Ten To Midnight

A cop… a killer… a deadline…


“I hate quiche.”

So says Charles Bronson in this 1983 Golan-Globus release.

Bronson, who plays detective Leo Kessler, and his partner, Andrew Stevens (who is rarely seen without a cigarette dangling from his lips), are after a serial killer. Bronson, who knows that Gene Davis, who plays resident nut-job Warren Stacy with a gleefully nasty persona, is his man. Unfortunately, the law system doesn’t see eye-to-eye with Bronson; especially after he’s caught tampering with evidence. Fired from his job, Bronson has to sit on the sidelines until his daughter becomes the next target of Stacy. This brings out the tough guy in Bronson that culminates in a final showdown between him and a naked Stacy.

Bronson, who made a name for himself in the 1960s by starring in such vehicles as THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN and THE DIRTY DOZEN, not to mention the excellent spaghetti western ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, didn’t really come into his own until 1974’s DEATH WISH. This quickly molded Bronson into the tough Clint Eastwood role. It was something that hounded Bronson through plenty of his later roles, mostly where he would hunt down resident psychopaths under the tutelage of the Israeli team of Menahem Golan and Yorum Globus.

J. Lee Thompson, probably best known for his film CAPE FEAR, was behind the camera for 10 TO MIDNIGHT. It wasn’t the first time he’d been paired with Bronson. The two would also make such fare as THE WHITE BUFFALO and THE EVIL THAT MEN DO, not to mention other Golan-Globus outings such as a DEATH WISH sequel. Thompson would also be behind the camera for two PLANET OF THE APES sequels, as well as the slasher classic HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME. Unfortunately, he’s also known for making one of the worst films of all-time with the remake of KING SOLOMON’S MINES.

10 TO MIDNIGHT, in all respect, is a watered-down version of DIRTY HARRY. In both films, we have tough-lipped cops tracking a serial killer. Both are thwarted by the legal system, and are forced to take out the killer on their own terms. But where DIRTY HARRY stuck to a black-and-white archetype, 10 TO MIDNIGHT spins off into its own sleazy self. And that’s where the film truly comes into its own.

“The way the law protects these maggots, you’d think they were an endangered species,” says Bronson at one point.

10 TO MIDNIGHT is a vehicle of sado-sexual voyeurism. Our murderer, Warren Stacy, kills his victims while naked. He also seems to have an affinity to cover himself in blood. There’s also a particularly nasty scene where he’s confronted by Bronson with a gimmick machine that Bronson states is for “jerking off”.

This all leads to Bronson channeling Freud in a morgue scene where he views one of the victims. “Anyone who does something like this,” Bronson says, “his knife is his penis!” It’s said with Bronson’s usual brick-wall self, and can give any drive-in viewer a chuckle.

10 TO MIDNIGHT, though a cop vehicle, can also be viewed as a slasher film. It’s book-ended with scenes that could be drawn from any stalk-and-slash outing.

Geoffrey Lewis, who should be a recognizable face for drive-in fans, is also along for the ride. He plays Stacy’s lawyer and tells his client that he should simply play the “insanity” card to get off on his sentence. “You’ll walk out of an asylum alive,” says Lewis, “but you’ll walk out of the gas chamber dead!” Something also needs to be said about Lewis’s hair that sits on his head like a bad wig and makes his face resemble a well-used football.

The film’s stand-out scene has to be when Stacy is mass-murdering a roomful of nubile nurses. Naked (though he wears his underwear in the TV version), he systematically kills them in a mirror-version of Richard Speck from the 1960s. This is all preceded by Stacy giving them nasty phone-calls where he uses Spanish lingo. Much needs to be noted of Stacy’s psyche where he goes wild when Bronson’s daughter, played by Lisa Eilbacher, plays along with him and asks which hotel they should meet. It’s a treat to watch him go mad.

So, where does this leave us?

There’s Bronson playing in a watered-down version of Dirty Harry. There’s his partner, Andrew Stevens, sucking down cigarette smoke like his life depends on it. Gene Davis is running around butt-ass naked killing nubile near-naked girls. And then there’s that title that makes no sense to the movie. I’d like to have been at that meeting where someone said: “10 TO MIDNIGHT! What a cool title!”

I can really dig it.

Why?

Because this has to be Bronson’s nastiest film aside from KINJITE: FORBIDDEN SUBJECTS (which needs a review of its own). I like Bronson’s dead-pan one-liners. I like Gene Davis and his balls-to-the-wall serial killer antics. And I really like the ending.

I’m a sucker for endings like this one that supports 10 TO MIDNIGHT. For the two or three drive-in viewers that haven’t yet seen this one, I won’t give the ending away. Needless to say, Bronson ends this film with a BANG! Make of that what you will.

Do I recommend this one to partisans of the drive-in crowd? Oh, most definitely. Anytime Bronson shows his face on-screen, you need to have your butt in the seat. And when the film starts with that instantly recognizable Golan-Globus logo, you’d be a sucker for missing out.

So, make sure your drive-in speaker is working properly. Does your best girl have everything she needs? What’s that? You need to hurry up and get her some hot-buttered popcorn and a slice of stale pizza, the movie is about to start!

Now I’m climbing out of the trunk of your car. There’s kids swinging and playing beneath the big screen. There’s a nice breeze blowing and you can smell the stink of sex and marijuana smoke wafting about.

I don’t know about you, but I’m ready.

There comes the Golan-Globus logo, and your girl needs someone to snuggle up to.

As Laurie Kessler tells Warren Stacy: “My father’s going to kill you! He’ll be here any second!”

“Oh yeah?” says Stacy. “Then I guess I better hurry up!”

And you better hurry up too, buddy. 10 TO MIDNIGHT is one you don’t want to miss.