Wider Screenings film review - Mr. Majestyk (1974: d. Richard Fleischer)

FILM FACTS

* The truck used in the film was a standard Ford. It proved so durable that it was not modified in any way. After the movie, Ford used scenes of the truck in action from the film to show how durable their vehicles were.

* After it's initial theatrical run, the film was made the second half of a double bill with the James Bond film Man With the Golden Gun when Bond proved to be poor box office in the USA.

* The film debuted on US screens a week before Bronson's Death Wish was also released.

MR. MAJESTYK (1974)
d. Richard Fleischer; pr. Walter Mirisch; scr. Elmore Leonard; ph. Richard H. Kline; ed. Ralph E. Winters; m. Charles Bernstein; cast. Charles Bronson, Al Lettieri, Paul Koslo, Linda Cristal, Lee Purcell, Alejandro Rey (103 mins)

Although a familiar face and a huge star in Europe it was only in the 1970s that Bronson became a major box-office star in America. His films of this decade are amongst his best, although it was the series of films for British director Michael Winner that established the vigilante persona and its associated sense of honor offended that would become most associated with the actor. In between his films for Winner (which included the breakthrough hit Death Wish), Bronson made a number of starring vehicles, some which effectively probed his range as an actor and some of which merely capitalized on his existing tough-guy persona. So it was that Bronson made Mr. Majestyk for director Richard Fleischer, a true Hollywood veteran whose prolific work in the 1970s remains unfairly overlooked. Yet according to Fleischer’s reminiscences, Bronson was a callous man who once knowingly so insulted the crew that they threatened to quit in their entirety. Although Fleischer seems not to have been enthralled by Bronson as a person, he was well aware of the actor’s image and able to use it to shape a slightly offbeat action vehicle in which Bronson is clearly identified as a working class ordinary American – the idea of Bronson as a lower-class everyman is not without interest as it indicates the intention to set him up as a hero for the working poor.

From an original script by Elmore Leonard, Mr. Majestyk stars Bronson as a watermelon farmer whose crop is ready to be picked.

.He is an ex-con who has started a farm but is now one crop away from failure and economic ruin. He hires a number of Mexican pickers but finds that a young and boastful criminal (Paul Koslo) is trying to force him to take other crews of pickers. Bronson refuses to be intimidated and an altercation ensues. Koslo presses assault charges and Bronson is arrested. In prison, awaiting transportation is a notorious Mafia hitman (Al Lettieri) with whose manners Bronson is unimpressed. As the prisoners are transported to another location, mobsters try to break Lettieri from custody, forcing Bronson to flee alongside Lettieri. Bronson holds the violent man a kind of hostage, attempting to use him as a bargaining chip to secure his own release. When this does not go as planned, Lettieri vows revenge against the lowly melon picker who has so humiliated him. Lettieri’s henchmen force Koslo to drop the charges and now Bronson returns to get his melons picked, finding out that no crew, except for his remaining loyal friends and new romantic interest (Linda Cristal), will work with him for fear of repercussions. Lettieri intends to drive Bronson to ruin, until Bronson realizes that this threat will not go away and decides to take action on his own.

Although there is an intriguing background subtext about the use of American vs. cheap Mexican labor and the labor dispute arising between individualist farmers, unionists and organized crime, the film of Mr. Majestyk is more about the sense of pride and of offended honor.

Both Bronson and Lettieri are proud men (and so too is Koslo for that matter), but where Bronson is a moral and righteous man, Lettieri is a callous and brutally selfish thug. In their clash, the film seeks to explore the difference between righteous indignation (and unfair persecution) and arrogant, monstrously petty egotism. Lettieri considers Bronson a lowly individual and simply cannot tolerate that his pride has been insulted by this mere melon-farmer. His contempt for the working man at the brink of poverty is the mark of his real villainy. Koslo in turn is an arrogant punk who thinks he can enforce his will on others and so exploit this socio-economic subclass for his own gain – he is detested by both Bronson and Lettieri. Both Koslo and Lettieri think too much of themselves however and the film champions the plight of the ordinary man who is driven to humble these men’s contemptuous arrogance. Only Bronson in this film’s world is capable of any form of truly righteous indignation, and the film is quite careful to set this up accordingly. However, there is a deeper aspect to the film in its assessment of man’s struggle to control his own circumstances (financial and interpersonal).

