Yet again, I may have watched this in the past but watching this new restoration is like watching the film for the first time. Found it more engaging than I remember. James Coburn steals the show.

From IMDB trivia... I identify with this:

Walter Hill says his cinematographer Philip H. Lathrop was incredibly useful during the shoot: "Before we started I was in my office later at night and Lathrop came by, noted I wasn't in a good mood. "Anything wrong?" I had never done it, worried if I will make it look alright. He immediately said, "Don't worry about that. We will make a film, make the shots. If you are having a problem we will make the shots.…

The great Walter Hill's detectable style is already fleshed out to a large degree with his debut, an impressive period drama/actioner, that's gifted with a peerless one-two punch of a top-billed cast in Bronson and Coburn.

This depression-era tale of bare-knuckle brawlers, and the con men who profit from them, is pitch-perfect tonally from start to end. Bronson is smartly cast, in one of his finest roles, as the largely stoic drifter simply looking to make some money outside of minimal paying part-time work. Coburn, of course, oozes fast-talking charm as Bronson's possible manager. It's the third time these two shared the screen, and they play off each other beautifully. It's hard imagining these roles played better by anyone else,…

The Walter Hill duo - the charismatic mouthy grinning trouble maker forced into an 'at-odds' partnership with a silent but smart strong man - is in full effect here in his directorial debut.

Hard Times is a pretty restrained film, shot with a notably locked-down camera that seeks naturalism from its noir world, which it very often achieves.

Hill's Depression-era New Orleans is incredibly immersive (if scantly populated). From oyster shucking warehouses near the docks, to steamboats lazily humming down the river in the background of Cajun country picnics, to a period dressed French Quarter; the production design and world building in this are both sparse and believable. A joy to behold.

The depression-era setting also goes a long way…

You don't know what hard times are daddy...

HARD TIMES are when the textile workers around this country are out of work - they got four or five kids and can't pay them wages - can't buy them food. HARD TIMES are when the autoworkers are out of work, and they tell em "Go Home!" ...and HARD TIMES are when a man is working a job 30 years, they give him a watch, kick him in the butt and say "hey, a computer took your place, daddy." That's hard times. That's hard times.

....And Ric Flair, you put HARD TIMES on this country by taking Dusty Rhodes out. That's hard times!

And we all had hard times together.

I admit,…

A salty summer New Orleans brawling look into the desperation of making money, at times any way possible. Walter Hill is really good at making broad strokes films, they're not character studies or moral lessons, but like to simmer in the environment. More a setting mood piece, maybe? What I hate about a lot of period pieces is they try so hard to establish the era they take place in without making it feel lived in, or really highlight what it is that the era retrospectively represents on the human condition. Hard Times is not Bronson's story, but a story of the depression and earning a buck to get by. Also, has a closer relationship to a Western than it…

Walter Hill directs this Depression Era-based fighting-drama, starring Charles Bronson and James Coburn. A straightforward but very well-crafted and engaging piece of work that I'd say is a high-point for everyone involved.

Bronson plays a travelling drifter who befriends a sleazy promoter of bare-handed brawls named Speed. He makes a living for himself in New Orleans, competing against tough opponents and making a good amount of money for Speed. Sadly enough, mishandling of the earnings and a bad gambling habit brings Speed into deeper trouble with the local mob, who continue to threaten him until he pays off his debts.

Like Hill's other works, it's a very male-dominated work, though it's not another one of Bronson's action romps where he…

"It doesn't matter what you do, you're always going to smell like fish." 

As the (first-time) curator of this week’s Collab selections, I tried to ensure the absence of stinkers, but once it shook out that "Hard Times" was the official choice, I knew we were all in good hands; Balled up, bruised knuckled hands.

"Hard Times" feels (on the surface) like one of those 70's tough-guy movies, but displaying equal parts "The Sting" and "Snatch", it's really more of a character study, with some of the more interesting characters than you would come to expect from a depression-era, bare-knuckle boxing flick. 

Let's start (as all conversations should) with Bronson. Ohhhh, Charles Bronson...I've made it very well known about my affinity for…

I always found it amazing how many actors, especially those that were big in the sixties and seventies that starred together time and again in large ensemble casts that helped make them household names. Movies like The Magnificent Seven (1960), The Longest Day (1962), and The Great Escape (1963) were arguably launch-pads for a host of relative newcomers that would go on to international stardom. Some of those stars would be lifelong friends, James Coburn and Steve McQueen for example, both as cool as they come, petrolheads and martial artists who both studied under Bruce Lee, and guys who played poker regularly. They might have been rivals onscreen for the adoring public in whatever film they were in, but offscreen…

Walter Hill’s The Street Fighter is a lost curio from the 70’s starring Jan-Michael Vincent as a young drifter looking to cash in as a bare-knuckle brawler on the mean streets of The Big Easy. After teaming up with fight promoter Spencer "Speed" Weed (played by a spaced-out Mickey Rooney, neck-deep in the “will work for drugs” phase of his career), the two set out to make a bit of cheddar.

Vincent seems out of his league here as Chaney, the cocksure scrapper, and I can’t help but think a more seasoned actor would’ve brought a gravitas and quiet dignity to the role that better embodied the tired desperation of a battle-hardened vagabond eking out a living with his fists. …

Before The Warriors made their way back home, before The Driver ever made a living in getaways, there were Hard Times, ya dig? Of course, the journey for Walter Hill's first turn in the directing chair couldn't exactly be called as such, as he was able to ride the shooting star to success with scripts from two beloved crime films, Hickey & Boggs and The Getaway, as well as two Paul Newman thrillers, that assured executives he could deliver the goods. With the help of Charles Bronson (whose smoking habits inebriated his performance length a bit), as well as elements from a scrapped Western script of Hill's, the man was able to make a scene for himself with a scrappy, simple,…

HARD TIMES (Walter Hill, USA, 1975) 8

Set in Depression-era New Orleans, this is basically a scam movie, only the "game" is bare-knuckle underground fighting rather than poker or the futures market in frozen concentrated orange juice.

There's about five significant fight scenes in HARD TIMES, all of which have one important character touch, my favorite being when the fur-clad manager of one of the bad guys tells his fighter, who was destroying his unlucky and near-unconscious opponent, to just let the guy go and collapse rather than administer a coup de grace. That moment pays off later.

When Charles Bronson died a few years ago, I wrote an obit on my blog that referred to him as perhaps the…