....	dubbing editor
James Sabat	....	sound recordist
Jim Shields	....	dubbing editor (as James Shields)
Hugh Strain	....	sound re-recording mixer

Especialistas
Alan Gibbs	....	stunts (uncredited)

Camera and Electrical Department
Lou Barlia	....	camera operator (as Louis Barlia)
Charles Kolb	....	key grip
Owen Marsh	....	camera operator
Willie Meyerhoff	....	gaffer (as Willy Meyerhoff)
Joseph Di Pasquale	....	first assistant camera (uncredited)

Casting Department
Frank Kennedy	....	extras casting: locations (uncredited)

Costume and Wardrobe Department
Joseph W. Dehn	....	wardrobe (as Joseph Dehn)

Editorial Department
William Lustig	....	apprentice editor

Music Department
Herbie Hancock	....	musician
Herbie Hancock	....	orchestrator

Otros miembros del equipo
Stephen Cory	....	assistant to director (as Steven Cory)
Dino De Laurentiis	....	presenter
Barbara Robinson	....	script supervisor
Michael Kennedy	....	production assistant (uncredited)

Production Companies

• Dino De Laurentiis Company
• Paramount Pictures

Distributors

• Paramount Pictures (1974) (USA) (theatrical)
• Tobis Filmkunst (1974) (West Germany) (theatrical)
• Fotomat (Drive-Thru Movies) Video (1979) (USA) (VHS)
• RCA/Columbia-Hoyts Home Video (1985) (Australia) (VHS)
• Paramount Home Video (2001) (USA) (DVD)
• Kinowelt Home Entertainment (2002) (Germany) (DVD)
• CBS Television (1976) (USA) (TV) (original airing)
• Columbia TriStar Home Video (????) (Australia) (VHS)
• Columbia TriStar (????) (Brazil) (DVD)
• LK-TEL Vídeo (????) (Brazil) (VHS)
• Paramount Home Video (????) (USA) (VHS)
• Paramount Home Video (????) (USA) (video) (laserdisc)
• VPS Film-Entertainment GmbH (1981) (West Germany) (VHS)

También conocida como:

The Sidewalk Vigilante (USA) (working title)
Justiciero de la ciudad, El (Spain) [es]
Yo soy la justicia (Spain) [es]

Duración:

93 min

País:

USA

Idioma:

English | Italian | German

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sonido:

Mono

Clasificación:

Australia:MA (cable rating) | Iceland:16 | Finland:K-18 (1974) (cut) | West Germany:18 (f) | UK:18 (re-rating) (2006) (uncut) | Finland:K-18 (2003) (uncut) | Argentina:16 | Australia:R | Brazil:14 | Canada:18+ (Quebec) | Canada:R (Ontario) | France:-16 | Netherlands:16 | Norway:18 | Singapore:M18 | Spain:18 | Sweden:15 | UK:18 (video rating) | UK:X (original rating) | USA:R

Filming Locations:

2 Park Avenue, Murray Hill, East Side, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Dino De Laurentiis Company

Trivialidades:

After finishing The Stone Killer (1973), Charles Bronson and 'Michael Winner' wanted to make another film together, and were discussing further projects. "What shall we do next?" asked Bronson. "The best script I've got is Death Wish. It's about a man whose wife and daughter are mugged and he goes out and shoots muggers," said Winner. "I'd like to do that," Bronson said. "The film?" asked Winner. Bronson replied, "No... shoot muggers."

Goofs:

Continuity: Kersey's first shooting victim is hit in the abdomen, but a police investigator at the crime scene the next morning refers to a bullet hole in his chest.

Quotes:

[Sam complains the crime situation in the city]
Sam Kreutzer: You know, decent people are going to have to work here and live somewhere else.
Paul Kersey: By "decent people," you mean people who can afford to live somewhere else.
Sam Kreutzer: Oh Christ, you are such a bleeding-heart liberal, Paul.
Paul Kersey: My heart bleeds a little for the underprivileged, yes.
Sam Kreutzer: The underprivileged are beating our goddamned brains out. You know what I say? Stick them in concentration camps, that's what I say.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Married with Children: The Desperate Half-Hour (#11.22)" (1997)

An interesting take on personal justice

Perhaps "Death Wish" is unquestionably the best vigilante film ever made. It's not the action-packed thrill-fest that movies like "Kill Bill" or "The Punisher" seek to be, instead it's a haunting, sometimes intoxicating look at our society's views on justice.

