10 to Midnight (1983)

David Del Valle (0:04)

Welcome to the Blu-ray presentation of J. Lee Thompson's 10 to Midnight. This is David Del Valle of Films and review.com, and I'm honored to be here today with the legendary producer Pancho Kohner and John Crowther, who was the casting director on this film, and also a screenplay writer who's done a number of Charles Bronson projects, including The Evil That Men Do. Gentlemen, thank you so much for taking time to talk about this amazing, transgressive, violent, kind of strange, not a horror film, not a slasher film, but like a prototype unto itself.

Let me start with you, Mr. Kohner. What are your memories of this particular film as far as a producer?

Pancho Kohner (0:56)

This was a sort of a surprise film, and we had very little money to make it with. We made a deal with Menahem Golan to make the film, start the film the day before we were to leave for Cannes and the film festival to presale territories. We disagreed on reimbursing me for the story we had chosen, and on principle, he said, I can't reimburs you. I said, well, then we can't make this film.

And he said, well, do you have any other title? And I'd always liked the title, Ten to Midnight. And he said he loved it. We'll go there and we'll sell Ten to Midnight. And so we went and I sat in the suite at the Carlton and buyers came through, and I told a fictional story and it was advertised, Ten to Midnight, Charles Bronson.

And when I came back to Los Angeles, I called my friends, does anyone have a Bronson story? And Lance Hull with him, I'd already worked with, a new writer. And there's a screenplay called Bloody Sunday. And it was good. And Charlie liked it. So we renamed it Ten to Midnight. And we started filming, I think, within six or seven weeks.

David Del Valle (2:18)

Well, Charles Bronson is an interesting movie star because he kind of carved a special place for himself in film history with Death Wish, the Michael Winner film that went on to make so much money and kind of placed Charles Bronson in the same category as Clint Eastwood. And not just an action star, but literally an actor that could maintain a presence that you just literally wrote. He invested every line with a special kind of authority. I've noticed in watching this particular film that ordinary dialogue in anyone else's hands, when he says it, it takes on a whole new meaning. And he had this ability.

And from what I was told from the very beginning, he always knew or wanted to be a leading man, which was probably very, it was like an obstacle that he was so, he had such an amazing looking face and he was so stoic looking.

Pancho Kohner (3:18)

Charlie had been in 40 or 50 films and lesser roles and several television series. And it was only when he went to Europe and made French films like Someone Behind the Door or Rider on the Rain that he became an international star and then came back here. He did The Red Sun in Spain.

He came back here and all of a sudden he was a star here.

David Del Valle (3:46)

A huge star. And I think Cannon was so thrilled to have him. I know of the action stars that they had, Chuck Norris being also one of their big money makers, Jean-Claude Van Damme, to a lesser extent Michael Dudekoff, all younger action stars. But Bronson was really the jewel in the crown for Golan Globus as far as I remember it.

John Crowther (4:10)

Well, I think also it was really a period, it was the beginning of the period where those kind of offbeat action stars could take hold.

David Del Valle (4:20)

Well, yes. I mean, we had gone from, you know, the pretty boy actor of the 30s, and the more kind of conventional leading man to Dustin Hoffman. And you know, Bronson came in at the end of that, you know, where we were getting more anti-heroes.

And Canon, I enjoyed being... I was a reader at Canon, and I worked under Chris Pearce. And we were told at the time, every script that came in, they were put in three piles, one for Jean-Claude Van Damme, one for Chuck Norris, and one for Charles Bronson. And at one point, they even had him marked to play the Golem, which I thought was fantastic, with that great face of his. And he wouldn't have had any dialogue. I don't think they may have given him some. But I thought, I mean, he would enjoy that. But of course, alas, it never got made. But this movie has achieved cult status, and that's a much overworked term. But I think in this case, it's mainly due not only to the iconic status of Charles Bronson, but this actor we're watching on screen right now, Gene Davis, the brother of Brad Davis, who became a star after Midnight Express, and wound up working in Fastbenders, Purell, and became a very high-profile actor. He went on to Broadway and did such things as entertaining Mr. Sloan, where he replaces Maxwell Caulfield at the West End, and just achieved all kinds, Gene to a lesser extent. But John, can you talk a little bit about how Gene Davis got in this film?