Thus, the film charts the increasing pressures that come to bear upon a hard-working American man, the confluence of personal, legal and economic pressures finally driving him to ruin.

In that sense, his violent reckoning with Lettieri is his means of re-asserting control over his own fate, a fate that others have conspired to take away from him. This again is a dilemma essayed in many Bronson films and is also at the heart of the vigilante ethos as a wronged man whose sense of honor and pride have simply been pushed too far. The film thus champions the right of the individual to re-assert control of his circumstances by whatever means necessary. It is a dilemma facing the poor, whose control over their own fate is usurped by forces beyond their control. The arrogant men who would seek to rob another of their self-determination need to be taught a pronounced lesson in humility. The belated humility of Lettieri and Koslo as they realize that they have greatly underestimated this melon farmer is the moment in the film where director Fleischer feels that Bronson can really triumph. However, in Bronson’s struggle, the film endorses the idea implicit since the opening shot of Bronson emerging from a gas station men’s room – it is indeed a shitty world that we live in. Both Fleischer and screenwriter Leonard wallow in this metaphor at sustained length, the characters finally defining themselves by pride and antagonism alone.

The visual transfer on this DVD is somewhat uneven, quite clear when dealing with the numerous sunlit exteriors although overall suffering from middling background clarity (which in some shots is smudgy indeed).

The racial and socio-economic situation of the film’s labor-crisis theme is well sustained by Fleischer and makes for an unusual context. Violence is forceful and brutal and location work stresses the open but desolate farmland finally giving way to the rocky cliffs and hills for its conclusion. Some efficient car chases are worked into the action, the last of which features some distinctive uses of the landscape for added impact and individuality. Indeed, landscapes and small town locations are well used throughout. Interior design is rather sparse although the production design and locations stress the sense of lives at the point of poverty. Toilets become a sly motif in this world, making the film a metaphor (as stated above) for a shitty world. In this sense, the melon crop – fruit from a barren land – becomes a metaphor for the last hope left Bronson and his friends. In turn, its destruction by Lettieri is a cynical gesture intended to drive an ordinary man to financial and spiritual ruin. The odd spectacle of machine gun fire onto watermelons thus serves to show the indifference of Lettieri and his associates and is a symbolic moment in the film (a turning point for Bronson).

The sound transfer is available in Dolby digital mono only on this lower priced DVD from the vast MGM back library slowly finding its way onto DVD in bare but effective transfers.

Within those limitations (which are indeed enough to turn off many home theatre enthusiasts from purchasing such older and more obscure films) the transfer is quite serviceable, when considering that the film’s original sound mix is distinctly low-key and even sparse. The film benefits from a fine score which is well-timed throughout the film. However, much of the film occurs with a natural openness rather desolate in sound design. This sense of aural ordinariness (and often ironic peace shattered by human effort) however gives way to a pronounced hiss and sense of background presence to these quieter scenes. In the action scenes, gunfire and car engines flesh out the background (most notably in the breakout sequence and the final showdown) but the transfer feels mostly flat and rather deadening. In terms of levels, it is rather monotonous and lacks depth, making this a case of no-frills mono, with little fullness. Nevertheless it does in part preserve the contrast between intense action and the stillness of surrounding scenes – it seems a rather lazy naturalism achieved here by design. Although the ambience is mild, it is consistent and the score increasingly ominous as Lettieri reveals the real extent of his brutal pettiness. The popping of melons hit by bullets adds to the unusual nature of that scene and its symbolic resonance as a defining moment within the film.

The only special feature is a theatrical trailer, although this is intriguing for it indicates that the film was initially marketed to parallel the success of such films as Billy Jack and Walking Talland to indeed push Bronson as a violent but righteous hero for the working poor – on that level, the film does succeed quite well.

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