All the World Loves a Bronson
September 20, 2007 1:58 PM   Subscribe

Playboy. Cowboy. Mandom. The late Charles Bronson and his perfect chest, in one of his finest early pre-Death-Wish roles. And look out for Percy Helton. Here's a shorter version with more horse. Via here.

(Who the hell takes off his shirt or unscrews a bottle of cologne like that anyway?)
posted by brownpau (62 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
I'm waiting for Charles Bronson v. Chuck Norris to become the new ninjas v. pirates.

That's the day that Internet hivemind has decided to eat its young.
posted by bl1nk at 2:06 PM on September 20, 2007


Charles Bronson fits in that category for me of "Huh, had no idea that person was dead / still alive."

See also: Don Knotts, Nina Simone, Walter Cronkite, Bernadette Peters.
posted by pineapple at 2:10 PM on September 20, 2007


It would take a week to wash out the smell of all that cologne. Not that Charles wants to part with his Mandom.
posted by brain_drain at 2:13 PM on September 20, 2007


There are no words, there are no words, there are no words, there are...

is it a bathing substitute? He sure did pour that stuff on.
posted by eatdonuts at 2:19 PM on September 20, 2007


He & I had the same birthday. His daughter Leila used to ride horses & he held onto my camera for me at a horse show when I was 13. Cradled it in his lap like a baby. I still have that camera solely for that reason. Cuz he rocked.
posted by miss lynnster at 2:20 PM on September 20, 2007


Man, that's dumb.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 2:20 PM on September 20, 2007


Yeah, I thought this was a roundabout way of marking CB's passing, and was about to leave a '.' but to be sure I looked him up on Wikipedia.
And it turns out he's been dead since aught-three. I had no idea.
posted by Flashman at 2:34 PM on September 20, 2007


FWIW, he looked dead in person. So it's a very understandable confusion.
posted by miss lynnster at 2:46 PM on September 20, 2007 [4 favorites]


Random.
posted by billysumday at 2:49 PM on September 20, 2007


Now I know why all Japanese men smell so enticingly like Charles Bronson.

Wait... what did I just say?
posted by Kattullus at 3:04 PM on September 20, 2007


Random.

No, Mandom.
posted by vorpal bunny at 3:17 PM on September 20, 2007


Mandom: like a condom, only with smell. Leaves a man so incredibly cologneified (?) that he can't get laid.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 3:19 PM on September 20, 2007 [1 favorite]


Bronson smells like angry revenge.
posted by quin at 3:20 PM on September 20, 2007


Bronson is great. All the better because English wasn’t his first language. It made him sound tougher really. Plus his inflection confused the hell out of people so they felt insecure right off the bat anyway.
He’d say “Why don’t. WE go to. THE diner and have some HOT pancakes.”
No inflective rise at the end. Just flat all the way through. So is that a question? A statement? Were the pancakes not hot last time? Or is there only one diner? Is he asking why *we* can’t go or *why* we can’t go? Or saying we should go?
Meanwhile he gets pissed because the actual words were plainly spoken.
“Well?”
“Uh...well what Charles?”
“Let’s go get pancakes!”
Johnny Carson made some kind of joke once about one of his movies and Bronson didn’t hear him.
So Bronson said: “You. Said. What?”
Which, really, if you say it with the full stops sounds like you’re really pissed off. But of course, he merely didn’t hear it.
On top of that he’s got that stolid look going 24/7. You could shoot the guy and he wouldn’t blink.
“Did. You. Shoot. Me.”
“Uh...no. No I didn’t Mr. Bronson.”
*slinks away*

(I wonder if he had an intense yet non-sexual romance with a shapely blond driven by alienation when he was over there shooting the commercial)
posted by Smedleyman at 3:28 PM on September 20, 2007 [8 favorites]


Random.

No, Mandom.


