Then Came Bronson

William A. Graham – 1969 – USA

Michael Parks is Jim Bronson, a reporter for a San Francisco newspaper who one day is summoned to the Golden Gate Bridge where his friend – (a young and very impressive Martin Sheen) – commits suicide in front of him, bequeathing to him his motorcycle.  Feeling the call of the wild, Jim quits his job and hits the road on the bike, in search of nothing in particular except changing scenery.  He meets a spoiled runaway bride (Bonnie Bedelia) almost immediately and lets her tag along on the back of his bike.  A pilot for a resultant TV series, Then Came Bronson is a pleasantly low-key and episodic road picture brimming with wanderlust in a way that skillfully avoids the typical clichés.  Jim is neither heroic nor particularly anti-heroic.  He doesn’t hesitate to get some quick vengeance when someone wrongs him, but he also forgives quickly.  The film’s fragmented editing style is not dissimilar from that of the premiere biking film of the day, Easy Rider (also 1969), and though it’s hardly as bold artistically as that film, its overall modesty appealed to me greatly.  Jim is a real rebel because he’s a square who does impulsive things, which is different than cool hippies doing exactly what you expect cool hippies to do.