{"id":43057,"date":"2026-10-24T07:36:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-24T11:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=43057"},"modified":"2026-10-22T14:07:35","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T18:07:35","slug":"death-wish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=43057","title":{"rendered":"“Death Wish” starring Charles Bronson \/ Z-View"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Death Wish <\/i>(1974)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Director:\u00a0 Michael Winner<\/strong><\/p>\n

Screenplay: \u00a0Wendell Mayes; <\/strong>\u00a0based on DEATH WISH<\/a> by Brian Garfield<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stars:\u00a0 Charles Bronson, Vincent Gardenia, William Redfield, Hope Lange, Steven Keats, Stuart Margolin, Kathleen Tolan, Olympia Dukakis, Art Evans, John Herzfeld, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, Eric Laneuville, Saul Rubinek <\/strong>and Jeff Goldblum<\/strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tagline: Vigilante, city style — Judge, Jury, and Executioner<\/em><\/p>\n

The Plot…<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

When his wife is murdered and his daughter raped and left for dead, Paul Kersey, a mild-mannered middle-aged architect is told that finding the killers is unlikely.\u00a0 It was a random crime.\u00a0 One of many that happen daily and nightly in New York City.<\/p>\n

Kersey decides to start carrying a weapon.\u00a0 When a mugger attempts to rob him, Kersey kills the thug.\u00a0 Kersey is surprised to get away with the homicide.<\/p>\n

They say that the first killing is the hardest.\u00a0 Kersey discovers that to be true as he becomes Judge, Jury, and Executioner <\/em>of criminals prowling the streets and subways after dark.<\/p>\n

Thoughts (beware of spoilers)\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

Death Wish<\/em> is based on Brian Garfield’s novel of the same name.\u00a0 Several changes were made for the adaption including changing the protagonist’s name, job and making him bigger and more physical than the mild-mannererd accountant in the book.\u00a0 Brian Garfield said he thought Bronson was miscast — Garfield also didn’t like the changes made to his book.<\/p>\n

Death Wish<\/em> features the film debut of Jeff Goldblum.\u00a0 John Herzfeld, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs and Eric Laneuville make cameos as muggers.<\/p>\n

Jill Ireleand, Charles Bronson’s real life wife, usually appears in his films as his wife\/love interest.\u00a0 Bronson didn’t want her in this film because of the scene where she would be “humiliated”<\/em> by the muggers.\u00a0 Bronson suggested “someone like Hope Lange”<\/em>.\u00a0 So the producers got Hope Lange.<\/p>\n

Although there are rumors that Denzel Washington appears uncredited in Death Wish<\/em> as a mugger, and the actor looks like him, Washington denies it is him.\u00a0 Further, Washington hadn’t started acting at that time!<\/p>\n

Death Wish<\/em> is the fourth of sixth films that director Michael Winner and Charles Bronson made.<\/p>\n

The success of Death Wish<\/em> led to four sequels and a reboot starring Bruce Willis. Before Willis, Sylvester Stallone was set to direct and star in a remake.<\/p>\n

I saw Death Wish<\/em> when it was first released and many times over the years.\u00a0 It holds up.\u00a0 I was surprised that Paul Kersey never found\/had a run-in with the punks who murdered his wife and raped his daughter.\u00a0 A lot of movies would have forced that.<\/p>\n

Death Wish <\/i>(1974)<\/strong> rates 4 of 5 stars.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Death Wish (1974) Director:\u00a0 Michael Winner Screenplay: \u00a0Wendell Mayes; \u00a0based on DEATH WISH by Brian Garfield Stars:\u00a0 Charles Bronson, Vincent<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[61,52,17,51,54,65,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-authors","category-books","category-celebs","category-crime","category-movies","category-trivia","category-z-view"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43057"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43156,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43057\/revisions\/43156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}