Yeah, see, the thing is, the name of the product was Mandom. So I said Random. Because it's, you know. They rhyme. So I. Actually, it's not important.
posted by billysumday at 3:28 PM on September 20, 2007


No, see: Mandom.
posted by cortex at 3:37 PM on September 20, 2007


The way he's pouring that stuff on, it's not a cologne. It's more like a guy version of that horrible Jean Naté "after-bath splash" stuff my sister used her coat herself in. Nasty.
posted by FelliniBlank at 3:42 PM on September 20, 2007


Yeah, see, the thing is, the name of the product was Mandom. So I said Random. Because it's, you know. They rhyme. So I. Actually, it's not important.

I realized this right after I posted it. Why can't I understand the full implication of anything I do until it is too late?
posted by vorpal bunny at 3:47 PM on September 20, 2007


Oh, great, vorpal bunny, impulsively open THAT can of worms.
posted by FelliniBlank at 3:51 PM on September 20, 2007


Mandom Corporation.

Mandom is apparently from the words mankind and freedom. Yes. Yes, that's exactly what I thought of when I watched this commercial. Freedom.

Mandom.
posted by Justinian at 3:59 PM on September 20, 2007


The really weird thing is, I am sitting here just slathered in Death Hunt aftershave.
posted by steef at 4:09 PM on September 20, 2007


Man oh Mandon, funnier than expected. Dang he slathered himself in the stuff. yikes.

Always loved that wounded lion face of his. Somewhere between delectable Benicio Del Toro and the jagged allure of Jean Reno.
posted by nickyskye at 4:19 PM on September 20, 2007


To say nothing of the allure of Bronson between Del Toro and Reno. And Mandom all around. Rowr.
posted by cortex at 4:23 PM on September 20, 2007


Don Knotts

He's dead/still alive???

What *is* the deal with Bronson? He looks like such an inexpressive lump and yet I just watched him in Great Escape last night and it was a very convincing portrayal. Also in Magnificent Seven. I've never watched any Deaths Wish so I can't speak to that, although whoever did the Bronson impression in that one Simpson's episode was hilariously dead-on.
posted by DU at 4:25 PM on September 20, 2007


He is one of my favorites.

I love the fact that in "The Dirty Dozen" his character was in prison for shooting an officer in the back as he tried to run off with their medical supplies. That is the best back story ever.
posted by Megafly at 4:31 PM on September 20, 2007


My favorite Bronson
posted by MtDewd at 4:34 PM on September 20, 2007


(So much for preview)
posted by MtDewd at 4:34 PM on September 20, 2007


"Sushi, Mr. Bronson?"
Sue. Who?
"You say dead fish?"
No. Death. Wish.
*slinks away*
posted by hal9k at 4:38 PM on September 20, 2007


So... this is some kind of jerk lotion?

The way he was rubbing it in, it ain't no ordinary moisterizer.
posted by BobFrapples at 4:45 PM on September 20, 2007


Oh yeah, Dirty Dozen is another good one.

Also, seeing Telly Savalas in that clip reminds me of the most unexpected plot twist in Great Escape: Donald Pleasence wasn't evil! WHA??
posted by DU at 5:04 PM on September 20, 2007


This guy was ungodly cool. That he filmed the Mandom commercial just solidifies the fact.

And isn't this still common practice today among celebs? They don't want to cheapen their US image with sponsorship, but they'll whore themselves out to commercials in Japan.
posted by cyclopticgaze at 5:05 PM on September 20, 2007


The site hosting this video on YouTube is excellent: JapanAds.
posted by carsonb at 5:05 PM on September 20, 2007


(It's all Japanese ads featuring American stars. cyclopticgaze is right; there's a lot!)
posted by carsonb at 5:06 PM on September 20, 2007


...and now I see it's the via. I'd feel embarrassed if I weren't slathered in MANDOM.
posted by carsonb at 5:08 PM on September 20, 2007


I love the sound of bullets firing as he's rubbing in his quarts of Mandom. Because nothing says overkill quite like pistols firing. Or quarts of Mandom.
posted by Nelson at 5:16 PM on September 20, 2007


The Mechanic is the best Bronson movie, bar none.

