The Styrous® Viewfinder: Death Wish

March 1, 2026

April 29, 2021

November 3, 2020

20,000 vinyl LPs 249: Herbie Hancock ~ Death Wish & Charles Bronson

vinyl LP front cover detail

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.

Herbie Hancock ~ Death Wish

vinyl LP front cover

photo by Styrous®

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.

Herbie Hancock ~ Death Wish

vinyl LP front cover detail

photo by Styrous®

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.

Herbie Hancock ~ Death Wish

vinyl LP back cover

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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.

Herbie Hancock ~ Death Wish

vinyl LP back cover detail

photo by Styrous®

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.

Herbie Hancock ~ Death Wish

vinyl LP record label, side 1

photo by Styrous®

Herbie Hancock ~ Death Wish

vinyl LP record label, side 2

photo by Styrous®

Tracklist:

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)

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.

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:

10 To Midnight & Eugene M. Davis

Charles Bronson

Herbie Hancock

Net links:

Cast

Plot

Looper ~ The untold truth of Death Wish

Mental Floss ~ 15 Surprising Facts About Death Wish

Roger & Ebert ~ Death Wish (1974)

SF Chronicle ~ Charles Bronson: Much more to him than Death Wish

Variety ~ Death Wish ~ 2018