1975 Directed by Walter Hill
In the depression, Chaney, a strong silent streetfighter, joins with Speed, a promoter of no-holds-barred street boxing bouts. They go to New Orleans where Speed borrows money to set up fights for Chaney, but Speed gambles away any winnings.
The Streetfighter, Street Fighter
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.…
Walter Hill’s “Hard Times” is a Fruit of the Loom boxer brief of a fight film. Nothing fancy. Nothing expensive. But boy does it breathe well.
Featuring two growingly curmudgeonly stars in James Coburn and Charles Bronson; “Hard Times” has the attitude of a flick that has seen it all. Twice.
Following Bronson as a back room fighter and Coburn as his scheming promoter, the movie is equally a Western as it is a sports picture.
Owing also to the genre experience of its leads, “Hard Times” could be an accompaniment to the likes of “Ride the High Country” or John Wayne’s “True Grit;” entries about grizzled old fighters who have gotten too tired even to tell their own stories.…
Walter Hill's debut feature is a very well made drama about a street fighter in the depression era. The film is very much a sign of things to come for the successful director. The setting is well felt - costumes, cars, locations etc are well on the money. The plot, which largely surrounds a fight promoter and his troubles with local houdlums is interesting - but by far and away the best aspect of the film is the street fights. They are all very raw and hard hitting - the sound effects are awesome. Every punch is extremely satisfying! I love how the fighters are featured too - the biggest man isn't necessarily the best. Charles Bronson is perfect for the central role - quiet, capable and very understated. James Coburn gives excellent support as the smarmy promoter. It all boils down to a fitting conclusion. Hard Times is an all round good film and well worth the time.
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,…
Pretty much everything Walter Hill would touch upon in his amazing career shows up in this, Hard Times is a damn fine movie.
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…
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…
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 honest portrait of the American landscape during the Great Depression era.
Everyone in the cast is great and the hits land hard. Strother Martin as the poetry spitting dope fiend doc stole the show for me.
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…
Walter Hill's first film is a great film and not just because it has Charles Bronson, James Coburn and Strother Martin in it, but because it has Charles Bronson, James Coburn and Strother Martin delivering peak fucking performances, still latched onto the prime of their on-screen mojo. They manage to spark humanity and machismo and mystery into characters that otherwise have literally no back story or personality on the page, which in return helps to mythologize these movie icons as the movie icons they are. Walter Hill had an enviable run there, right up through the 90s.
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…
