O Grande Assalto

I'm shocked to learn that only 17 comments were written in the IMDb so far. I've seen this movie 20 years ago and for a second time last week. I still feel this is a great movie.

Full of inspiration and transpiration, with excellent script and directing, not to mention the great performance by the 2 leading actor and actress, both exhibiting masterpiece achievements for their professionalism.

It was a low cost production, but great film doesn't necessarily cost much. It's a complete waste of movie resource that so little people had seen this masterpiece.

Probably Bronson's only comedy, I strongly and unreservedly recommend it to anyone!

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.

After spending 3 unforgettable hours with an outlaw called Graham Dorsey, Charles Bronson, whose band commits a bank hold-up thwarted by villagers , a beautiful young widow, Jill Ireland, turns her love story - Romeo and Juliet alike- into a worldwide notorious book with several prints and she builds the mediocre Graham Dorsey into a western hero. As the town celebrates :Welcome to Gladstone City where Buck Bowers gang met their end and the romance of Graham and Amanda began. As the noisy city receives a lot of tourists and visitors and showing : Starbuck Mansion tour twice daily , 3 dummies with a poster captioning : where they were hung. And to see Graham Dorsey's grave: he valued friendship more than life , sleep gently sweet prince.

This is a change of pace character for Bronson in a spoof of western legend . Strange is certainly the word for this comedy action fantasy romance tale . The plot is plain and simple as Bronson has a brief romance with his real wife Jill Ireland who , believing him dead, fictionalizes their lives in a series of succssesful books, when he turns alive, no one, including Jill believes that he is the actual Dorsey and he is gradually driven crazy. No sypnosis could convey the flavour of a movie that almost creates its own genre and even might have done so with other classic Hollywood actors . Bronson gives an acceptable acting as the two-fisted gunslinger , though Charles adventure buffs may well not know what to make of this one . This is one of a number of westerns that Bronson played during the mid, late 60s and early seventies, as the famous Once upon a time the west by Sergio Leone, Red sun by Terence Young , Chato by Michael Winner , Nevada Express by Tom Gries , Valdez by John Sturges and White Buffalo by JL Thompson. And being finely acompanied by Jill Ireland who is nice as the gorgeous and sympathetic widow. Supporting cast is good with brief interpretations from Douglas Fowley, Don Red Barry, Elmer Bernstein himself and Anne Ramsey.

Enjoyable and sensitive musical scoreby the classy maestro Elmer Bernstein. Adequate and appropriate production design by Robert Clatworthy, an expert designer who worked in Psycho, Ship of fools, Touch of evil, Guess who is coming to dinner, The incredible shrinking man, The parent trap, among others. The motion picture was weak but professionally directed by Frank D Gilroy. He was a craftsman who wrote and directed a few films such as The gig, Jinxed, Once in Paris, Desperate characters, The subject was roses , The gallant hours and Fastest gun alive. Rating :acceptable and passable 6/10

And its a Charles Bronson film! With a pretty good train crash too! I guess Bronson wanted to make a romantic comedy western with his gorgeous wife Jill Ireland and instead of starring in BILLY TWO HATS or THE SPIKES GANG or some other forgotten oater, he went for this. Rather like a BUTCH CASSIDY - CAT BALLOU combo, this small but charming robbery western gets its title from the afternoon liason he spends with Jill inbetween crime appointments. As Bryan Brown said about adultery in BREAKER MORANT: "A slice off a cut loaf is never missed............!" NOON TILL THREE did little business at the time and is never seen now, pity as like alot of small mid 70s films they are well made and still from the days when films were made to entertain, not shock or traumatise.

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.