Also, that is a kick ass way to kill someone (look at the clip).
posted by oddman at 5:25 PM on September 20, 2007


Smedleyman, I loved your story and wanted to know where he came from. IMBD says he was born in Pennsylvania to imigrant Polish parents. So maybe polish was his first language, but he must have gone to school and all that in the regular old public school system. Where did you get your info? Did he grow up in an all Polish enclave or something? I know that during the same time there were areas of Milwaukee where they did public school in German. Just curious.
posted by Belle O'Cosity at 5:40 PM on September 20, 2007


Late? Oh my, when did this happen. RIP Mr. Majestic.

By the way, if you see some scruffy looking guy asleep on the subway with a big newspaper over his lap, really, don't fuck with him, your life might depend upon it. I think Bernie Getz was a fan. You look like you could use another.
posted by caddis at 6:31 PM on September 20, 2007


From Wikipedia ^^^^^: Bronson's father died when he was only 10, and he went down to the coal mines like his older brothers until he was drafted. He earned $1 per ton of coal mined. His family was so poor that, at one time, he had reportedly been forced to wear his sister's dress to school because he had no other clothes.

Yeah, you gonna laugh at him wussy? ;)
posted by caddis at 6:36 PM on September 20, 2007


The close up with the fu man chu mustache is awesome.

Notice how he has Asian features but is a Pollock? As a Polish/Irish mix myself, I asked my mom why we have so many seemingly Asian features. She immediately mentioned Bronson as an example of the Ghengis Khan/Mongolian influence. (I think we might actually be related-2nd or 3rd cousin of my Mom.-Crazy Mongol Pollocks!)
posted by snsranch at 7:24 PM on September 20, 2007


What was the movie where he played a machine-shop owner who was being terrorized by a street gang? The cops wouldn't do anything because he had no proof that the gang was doing anything to him. He wasn't a violent angel of death in this one.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 7:25 PM on September 20, 2007


The first Death Wish movie has a Herbie Hancock score that's really pretty good. My favorite Bronson movie, though, is the hacky Lolita ripoff Lola.
posted by box at 7:46 PM on September 20, 2007


You know, when he slapped the hyper-laughing doorman on the shoulder, I tensed, thinking "Is he going to knife him?" But no. Not tonight, Mr. Doorman.

Tonight there's only .....Mandom.
posted by emjaybee at 7:48 PM on September 20, 2007


Dammit, I got his daughter's name wrong. It wasn't Leila. That was another girl. I think his daughter's name was Katrina. I know it doesn't matter to anyone, but it bugs me when I goof up little details like that. Damn senior moments.
posted by miss lynnster at 8:07 PM on September 20, 2007


Let me get this straight. In a country where there is one stick of deodorant for the entire population and wearing a drop of aftershave is the mark of a dirty gaijan, this guy pulls off not one but a series of cologne commercials?

I guess I've seen stranger things. Just not today.
posted by 3.2.3 at 8:19 PM on September 20, 2007


Mandom?

I read it as MAN DOM as in Man. Domination.

Note also that it's a Japanese commercial for mandom. I wonder what the American (or Brit, for that matter) commercial was like...

Bronson is awesome. I'd go (necro-)gay for (zombie) Charles Bronson if he wanted me to.

Charles Bronson v. Chuck Norris

??

Bronson. No brainer. Bruce Lee plays cat and mouse with Chuck Norris and drops him like someone else's snot-filled tissue.

Bruce Lee vs. Charles Bronson
posted by porpoise at 8:28 PM on September 20, 2007


His father was a Lipka Tatar from Poland. Tatars are decended from Mongolians and they are Muslim. Bronson's mother was Lithuanian. So basically, he was half-white and half-Asian, which explains his appearance.
posted by subatomiczoo at 9:02 PM on September 20, 2007 [1 favorite]


My favorite Bronson

I really need to see The Dirty Dozen and The Mechanic again. They're both such good films.