Charles Bronson is Paul Kersey, a New York architect whose wife is killed by a group of muggers ransacking their apartment, an attack that also leaves his daughter catatonic. The killers are never caught, and Kersey is left shattered.

He takes a job working for a land developer in New Mexico to get his mind off his troubles, and while there his long dormant fascination with guns is renewed when his client Ames Jainchill (Stuart Margolin) shows off his personal collection and lets him crack some shots off. He also witnesses a live reenactment of an Old West shootout, where frontier justice was administered at the end of the gun.

Kersey soon arrives back in New York, livened up a bit from his visit and ready to resume his life. But the streets are still filled with thugs, and Kersey knows that Manhattan is not the best place to be at night. He discovers that Jainchill has given him a .32 revolver as a present, and subsequently uses it to kill a man trying to mug him. Kersey soon realizes the cathartic release of enacting vigilante revenge as the media reports his killings and other private citizens take action, all while police officer Frank Ochoa (Vincent Gardenia) leads a task force to capture the vigilante and stop future violence.

"Death Wish" was a product of its day -- a Nixon-era knee jerk reaction to rampant crime that turned out to be quite a hit. But to dismiss it simply as that would be to deny the film its true power. It asks the question of whether or not vigilantism can be used as a social good, and just how can a citizen properly defend himself from criminal attacks. More importantly, to the movie's credit it does introduce the downside of vigilantism, with Ochoa worrying that people will be whipped into such a frenzy that they'll start attacking anyone who looks suspicious.

The movie does play it safe when it comes to Kersey's "victims" however. Every one of them is clearly a mugger, threatening his life or just wanting his money. But the movie does enter into ambiguous territory by looking at the actual actions Kersey takes. At first he just stumbles into traps set up by muggers or happens on a crime taking place; later on the other hand it's clear that he's actually inviting attacks by making himself a target. And the self-defense aspect of his actions becomes equally cloudy when he kills muggers that are already fleeing. He wants to punish them for their crimes, which itself can be morally troubling.

But to understand "Death Wish" you had to understand the times. Murder rates were very high in New York City, and many muggers had little problem killing their victims. The criminals in the film are not overly sympathetic either, most of them clearly hippies or other social undesirables, probably hooked on drugs from their "free love" days and now stuck in the bitter reality of narcotic dependency now that the good times are over. It's hard to feel sorry for someone willing to kill you just for a couple hours worth of pleasure. I'm sure the movie's audiences in New York, and probably across the country, enjoyed living out their revenge fantasies vicariously through Kersey.

It should be said that Bronson, normally criticized as a wooden actor, gives a remarkably strong performance. This may be due to his friendship with director Michael Winner, who also helmed several of his other films. But it's probably due to the fact that the movie was not written as an action hero vehicle, and because of this the story demanded a character more grounded in reality. Kersey is not a superhero -- he's just one man trying to make a difference in the world.

Also, he's not all there, either. The movie makes it clear that Kersey is a little deranged as well, and one wonders just how far he might go to do what he thinks is right. The sequels were more interested in making him out to be an infallible crusader against evil, abandoning any pretext of social commentary and just offering body counts, but here at least the movie shows that someone willing to go on a shooting spree isn't quite right in the head, regardless of the guilt of his victims.

Supporting roles are excellent as well. A very young Jeff Goldblum nails his performance as one of the muggers who invades Kersey's apartment, immediately scary and repellent. Gardenia is a nice foil for Bronson, making Ochoa an intelligent officer not unsympathetic to Kersey's crusade, especially when he sees how the crime rate plummets following the killings. Christopher Guest, who would go on to star in hit mockumentaries like "This is Spinal Tap," "Best in Show" and "A Mighty Wind" has a small but memorable role as a police officer towards the end of the movie. In fact, everyone does a good job.

Ultimately, your enjoyment of "Death Wish" will probably rely both on your politics and views toward crime. It's a movie where the critic is judged based on his review, which is just as well I suppose. It's at once fascinating, and still very timely.

Nine out of ten stars. Bronson's best solo movie and certainly a very thought-provoking piece, which is lost on both people who only want to watch it for the mugger killings and those who just dismiss it a fascist trash.