cult film freak: CHARLES BRONSON AND JILL IRELAND IN 'FROM NOON TILL THREE'

Charles Bronson and Jill Ireland in From Noon Till Three Year: 1976 Rating: ***1/2

In another 1970's Charles Bronson vehicle that aesthetically looks more like a high-quality backlot-shot TV-movie than theatrical b-movie, Charles Bronson and wife Jill Ireland star in what seems like (and is promoted as) a comedy/western... when it's actually an offbeat fable that's ultimately Meta...

Part of a gang of the usual surly outlaws, which turns out being mostly a dream turned nightmare, Bronson eventually... while the boys hit a bank off-screen... holes up at rich sophisticated lady Jill Ireland's middle-of-nowhere-mansion...

Jill Ireland in From Noon Till Three

This is where the entire second act takes place, with Bronson and Ireland taking part in a bizarre and surreal plush interior to dreamy exterior courtship that, no matter how slow-paced the European-style bedroom farce feels, is always somehow intriguing...

Which connects in the last half when everything you've experienced turns into a best-selling novel turned popular stage-play: eventually reaching worldwide Wuthering Heights fame...

Charles Bronson and Jill Ireland in From Noon Till Three

The entire plot-line mostly centered around (and relying on) Ireland's signature wispy overacting... that actually serves an ultimate purpose while Bronson's merely along for the strange ride...

Making writer/director Frank D. Gilroy's novel-adapted FROM NOON TILL THREE the kind of movie you have to either watch twice, or pay close attention to the dull middle parts that mean more when the inevitable exaggeration ultimately means everything.