By Erin Free
In this regular column, we drag forgotten made-for-TV movies out of the vault and into the light. This week: the 1969 pilot telemovie for the cult TV series Then Came Bronson, starring Michael Parks, Bonnie Bedelia, Martin Sheen and Sheree North.
With his lean, earthy good looks, idiosyncratic line delivery, and undeniable air of cool, the late Michael Parks was an actor like no other. Experiencing a truckload of late-career love from fans and noted cineastes Quentin Tarantino (who once called him “the world’s greatest living actor”), Kevin Smith and Robert Rodriguez, Parks was a quiet cult hero with a sideline music career and a personality that could perhaps charitably be described as difficult. Oscar winner Melissa Leo co-starred with Parks in Smith’s clever 2011 horror flick Red State, and she told FilmInk that the experience was “horrendous. There’s a very old school of acting that we don’t do any more: we used to call ‘em hams. It’s hard to work with somebody when they don’t let you in the room. It was some of the most difficult work that I’ve ever done.”
Many fine artists, of course, are far from fine as people, and indeed Parks cuts a somewhat icy, cutting figure in director Josh Roush’s exemplary 2025 documentary Long Lonesome Highway: The Michael Parks Story. The late performer’s talent, however, is unquestionable. FilmInk wrote about Parks’ captivating screen presence in the superior 1977 telemovie Escape From Bogen County, but in that wildly entertaining backroads thriller, he was strictly the supporting player to leading lady Jaclyn Smith. In 1969’s wonderfully loose and freewheeling telemovie Then Came Bronson, Michael Parks is well and truly front and centre, and his magnetism is near voluble. Considering his appeal, it’s hardly a surprise that the telemovie hooked audiences and was spun off into a same-named weekly network series.
Written by journalist, war correspondent, author, television producer, and screenwriter Denne Bart Petitclerc (who also ran and created the eventual TV series) and directed by Unsung Auteur William A. Graham (Where The Lilies Bloom, Change Of Habit), 1969’s Then Came Bronson was something of a rarity for the time: a television project that was very much a response to the social and political turbulence of the late sixties, and a highly original approach to the much-discussed concept of “dropping out”, namely kicking free of the restraints of mainstream society and living your life on your own terms, regardless of expectations, social standing or personal commitments.
In the opening scene of Then Came Bronson, Parks’ jaded newspaper reporter Jim Bronson witnesses the suicide of his deeply troubled friend Nick (Martin Sheen in a moving turn), whose final request is that Jim buy his cherished Harley-Davidson Sportster to help out his wife (Sheree North in an impressive one-scene shot) and children. Burnt out by life, wholly disillusioned, and triggered by both Nick’s suicide and a torrent of abuse from his prick of a boss, Jim quits his job, slides onto Nick’s motorcycle, and rides off to nowhere in particular. “I just want to see things,” Jim says quietly. “I want to discover things…surprises…I like surprises.”
With swooping, soaring helicopter shots of the Southern California coastline and its snaking highways, and Michael Parks plaintively and beautifully singing the standard “The Wayfaring Stranger” on the soundtrack, Jim Bronson rides his Harley-Davidson Sportster along backroads, byways and beaches until he spots a distressed woman in a wedding dress stripping down to her underpants by the ocean. The half-naked woman (the wonderful Bonnie Bedelia in an early role) spots Jim and then runs away in shock and fear. After a subsequent highway meet-cute in which the pair nearly kill each other, Jim and the unnamed woman hit the road together on his motorcycle, slowly learning more about each other as their journey continues.
Unlike most vintage telemovies, there is no urgency in Then Came Bronson, no sense of immediacy, and no real story structure…and that’s no bad thing at all. There is no pressing story, or a drama ripped from the headlines. Holding more in common with its big screen road movie brethren than its fellow telemovies, director William A. Graham really allows Then Came Bronson room to breathe, luxuriating in his location-shot landscapes, and placing his two staggeringly photogenic stars casually within them.
Jim Bronson and his unnamed-until-the-end female travelling companion are also far more quirky and unconventional than most characters in vintage telemovies. The chemistry between the two actors is also striking, with Parks and Bedelia bouncing off each other beautifully as they move from spiky, untrusting banter to a growing sense of love and affection. Their journey is an unusual one too, as the pair simply meet a few disparate characters along the way, camp outdoors and share stories, and pretty much do their own thing. The resolution is a bittersweet one, and it leaves the door wide open for what would become the weekly Then Came Bronson series.
With its poetic imagery, lilting soundtrack, evocative location shooting, and engaging sense of looseness, the pilot telemovie for Then Came Bronson feels more like a feature film than a telemovie, especially in its extended form. While it first screened on major network NBC on March 24, 1969, the film was also released into cinemas in April of the following year, complete with extra footage and even surprising and wholly gratuitous topless nude scenes from a very game (and very beautiful) Bonnie Bedelia.
A true product of the Easy Rider-informed counterculture, the Then Came Bronson series was low-key, thoughtful and deeply philosophical, with Jim Bronson searching for meaning through his interactions with the various characters he meets each week. Though the series certainly had its audience (it remains a cult favourite today, with unbuilt model toys of Jim’s famed Harley-Davidson Sportster fetching thousands online), Then Came Bronson only lasted one season. The spiky and headstrong Michael Parks warred with the network over some elements of the show, and the whole thing just became more trouble than it was worth for NBC.
Long on atmosphere and rich with feeling, the pilot telemovie for Then Came Bronson perfectly sets up the powerful vibe of yearning and malaise that would drive the eventual series, while also standing on its own as a potent, provocative story of personal rediscovery and fractured romance.
Availability: The pilot movie for Then Came Bronson was released on DVD in its extended theatrical form, and there are plenty of copies floating around. It’s a little tricky to find an upload online, but it is out there, and in good quality too. The complete season is disappointingly not available on DVD.
If you enjoyed this review, check out our other vintage telemovies The Kansas City Massacre, 21 Hours At Munich, Because He’s My Friend, Rodeo Girl, Citizen X, Relentless, The Connection, Zuma Beach, The Third Girl From The Left, Snowbeast, Stagecoach, Terror On The Beach, Strange Homecoming, The Possessed, Memorial Day, That Certain Summer, Elvis And The Beauty Queen, Scandal In A Small Town, Victims For Victims: The Theresa Saldana Story, The Seduction Of Gina, Blue Murder, The Brotherhood Of Justice, The Wave, The California Kid, The Cracker Factory, Night Terror, Inmates: A Love Story, The Shadow Riders, CHiPs: Roller Disco, Dawn: Portrait Of A Teenage Runaway, Young Love, First Love, Escape From Bogen County, The Death Squad, Hit Lady, Brian’s Song, The Defiant Ones, A Cry For Help, Trilogy Of Terror, Policewoman Centerfold, Smash-Up On Interstate 5, Something Evil, Savage, A Step Out Of Line, The Boy In The Plastic Bubble, The Dirty Dozen: Next Mission, A Very Brady Christmas, The Gladiator, Elvis, The Rat Pack, Silent Victory: The Kitty O’Neil Story, Terror Among Us, The Hanged Man, Hardcase, Charlie’s Angels: Angels In Vegas, Vanishing Point, To Heal A Nation, Fugitive Among Us, To Kill A Cop, Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, Police Story: A Chance To Live, Murder On Flight 502, Moon Of The Wolf, The Secret Night Caller, Cotton Candy, And The Band Played On, Gargoyles, Death Car On The Freeway, Short Walk To Daylight, Trapped, Hotline, Killdozer, The Jericho Mile, Mongo’s Back In Town and Tribes.
