Mr. Majestyk

An action film set in Colorado. Vince Majestyk grows melons. It is harvest time and he needs workers to bring the crop in; he wants to pick them himself. The man who controls labour supply in the town will not have it and sends people to the field. Majestyk beats him and throws him out, and is arrested. Another prisoner is put beside him in the transport: Frank Renda, a hitman. The vehicle is ambushed. Majestyk takes the chance to get away but keeps hold of Renda; he means to hand him to the police and get back to work. Renda escapes and after that it becomes personal. He spends his money and his men on destroying a melon field. The most remembered scene is exactly that: melons shot to pieces. What makes the narrative different is what the hero wants: Majestyk is not after revenge, he wants his crop in on time. Elmore Leonard wrote the screenplay; it was written for the screen rather than adapted, and he turned the same story into a book afterwards. Charles Bronson plays Majestyk and Al Lettieri plays Renda. Richard Fleischer directed. A production that does its job directly for anyone who likes the plain action films of the 1970s. For a viewer expecting a complicated narrative, the film runs on a single line.