Da mezzogiorno alle tre

From Noon Till Three (1976)

*** (out of 4)

Extremely delighting romantic comedy with Charles Bronson playing a bank robber who can't go on the latest heist and instead stays back at a house with a beautiful woman (Jill Ireland). The two spend three romantic hours together but after she thinks he's been killed, she decides to write a story about those three hours, which turns him into a legend but when he returns there's going to be trouble as he wants to be himself and not the legend. When you mention Charles Bronson you can have a great number of films to discuss. I have discussed the films of Bronson with many people but when I mention this film here everyone goes quiet as not many have heard of it and even fewer have actually seen it, which is a real shame because this is certainly one of his best. It's not common for Bronson to take part in what's basically a romantic comedy but he and Ireland really work wonderfully well together and this is clearly their best film together. It really seems like neither one is giving an actual "performance" but instead they're just being themselves because both come off so natural. Just take a look at the scene where they're swimming together as the perfect example. Perhaps they are just acting but this sequence feels so real that you can't help but feel they're just playing around and showing their real love for one another. The first seventy-five minutes of this movie are so refreshing, funny and charming because we're seeing Bronson playing a character unlike anything he had played before or since. I found him to be incredibly charming here and it's just great fun for a fan to see him flirting, picking flowers and actually smiling. Ireland, never accused of being a great actress, actually does a very good job here and is quite believable in her role. I think the final act with the "truth vs. legend" doesn't work as well as I'm sure everyone was hoping for but you have to give the filmmakers a lot of credit for the ending that I won't ruin here. The film actually says a lot about fame, believing lies that you might read and various other things but in the end the real jewel is seeing Bronson playing a role that he never really got to again, which is a shame considering how great he is here.

If you seek killer Bronson, he isn't home. But if you are willing to watch Bronson doing lighter work and be on screen with his wife in a mildly funny satire, enjoy. From first meeting to keeper of the legend, this is a Jill Ireland vehicle. It satirizes Bronson's previous work which grew out of the dime novel creation of the American West. We watch the Bronson character lose control of his real life because a widow creates a better outlaw than he was. Enjoy this for the satire on every level including the score and the songs.

It is a refreshing change of pace compared to the blood beast Bronson had to feed in many action movies. Now that it is being broadcast, watch it with the idea that Bill Hickok and Bill Cody played on stage for money and that dime novelist Ned Buntline gave out those Buntline specials to the men he wrote about. I suspect most of you will at least chuckle at the world caught up in the legend of a third rate bank robber ensnared by a woman he seduced. And the end is better satire than real life Emmett Dalton going to Hollywood to help make movies about the Dalton gang robbing Coffeyville. For an adult audience, this is far better entertainment than Over the Hill Gang slapstick. Give it a try.

Never have I seen a Bronson flicker as bizarre as this gem. Here we have a outlaw who breezes into the life of a lonely, remote woman on the post civil war outback. Their relationship takes off like a ruptured duck, producing an outcome that only the likes of a taro card reader could predict. I loved the way this story played out as the action led from one stranger than fiction event to another. This led Bronson's character to lose the one thing more valuable to him than all the bank money he had ever desired and his lover to lose even more. This was a top notch Charles Bronson film, well written and played out, possibly the best thing I've seen him in yet. Thumbs up.

At the height of his stardom, Charles Bronson made this curious oddity. He stars as a bankrobber hiding out at a widow's residence and after a series of comical mishaps, fall in love with one another. This is probably Jill (Bronson's then real life wife) Ireland's best moment. She made a career doing a lot of second stringing in her husband's films but she comes into her own here in a believably sympathetic performance. As for Bronson, well he didn't do a lot of "cute" movies so it's nice to see him in something a little less nasty for a change. Also, he provides some impressive comic relief in his own inimitable, understated way. It is only hampered by some awfully wooden direction. Still, you could do a lot worse.

Charm is not a word you would associate Charles Bronson with, but he is chock full if it in this "romp." A group of bank robbers leave Charles Bronson at a widow's (Jill Ireland's) house because his horse goes lame. They vow to pick him up after the robbery in what they figure will be about three hours (thus the name of the movie). In those three hours Charles Bronson, after almost attacking Jill Ireland, decides to go for a sympathy play and has Jill Ireland, within 15 minutes making love to him to help him with his "impotency." While watching the movie, it makes you wonder how she held off for so long. If you want to see Charles Bronson half naked, with a physique of a man 20 years younger, making love - three times -- this is the movie for you. After he leaves, and is mistakenly thought killed, Jill Ireland writes a book about their three hour affair and the whole thing turns into a type of legend, which turns the town into a type of World's Fair exhibit. Charles Bronson ends up in jail for different reasons where he finds out that he has become a legend and of course ties to tell people that's he's that person, and if things weren't already crazy they get crazier. Charles Bronson is unrecognizable from the characters he played in practically all of his other movies. This movie shows his range as an actor and makes me sad he never got to display more of what he was actually capable of. Jill Ireland pulls off her character beautifully and also shows her range, something else we never got to see in her other movies. After thinking about the movie, I know why they did it. If you are channel surfing and see it, by all means watch it. I'm looking for it on DVD now. I want to buy it.