vinyl LP front cover detail
photo by Styrous®
Today is the birthday of Charles Bronson who was born in 1921. He was an American actor who was often cast in roles of police officers,
gunfighters, or vigilantes in revenge-oriented plot lines. He had
long-term collaborations with film directors Michael Winner and J. Lee Thompson and appeared in 15 films with his second wife, Jill Ireland.
At the height of his fame in the early 1970s, he was the world's No. 1 box office attraction, commanding $1 million per film.
Death Wish is an American vigilante action-drama film loosely based on the 1972 novel of the same title by Brian Garfield. The film was directed by Michael Winner and stars Charles Bronson as Paul Kersey, an architect who becomes a vigilante after his wife is murdered and his daughter sexually assaulted during a home invasion (link to plot below). This was the first film in the Death Wish franchise; it was followed eight years later with Death Wish II and other similar films.
It was released on July 24, 1974.
The film was based on the Brian Garfield 1972 novel of the same name.
Garfield was inspired to use the theme of vigilantism following
incidents in his personal life. In one incident, his wife's purse was
stolen; in another, his car was vandalized. His initial thought each
time was that he could kill "the son of a bitch" responsible. He later
considered that these were primitive thoughts, contemplated in an
unguarded moment. He then thought of writing a novel about a man who
entered that way of thinking in a moment of rage and then never emerged
from it. The novel denounced vigilantism, whereas the film embraced it. The film marked the screen debut of Jeff Goldblum, playing one of the "freaks" who assaults Kersey's family early in the film.
In 2018, Death Wish was remade with Bruce Willis assuming the role of the vigilante, now a Chicago surgeon.
The score for Death Wish was written by Grammy award-winning jazz musician Herbie Hancock; it was his third film score.
The music is progressive jazz with lots of strings. Most of the music puts me in mind of the group, Passport, a German jazz ensemble led by saxophonist Klaus Doldinger. A member of the group was jazz rock and rock music keyboardist, Brian Auger.
The interesting cuts from the album are Do a Thing, with its ticking-clock beat and mysterious strings, Fill Your Hand that has a great sax played by Bennie Maupin who was with the jazz-fusion band, The Headhunters formed by Herbie Hancock in 1973. The group fused jazz, funk, and rock music.
Hancock's theme for the film was
quoted in Judge, Jury and Executioner, a 2013 single by Atoms for Peace.
Death Wish was a watershed for Bronson, who was 53 years old at
the time, and who was then better known in Europe and Asia for his role
in The Great Escape. Bronson became an American film icon, who experienced great popularity over the next twenty years.
Bronson was born Charles Dennis Buchinsky, the eleventh of fifteen
children, into a Roman Catholic family of Lithuanian descent in Ehrenfeld, Pennsylvania, in the coal region of the Allegheny Mountains north of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. He did not speak English at home during his childhood in Pennsylvania. In 1954, during the House Un-American Activities Committee
(HUAC) proceedings, he changed his surname from Buchinsky to Bronson at
the suggestion of his agent, who feared that an Eastern European
surname might damage his career.
In a 1973 interview, Bronson said that he did not know his father very
well and "I'm not even sure if I loved him or hated him." He said that
all he could remember was that when his mother said that his father was
coming home, the children would hide. When Bronson was 10 years old, his father died and he went to work in
the coal mines, first in the mining office and then in the mine.
The family suffered extreme poverty during the Great Depression,
and Bronson recalled going hungry many times. His mother could not
afford milk for his younger sister, so she was fed warm tea instead. His family was so poor that he once had to wear his sister's dress to school for lack of clothing.
Bronson worked in the mine until he enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces in 1943 during World War II. He served in the 760th Flexible Gunnery Training Squadron, and in 1945 as a Boeing B-29 Superfortress aerial gunner with the Guam-based 61st Bombardment Squadron within the 39th Bombardment Group, which conducted combat missions against the Japanese home islands. He flew 25 missions and received a Purple Heart for wounds received in battle.
Bronson scored the lead in his own detective series for ABC, Man with a Camera (1958–1960), in which he portrayed Mike Kovac, a former combat photographer freelancing in New York City.
Charles Bronson as Mike Kovac - October 2, 1959
Charles Bronson retired from acting after undergoing hip-replacement surgery in August 1998. He died at age 81 on August 30, 2003, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
Tracklist:
Side 1:
Side 1:
A1 - Death Wish (Main Title) 6:11
A2 - Joanna's Theme 4:46
A3 - Do A Thing 2:13
A4 - Paint Her Mouth 2:16
A5 - Rich Country 3:46
Suite Revenge (9:25)
A2 - Joanna's Theme 4:46
A3 - Do A Thing 2:13
A4 - Paint Her Mouth 2:16
A5 - Rich Country 3:46
Suite Revenge (9:25)
Side 2:
B1a - Striking Back
B1b - Riverside Park
B1c - The Alley
B1d - Last Stop
B1e - 8th Avenue Station
B2 - Ochoa Knose 2:07
B3 - Party People 3:32
B4 = Fill Your Hand 6:15
Companies, etc.
Manufactured By – Columbia Records
Manufactured By – CBS Inc.
Copyright (c) – CBS Inc.
Phonographic Copyright (p) – CBS Inc.
Produced For – Catero Sound Company
Recorded At – The Burbank Studios
Recorded At – Western Recorders
Recorded At – Wally Heider Studios
Mastered At – CBS Studios, San Francisco
Mastered At – Customatrix
Pressed By – Columbia Records Pressing Plant, Pitman
Credits:
Producer – David Rubinson, Herbie Hancock
Tenor Saxophone: Bennie Maupin
Bass Guitar: Paul Jackson
Drums: Mike Clark
Percussion: Bill Summers
Guitar: Wah Wah Watson
Producer: David Rubinson/Herbie Hancock for David Rubinson and Friends, Inc.
Recording Engineer: Fred Catero
Notes:
This is the OST recording. First pressing, pressed by:
Columbia Records Pressing Plant, Pitman, as indicated
by a "P" stamped in the runout areas.
Bass Guitar: Paul Jackson
Drums: Mike Clark
Percussion: Bill Summers
Guitar: Wah Wah Watson
Producer: David Rubinson/Herbie Hancock for David Rubinson and Friends, Inc.
Recording Engineer: Fred Catero
Notes:
This is the OST recording. First pressing, pressed by:
Columbia Records Pressing Plant, Pitman, as indicated
by a "P" stamped in the runout areas.
Barcode and Other Identifiers
Price Code (On Spine): X698
Matrix / Runout (A-Side Label): AL 33199
Matrix / Runout (B-Side Label): BL 33199
Matrix / Runout (A Side Runout, Stamped): o P AL 33199-1A 1 A1
Matrix / Runout (B Side Runout, Stamped): o P BL 33199-1A / A1
Viewfinder links:
Net links:
Roger & Ebert ~ Death Wish (1974)
SF Chronicle ~ Charles Bronson: Much more to him than Death Wish
Variety ~ Death Wish ~ 2018
YouTube links:
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