A great Charles Bronson story.

This has nothing to do with any of the topics we focus on here at West Coast Stat Views. I have no good excuse for posting it other than, as previously mentioned, it's a great Charles Bronson story, and I've always been a big fan of Bronson, particularly before the Cannon Films years.

As long as he was actually given something to do, pretty much all of his film and television work before the 70s was wonderful, wry, economical, and with real sensitivity. His performances on the Twilight Zone and Have Gun Will Travel were series highlights. He was often the best thing in those big, manly ensemble pieces, the Magnificent Seven, the Great Escape, and the Dirty Dozen (his closing comment was perhaps the best line in the last one). He more than held his own with Henry Fonda and Jason Robards in Once Upon a Time in the West.

He also turned in first-rate performances in lesser but still worth-a-look movies like Master of the World, the Mechanic (complete with 70s nihilism and a surprisingly obvious homoerotic subtext), and Red Sun (forget the critics, if the idea of a buddy action comedy with Bronson and Toshirô Mifune sounds like fun, you'll enjoy this movie).

Among others who shared my high opinion of the actor. Ingmar Bergman was on record as admiring his work and calling him "scandalously underestimated."

Charles Bronson's childhood was something out of Dickens which explains this wonderful story from Kurt Russell.