50th anniversary of "Death Wish" - July 24th

Was this really so much pro-vigilante as many professional critics at the time claimed? I remember it as being more like a detached description of events and not really taking sides. Haven't seen the first one in a long time though. Plus I first saw the series in pretty much reverse order. The sequels are definitely pro-vigilante, that's obvious.

While I enjoy the whole series for what they are, it's a shame that Bronson's trashy Cannon era films seems to be what he is most known for these days, at least besides Once Upon A Time in the West. He was in a lot of quality films with good scripts, directors and production values after OUATITW, but I don't see films like You Can't Win 'Em All, Violent City, Cold Sweat or Hard Times mentioned that much. Even his lesser 70s films have interesting scripts and have a kind of basic quality to them.