10 Things You Didn’t Know About Mr. Majestyk

Mr. Majestyk is one of Charles Bronson’s more unsung films… this could be due to the fact that Mr. Majestyk was released a week before Death Wish in the summer of 1974, a movie that would go on to become synonymous with Charles Bronson and a movie that overshadowed Mr. Majestyk at the box office.

When I saw a tidbit on social media that August 3rd was National Watermelon Day, I thought what better excuse than to rewatch Mr. Majestyk. So I did, but not only did I watch, I watched with the commentary track on featuring the preeminent Charles Bronson expert of our time, Paul Talbot. Making this rewatch equal parts celebration and education.

Now allow me to share some of the things I learned as I present 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Mr. Majestyk…

1. Mr. Majestyk started as a 20 page treatment written by Elmore Leonard. Leonard would pass it on to Clint Eastwood, who turned it down.

2. Producer Walter Mirisch liked the treatment and paid Elmore Leonard to turn it into a full screenplay. Upon completion, Mirisch passed the Mr. Majestyk script on to Steve McQueen, who sat on it for a year and never made a decision. At that point Mirisch got the script to Charles Bronson’s agent. Bronson liked it and soon signed on to be Vince Majestyk.

3. Charles Bronson’s going rate at the time was $500,000 per movie, but his agent upped Bronson’s asking price for Mr. Majestyk. Bronson received $602,500 to be in the film, a $2,500 weekly per diem for the eight weeks of production and hotel accommodations for Bronson, his wife Jill Ireland and two of their children. The other children, who were attending private school at the time, were flown in every weekend.

4. Production on Mr. Majestyk was originally set to begin in June, however Charles Bronson, using his star power, had the production start pushed back until September so he could spend time with his kids while they were on summer vacation at the family’s home in Vermont.

5. I have often joked that Mr. Majestyk is my all-time favorite movie about a watermelon farmer, but it was almost about a honeydew melon farmer. The shift in the start of production caused a shift in location to La Junta, Colorado. And the #1 crop in La Junta is in fact watermelons, so Mr. Majestyk became a watermelon farmer.

6. The owner of the watermelon farm that would be used as Mr. Majestyk’s farm in the movie, originally was going to allow the production to film on his land for $1,000. When the farmer heard it was a Charles Bronson movie, he upped his price to $10,000.

7. Al Lettieri, who played the villainous Frank Renda, rolled up to set one day in a limousine and he wasn’t alone… Lettieri had two hookers with him, who he had hired to service the crew! …this is easily one of my favorite THINGS in the history of 10 Things You Didn’t Know.

8. Charles Bronson on the other hand, did not endear himself to the crew… one particular day when shooting was delayed by more than an hour, a frustrated Bronson made it known that if the movie had a European first assistant director and a European crew the production would run much smoother. This nearly caused a walkout, but Director Richard Fleischer was able to beg/convince them to stay. Bronson later wondered why nobody called him Charlie and only referred to him as Mr. Bronson.

9. It was Lee Purcell’s idea that her character, Wiley, carry a bible.

10. One of the most memorable scenes in Mr. Majestyk is the watermelon massacre. And in that scene they actually shot up a bunch of watermelons, no explosives were used to achieve the effect… those poor, poor watermelon.