10 Things You Didn’t Know About Death Wish (1974)

Death Wish opened in theaters on July 24, 1974. The movie was a game changer for the career of Charles Bronson. And the success of Death Wish ushered in a slew of urban vigilante movies in the years that followed. Death Wish would also spawn four sequels starting with 1982’s Death Wish II and a remake in 2018.

In honor of the 50th Anniversary of Death Wish, I decided to celebrate with Kino Lorber’s beautiful 4K restoration of the film and turn on the commentary track with the always informative Charles Bronson expert, Paul Talbot. It was Mr. Talbot’s commentary and research that was the source material for this post, as I present 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Death Wish (1974)….

1. It was first things first where the filming of Death Wish was concerned. The opening scene in Hawaii with Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson) and his wife Joanna (Hope Lange) enjoying the surf and sun at Kahuku Point was shot on January 18, 1974. The production would spend four days in Tucson beginning January 21, 1974, before filming began in New York City nine days later. NYC filming lasted thirty-nine days.

2. Bronson opted not to bring his family to New York while he was shooting Death Wish. Instead, a private plane would take Bronson to his Vermont home every weekend, where he would spend time with his family.

3. United Artists was originally going to produce Death Wish with Director Sidney Lumet attached. Lumet wanted Jack Lemmon to star in the film, but when Lumet dropped out of the project so he could direct Serpico, the deal with UA fell apart. This opened the door for Michael Winner to step in, get Charles Bronson on board and pitch the movie to Dino de Laurentiis.

4. Winner actually told Charles Bronson about the Death Wish script on their last day of filming The Stone Killer

5. Death Wish had a $3 million dollar budget, with $1 million dollars of that being Bronson’s salary.

6. After all these years of watching Death Wish, I never noticed that the grocery clerk that is harassed by The Freaks (including a young Jeff Goldblum in his acting debut) was played by Sonia Manzano aka Maria on Sesame Street! Manzano was dating Michael Winner at the time (starting a tradition of Winner getting whoever his girlfriend was at the time of shooting, a spot in the Death Wish movies he was directing) and she was a huge fan of Herbie Hancock’s Head Hunters album. Manzano gave the album to Winner and suggested he use Hancock to compose the music for Death Wish.

7. Herbie Hancock had only six weeks to write, orchestrate and record the forty minutes of music that is heard in Death Wish. I have lost track of how many old school kung fu movies, I have heard Hancock’s Death Wish score in.

8. One of the posters on the wall of the gun club that Aimes Jainchill (Stuart Margolin) takes Paul Kersey to while Kersey is on assignment in Tucson, was the Michael Winner directed Lawman.

9. Dino de Laurentiis was not a fan of the Death Wish title and during post-production, Dino considered changing the name of the movie to The Avenger or Sidewalk Vigilante.

10. Charles Bronson, writer Wendell Mayes and Dino de Laurentiss were not fans of the “finger pistol” scene at the end of the movie when Kersey arrives in Chicago and teases that his vigilante days may not be over after all. This was a Michael Winner idea and based on the crowd reaction at the theaters, it was a winning idea too.