By Lee Pfeiffer
I'm always amazed at the transition between the New York City of many years ago and the Gotham of today. Few major urban areas have seen such a successful renaissance of safety and civility. In the 1960s-early 1990s, the city was plagued by crime waves, largely fueled by the increasing activity in drugs. Today, Gotham still hasn't reached the point of being an urban Shangri-la, but crime statistics have dropped to their lowest point since the early 1960s. Thus, it's interesting to revisit films made during those bad old days that depict New York as a wasteland of crime, corruption and murder. Things were never that bad, of course, but these films did tap into a popular discontent with the way crime was escalating and how helpless the average man and woman felt in terms of doing anything about it. It was not surprising that films reflected the fantasy of one man standing up to the cretins of the streets and bringing about law and order through vigilantiism. Ironically, the great improvement in Gotham life came about through stricter penalties for criminals and a major resassessment of policing strategies, not uprisings of everyday citizens (Bernard Goetz, the "Subway Vigilante" aside). However, these methods would be rather unexciting to protray on screen. Thus, the enduring popularity of the vigilante films.
The first and most influential of these movies depicting a righteous avenger was Michael Winner's original 1974 film Death Wish. The movie ultimately spawned so many cartoon-like sequels that it's easy to forget the impact the original had on audiences. Director William Friedkin once told me the audience reaction he witnessed was the most visceral he had ever experienced. Soon, every studio in the world was jumping on the vigilante bandwagon. Among the films churned out of the mill was Defiance, a 1980 production directed by John Flynn (who helmed the far superior thriller The Outfit). Jan Michael Vincent stars as a laid off merchant marine who has to spend several months in a Bronx tenement while awaiting his next job. He soon realizes that the entire neighorhood is terrorized by a brutal street gang whose leader Angel (Rudy Ramos) excercises dictator-like power. Store merchants are menaced, church functions are robbed and women are brutalized. The police seem to be able to do nothing but fill out reports (the impotence of law enforcement is a common and necessary ingredient to this genre.)