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Global thing: Hard Times (1975)



 
created on: 5/05/2017
by: CinemasFringes (219)
Globalises the following things :
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T
 
 

Movies properties

Displayed (non textual) :
Person : Charles Bronson
This endpoint is approved in the database from previous submissions.
Person : James Coburn
This endpoint is approved in the database from previous submissions.
Person : Jill Ireland
This endpoint is approved in the database from previous submissions.
Displayed (written) info :
CHARLES BRONSON
JAMES COBURN
New Orleans, 1933.
In those days words didn't buy much.
HARD TIMES
Movie Genre :
Action
This endpoint is approved in the database from previous submissions.
,
Drama
This endpoint is approved in the database from previous submissions.
Color & sound :
Color
Originally released :
1975
Language - Spoken :
English
Rating :
BBFC (UK) 15 (UK)
MPAA (US) PG – Parental Guidance Suggested
Running time :
93
Movie credits (on artwork) :
A Production From : Lawrence Gordon
This endpoint is approved in the database from previous submissions.
Actor : Charles Bronson
This endpoint is approved in the database from previous submissions.
Actor : James Coburn
This endpoint is approved in the database from previous submissions.
Actor : Jill Ireland
This endpoint is approved in the database from previous submissions.
Actor : Strother Martin
This endpoint is approved in the database from previous submissions.
Directed By : Walter Hill
This endpoint is approved in the database from previous submissions.
Music By : Barry De Vorzon
This endpoint is approved in the database from previous submissions.
Producer : Lawrence Gordon
This endpoint is approved in the database from previous submissions.
Screenplay By : Bruce Henstell
This endpoint is approved in the database from previous submissions.
Screenplay By : Bryan Gindoff
This endpoint is approved in the database from previous submissions.
Screenplay By : Walter Hill
This endpoint is approved in the database from previous submissions.
Story By : Bruce Henstell
This endpoint is approved in the database from previous submissions.
Story By : Bryan Gindoff
This endpoint is approved in the database from previous submissions.
This endpoint is approved in the database from previous submissions.
End credits (not on artwork) :
:
Description (by producer & GT in English only) :
The American action auteur Walter Hill made a magnificent debut with this pulp triumph, featuring evocative period atmosphere and sterling performances by Charles Bronson and James Coburn.

Bronson plays a drifter suddenly caught up in the fight game during the Great Depression. Chaney, a down-on-his-luck loner, hops a freight train to New Orleans where, on the seedier side of town, he tries to make some quick money the only way he knows how - with his fists. Chaney approaches a hustler named Speed (James Coburn) and convinces him that he can win big money for them both.
Comments & Reviews :
Posted by CinemasFringes (219) on mei 08, 2017
Hard Times is set in America during the Great Depression in the 1930s. Charles Bronson plays a drifter named Chaney, who hitches a ride in a freight train carriage to New Orleans. Once there he discovers an underground bare-knuckle fighting circuit operating within a shuttered factory. He approaches a flashy gambler named Speed (James Coburn) - who makes some of his living betting on the fighters - in order to come to a mutually beneficial financial agreement. The initially skeptical Speed tries him out in a low-end fight, and is amazed when Chaney floors his opponent with a single punch.

Chaney tries to make a new life for himself (at least until it’s a good time to drift on) by renting a dilapidated room, courting the money-oriented Lucy (Jill Ireland) and adopting a cat. However, Speed is up to his neck in debt to local mobster Doty (Bruce Glover, best known for playing Mr. Wint in Diamonds Are Forever), and as a result he needs his new companion to take part in ever more lucrative and dangerous fights, including one against the bald-headed and much-feared Jim Henry (Robert Tessier, who later played a hench-villain in the cult Italian SF favourite Starcrash) who works for his rival Gandil (Michael McGuire).

Hard Times was Walter Hill’s directorial debut and was released at a time when Charles Bronson had become the world’s biggest movie star due to the success of Death Wish (1974). Despite being a considerably better movie than the latter, it wasn’t as big a box office hit (it took $5 million in the U.S., while Death Wish took $22 million) although it still managed to turn in some profit on its modest $2.7 million budget. While Bronson’s other movies of the time tended to veer towards straightforward, workmanlike action-thrillers, this one is more of an action-drama hybrid which has been crafted with a genuine sense of care and attention to detail.

The period has been evoked so atmospherically and convincingly that you can almost imagine yourself being there amid the autumnal browns of the trees, the rusting railcars, the red-brick factories and the smoke-stained fixtures of Chaney’s room. Many stories of the Great Depression are right there in the background detail, from the evident wealth flashed around via the sharp suits and shiny cars of the landowners, the hoodlums and the wheeler-dealers, to the sad-faced masses trying to eke out a dime by cleaning piles of oysters with pocket knives within a rather grim-looking warehouse. The feel is almost akin to that of an art movie due to the painterly composition of imagery (by cinematographer Philip H. Lathrop) and the fact that the score is mainly limited to the occasional piece of ambient music provided by the musicians and jukeboxes that appear within various scenes (bear in mind that, in keeping with New Orleans during the 1930s, jazz features heavily).

As well as these details, much of the running time is taken up with those bare-knuckle fights that were all-important to those legions of “Bronson the tough guy” fans who flocked to cinemas during the mid 1970s. Walter Hill ably displays the flair for action that would serve as the bedrock for the popularity of his films right through to the 1980s. While the various fight participants evince a slightly unconvincing paucity of blood and bruising as a result of the numerous punches, the other aspects of the choreography are pretty impressive. Sound effects have the correct kind of sickening thud of meat against bone, edits and camera angles do a fine job of displaying the various combat moves while obscuring any punch-pulling on the part of the actors, and the participants do appear believably dizzy and worn-down as a result of each fracas. While nothing too horrific happens to any of the characters here (by movies standards or, come to think of it, real-life standards) the violence doesn’t feel glorified: merely a rather gruelling way of making a buck.

The performances are rather good here. Bronson has been accused of being overly stiff as an actor on many occasions, but here he’s perfectly cast as someone so damaged by life that he’s clearly turned into a pillar of bodily and emotional stoicism. From a physical standpoint he’s also impressively convincing in the fights, despite being in his 50s at the time of filming. Coburn turns in the considerably showier of the two main roles as the cocky, charismatic Speed. The supporting cast is great too, in particular Strother Martin as Speed’s dotty assistant Poe, and Robert Tessier as a smug, ever-grinning antagonist whose demeanour noticeably sinks when he’s given a run for his money.

Despite its many plus points however Hard Times is a good rather than a great film. At its heart it’s a rather predictable and linear fighting career movie, even if it’s lifted above most thanks the quality of its setting, performances and staging. Still, it’s a worthy and often overlooked (at least by modern viewers) part of Walter Hill’s filmography.

Rating:

8,00

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Item number : 16084

Submitted by : CinemasFringes (219)
on : 05/05/2017