DEATH WISHY-WASHY 3

DEATH WISH III
dir: Michael Winner

DEATH WISHY-WASHY 3
Cracked #220, July 1986
a: Bob Fingerman

At this point Death Wish became a franchise. There were five movies in this series and there was a reboot. What I liked about the first film was that it was actually shot in the streets of New York. I always like seeing NYC and LA locations that I recognize, that aren't just sets or a stand-in location like this.

Paul Keresy (Charles Bronson) comes to the East New York section of Brooklyn to visit an old war buddy. The moment he gets there a gang of street punks, the kind that only exists in movies, breaks into his friend's apartment and kills him, and Paul is wrongfully arrested for the murder. While in jail, he gets into a fight with everyone there, including the leader of the gang (Gavan O'Herlihy) who we meet more of later. The police chief (Ed Lauter) knows he is the vigilante from the first two movies and lets him out on the condition that he clean up the neighborhood so they can take credit. He returns to his friend's building and meets the landlord Bennett (Martin Balsam) who appreciates that someone is finally cleaning up the neighborhood and will let him stay there.

Keresy scouts the area so he can plan his battles, and meets his neighbors. Like the parody points out, there's little plot in this, just non-stop carnage as he and the gang fight back and forth. His neighbors learn self defense and he takes out The Giggler (Kirk Taylor), called that because he giggles as he commits crimes.

Keresy is arrested again for being too out of control, but escapes and then teams up with the sergeant to take out the rest of the bad guys.

There's a subplot where Paul Keresy starts dating a public defender which only seems to be there because Screenwriting 101 mandates a romantic interest somewhere.

Everybody is killed and the police chief tells Paul Keresy to get out of town, which he does. Nothing gets wrapped up. It's just “show's over, everybody go home now”.

The censorship stamp gimmick is borrowed from a MAD article called Book! Movie! from #13, July 1954, showing how sanitized a movie version of a book is, illustrated by the great Jack Davis. This was before television became the sanitized version of the movie. Now that most TV has no restrictions, I wonder what the current cleaned-up version of something would be.

DEATH WHICH-IS-WHICH II

DEATH WISH II (1982)
dir: Michael Winner

DEATH WHICH-IS-WHICH II
MAD #234, October 1982
w: Dick DeBartolo
a: Mort Drucker

Sequel to Death Wish, which I posted yesterday, and part of A Special Edition of 20/30 Starring Barbara Waltzers, which I co-incidentally posted part of the day before.

Continuing a few years where the last movie left off, Paul Keresy (Charles Bronson) is in Los Angeles, his vigilante past behind him, living with his daughter (Robin Sherwood) who has been rendered mute by the trauma of the previous movie. Street punks have stolen his wallet, found out where he lives, raped and murdered his housekeeper, and kidnapped his daughter who died trying to escape. He now spends his nights in a seedy motel trying to find the killers and avenge his daughter's death.

His architecture firm is designing a new building at the radio station where his fiancee (Jill Ireland, real-life wife and frequent co-star) works. He finds some of the gang that went after him committing another crime and kills some of them, then runs away before the gang's victims can get a good look at him. The victims refuse to cooperate with the police. The police have a vigilante on their hands and see it is similar to a case in New York from a few years ago. They call in Frank Ochoa (Vincent Gardenia) from New York, who worked on that case, and suspects it's that same guy. He questions Paul's fiancee and then tails Paul as he lurks through the city. Frank sees the killers and ends up taking a bullet for Paul. The last of the killers is institutionalized, so Paul poses as a doctor , goes there and electrocutes him. The guard knows who Paul really is and lets him get away with it.

DEATH TWITCH II
Crazy #91, October 1982
w: Stu Schwartzberg
a: Kent Gamble

Basically what I said in summing up MAD's version.

I forgot to mention that he's been lying about his vigilantism to his fiancee this whole time, but she figures it all out and breaks off their engagement with a Dear John letter (another parody from this week).

DEATH WISHERS

DEATH WISH (1974)
dir: Michael Winner

DEATH WISHERS
MAD # 174, April 1975
w: Stan Hart
a: Mort Drucker

Back when New York wasn't just a city full of crime and murder, it was the city of crime and murder.

Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson) is an ordinary citizen coming back to work as an architect after a vacation with his wife (Hope Lange). His wife goes out grocery shopping when they get back and thugs follow her home.

His wife lets the thugs into the apartment believing they are there to deliver groceries and when they come in they kill her and assault their daughter (Kathleen Tolan). Paul is informed of this by son-in-law Sam (William Redfield). As Paul looks into it while trying to put his life back together, he sees more muggings and beatings. He experiences a mugging himself, fending off the criminal with a sock full of coins.

The policeman helping investigate is a caricature of Telly Savalas as Kojak.

Paul is sent to work with a client in Arizona, and while there, they invite him to a shooting range. Initially hesitant to use a gun, they are impressed by his skills, and give him a gun on his trip back home. He pines for his wife at home, and his daughter who's still hospitalized.

Paul uses the gun he was given for self defense and ends up using it when mugged again. Having killed someone makes him sick, but the next night he goes on a shooting spree. The NYPD led by Frank Ochoa (Vincent Gardenia) looks into this.

Paul's become a hero to some.

The police finds out Paul Keresy is the killer but Ochoa chooses not to prosecute since this vigilantism has drawn the attention of the public and drastically reduced crime. It would only make him a martyr and create more copycat vigilantes. They make a deal with Paul that if he leaves the city and never returns, they'll drop the whole thing.

The other cop in the middle row is Al Pacino as Serpico.

Vincent Gardenia wrote in to show how much he liked his portrayal.

The Germans did their own cover when they reprinted this.

DEATH TWITCH
Crazy #10, April 1975
w: Stu Schwartzberg
a: Vance Rodewalt

That's Jack Lord from Hawaii Five-O

The characters in this don't have names anywhere near the characters in the movie.