Year:  1976
Rating: 8.0

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Rating this an 8 might seem like overkill for a Bronson film from the 1970's but this movie hit a lot of my pleasure buttons. I always enjoy it when I watch an older film like this without knowing a thing about it other than who the main star is - and then the opening credits begin and you see that John Houseman is in it and that surprises you because Houseman is all class and in a Bronson film, then Harry Guardino's name rolls by and that pleases me - always a tough guy, then Maximillian Schell who is a bit weird, three familiar names Michael Lerner, Daniel Travanti and Dana Elcar, an old classic in Elisha Cook, then further down in smaller text are Jeff Goldblum and Robert Englund well before their fame as two punk muggers that Bronson would have killed in one of his Death Wish films and then finally the pièce de résistance, Jacqueline Bisset in her prime. And the Lalo Schifrin score kicks in full of horns and I knew I was going to like the film.


It is an unusual role for Bronson at this point in his career when he had become an action star. There is a fair amount of killing in the film but Bronson is mainly just a witness to it when he comes across the dead bodies. At one point he is offered a gun and refuses it. He is a retired journalist - of the Jimmy Breslin school - who knows everybody around the town - lives in a fleabag hotel where he is trying to write a novel and drives an expensive car that would pay my rent for the rest of my life. It is all silly but it is smooth and cool. In fact, much of the film's convoluted plot is silly but the ambience was great - the low down hotel with Elisha Cook always at the front desk, the cheap diner that was filled with authentic looking extras piling food on their plates, Bisset looking like fresh whipped cream and Bronson who just kind of saunters through it knowing everything will work out.


He is offered $10,000 by the wealthy and impotent John Houseman to exchange money for a stolen batch of ledgers. Simple enough but then people start dying and everyone in town seems to know about this deal going down - how is never explained - but Bronson just rolls with the dead bodies and the cops who have taken an interest. Bisset is Houseman's live-in partner and she should have a wooden sign on saying "Have sex with me Mr Stud". Not to give away a spoiler but they do. Directed by J. Lee Thompson who worked with Bronson on a bunch of his films - not the best ones by any means - and two of the Planet of the Apes films - not the best ones - and St Ives is pretty far down on most people's list of Bronson films but I enjoyed the heck out of it.