In the film, Paul Kersey, an architect leading a peaceful life, resorts to vigilantism after his wife is murdered and daughter raped during a home invasion.

The film was a commercial success and resonated with the public in the United States, which was experiencing increasing crime rates during the 1970s.

[4] Paul Kersey is a middle-aged architect who lives in Manhattan with his wife, Joanna, and their adult daughter Carol.

Paul reveals he was a conscientious objector during the Korean War, when he served as a combat medic, and that he had been taught to handle firearms by his hunter-father.

At home, Paul opens Ames' gift to discover that it is a Colt .32 caliber revolver with a box of ammunition and cleaning kit.

Paul then visits Carol at the institute, where she remains generally depressed and unable to speak to Jack or show him any affection.

The district attorney and the police commissioner do not want the statistics to get out that Paul's vigilantism has led to a drastic decrease in street crime.

John Herzfeld played the greaser who slashes Paul Kersey's newspaper, while Robert Miano had a minor role as a mugger in the film.

Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, who later co-starred on the television show Welcome Back, Kotter, had an uncredited role as one of the Central Park muggers near the end of the film.

[5] Actress Helen Martin, who had a minor role as a mugging victim who fights off her attackers with a hatpin, subsequently appeared in the television sitcoms Good Times and 227.

Christopher Guest made one of his earliest film appearances as a young police officer who finds Kersey's gun.

Marcia Jean Kurtz, who played the receptionist at Paul's office, has appeared in multiple roles on the TV series Law & Order.

Garfield sold screen rights to both Death Wish and Relentless to the only film producers who approached him, Hal Landers and Bobby Roberts.

[8] United Artists eventually chose Michael Winner, due to his track record of gritty, violent action films.

[6] The film was rejected by other studios because of its controversial subject matter and the perceived difficulty of casting someone in the vigilante role.

Several actors were considered, including Steve McQueen, Clint Eastwood, Burt Lancaster, George C. Scott, Frank Sinatra, Lee Marvin and even Elvis Presley.

The film project was dropped by United Artists after budget constraints forced producers Hal Landers and Bobby Roberts to liquidate their rights.

[6] The early draft of the script had the vigilante being inspired by seeing a fight scene in the Western film High Noon.

Kersey tells him to "fill your hand," the same challenge issued by Western movie icon John Wayne to his main opponent in the climactic shootout in 1969's True Grit.

[6] The killing in the subway station was supposed to remain off-screen in Mayes' script, but Winner decided to turn this into an actual, brutal scene.

[6] Multiple Grammy award-winning jazz musician Herbie Hancock produced and composed the original score for the soundtrack to the movie.

But I had a girlfriend who was in Sesame Street, a Puerto Rican actress (Sonia Manzano), who played a checkout girl at the supermarket [in Death Wish], and she was a great jazz fan.

"[citation needed] Hancock's theme for the film was quoted in "Judge, Jury and Executioner", a 2013 single by Atoms for Peace.

[13][14][15] Roger Ebert awarded three stars out of four and praised the "cool precision" of Winner's direction but did not agree with the film's philosophy.

Scarcely a single sensible insight into urban violence occurs; the killings just plod [along] one after another as Bronson stalks New York's crime-ridden streets.

"[19] Clyde Jeavons of The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Superficially, it's not all that far removed from a Budd Boetticher revenge Western ...

The difference, of course, is that Michael Winner has none of Boetticher's indigenous sense of allegory or his instinct for what constitutes a good folk-mythology, let alone his relish for three-dimensional villains.

In March 2016, Paramount and MGM announced that Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado would direct a remake starring Bruce Willis.

[28][29] The 2007 movie The Brave One, starring Jodie Foster, Terrence Howard, and Mary Steenburgen, and directed by Neil Jordan, was a loose remake of Death Wish.

Foster played a female version of Paul Kersey named Erica Bain, a radio host, whose fiance' is murdered in front of her by muggers in Central Park.