My favorite Charles Bronson. But that's because it has Evil Henry Fonda as well.
posted by oneirodynia at 9:27 PM on September 20, 2007



Bruce Lee vs. Charles Bronson


yup, here you go.
posted by caddis at 12:55 AM on September 21, 2007


I miss those days when a man could hang out in a bar doing nothing alone, be best friends with the door man, drive home alone to his massive penthouse pad filled with all the best home furnishings (oh, how I want a drinks cabinet in the shape of a globe), take his shirt off and pose in front of the window alone, smoke a pipe alone, cover himself in cologne alone, whilst fantasising about being a cowboy, alone... and not seem the least bit gay. At all. (Not that there is anything wrong with that.)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:46 AM on September 21, 2007 [2 favorites]


I just invented your favorite drink. It's called The Bronson.

2 shots of rail bourbon
1 ice cube
and a single black hair floating on the top.

Bottoms up!
posted by doctorschlock at 4:32 AM on September 21, 2007


I think that's the Clarence Thomas.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:42 AM on September 21, 2007 [2 favorites]


Man oh man.... that Mandom!
posted by GrammarMoses at 6:02 AM on September 21, 2007


I don't the other Charlie Bronson uses Mandom... no, definitely not.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 7:53 AM on September 21, 2007


bah... 'don't think' (why do you only see after you hit 'post comment'). Oh, and Charlie, I think you're great... please don't kill me if you ever get out.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 7:54 AM on September 21, 2007


Uhhh, the other Charles Bronson is quite the artist, yeah?
posted by miss lynnster at 8:18 AM on September 21, 2007


my wife was a kid in the 70's and when we got together with her friend from (catholic girls) school they related this running gag they had of trying to get classmates to rub their chin (by saying something like, "you have a grain of rice stuck on your chin, there") and then they would say, "Mmmm, Mandom!" if their victim complied, conferring upon her an implied masculinity.

The bottle of Mandom has not changed in design a bit since these commercials, no doubt due to Bronson's eternal association with the product. Think Dad's Vitalis.
posted by planetkyoto at 8:50 AM on September 21, 2007 [2 favorites]


I was reading an interview with his wife Jill Ireland years ago in Redbook (as I recall) describing her life with him, saying that he had never had a Christmas stocking as a child (see coal mining story above), so one year she made up a stocking for him that was so huge several feet of it were trailing on the floor in front of the fireplace when she nailed it to the mantelpiece. He didn't react to it at all Christmas morning and she didn't say anything, until 3 or 4 days later he finally said "what's that thing?" I've always loved that story.

Wikipedia has this to say about them:

Bronson was married to British actress Jill Ireland from 1968 until her death from breast cancer at age 54 in 1990. He met her when she was still married to British actor David McCallum. At the time, Bronson (who shared the screen with McCallum in The Great Escape) reportedly told him, "I'm going to marry your wife." Two years later, Bronson did marry her. She was his second wife.

posted by jamjam at 8:54 AM on September 21, 2007


subatomiczoo , thanks for that tidbit, very cool.
posted by snsranch at 2:19 PM on September 21, 2007


Charles Bronson + Donald Pleasance = Telefon.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:55 PM on September 21, 2007


(y’know what’s funnier than a guy wearing a lot of cologne? A guy sitting by himself crying wearing a lot of cologne.)

“Where did you get your info? Did he grow up in an all Polish enclave or something?”

2nd hand info (I read a lot). I understand Polish was spoken in his house. Common to a lot of immigrant families. The Carson story comes from a story Carson used to tell actually.
posted by Smedleyman at 12:39 PM on September 24, 2007


I've been informed that the voice-over at the end says "it's soft on the skin, not too soapy and it's a fragrance for men." Nice.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 5:53 AM on September 26, 2007


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