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Hard Times (1975 film)

Hard Times[a] is a 1975 action drama sport film marking the directorial debut of Walter Hill. It stars Charles Bronson as Chaney, a mysterious drifter freighthopping through Louisiana during the Great Depression, who proves indomitable in illegal bare-knuckled boxing matches after forming a partnership with the garrulous hustler Speed, played by James Coburn.

Hard Times
Theatrical release poster
Directed byWalter Hill
Screenplay byWalter Hill
Bryan Gindoff
Bruce Henstell
Story byBryan Gindoff
Bruce Henstell
Produced byLawrence Gordon
StarringCharles Bronson
James Coburn
Jill Ireland
Strother Martin
CinematographyPhilip H. Lathrop
Edited byRoger Spottiswoode
Music byBarry De Vorzon
Production
company
Lawrence Gordon Productions
Distributed byColumbia Pictures
Release date
  • October 8, 1975 (1975-10-08) (United States)
Running time
93 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$2.7 million[1] or $3.1 million[2]
Box office$26.5 million[3]

Plot edit

In 1933, an older man named Chaney watches a bare-knuckled street fight, on which bets are made. The fighter, backed by the cocky, fast-talking "Speed" loses badly. Chaney talks a very skeptical Speed into letting him fight the winner. Chaney bets all of the six dollars he has on himself and quickly dispatches his younger opponent. Chaney and a suitably impressed Speed travel to New Orleans to match Chaney against local fighters at long odds, recruiting genteel drug addict Poe as a cutman. Between fights, Chaney finds a down-on-her-luck woman named Lucy Simpson to sleep with.

Chaney easily disposes of his next opponent, a Cajun. When Pettibone, the loser's sponsor, refuses to pay off his bet, Chaney advises Speed to leave, as they are greatly outnumbered by the locals, but suggests they return later. That night, Chaney sneaks into Pettibone's honky-tonk joint with a gun, shoots up the place, and gets the winnings from Pettibone. For the next fight, the stakes are unexpectedly raised to $3000 instead of the usual $1000. To cover the shortfall, Speed gets a loan from a gang of local mobsters headed by Doty. Chaney wins this fight handily, but gambling addict Speed blows all his winnings in a backroom crape, leaving him unable to repay the loan sharks.

Afterwards, Speed and Chaney disagree about selling a piece of Chaney to fish tycoon Chick Gandil, the sponsor of Chaney's most recent victim, Jim Henry. Gandil instead pays off Speed's debt and takes him hostage. Chaney must wager his entire winnings to take on a prize fighter imported from Chicago named Street, or Speed will be killed. Chaney does not want to rescue Speed from his own folly, but Poe talks him into it. Street proves to be a worthy foe, but Chaney gradually gets the upper hand. When Street is knocked down and is on his hands and knees, Gandil slams two metal cylinders on the ground for him to wrap his fists around, but Street is too proud to cheat. Chaney then finishes him off.

Afterward, Chaney gives Speed and Poe a generous cut of the winnings and leaves town.

Cast edit

Production edit

Development edit

In the early 1970s Walter Hill had developed a strong reputation as a screenwriter, particularly of action films such as The Getaway. He was approached by Larry Gordon when the latter was head of production at AIP, who offered Hill the chance to direct one of his scripts. (AIP had recently done this with John Milius on Dillinger (1973).) Gordon subsequently moved over to Columbia, where he established a unit making low budget action films, and got funding for Hill's project; it was to be the first from Gordon's unit.[6]

Hill wrote and directed for scale even though "the truth is, I would have paid them for the chance."[7]

The project began as an original screenplay by Bryan Gindoff and Bruce Henstell called The Streetfighter.[8]

Hill thought the project could become more "up market" if he made it more like a Western and set it in the past; Gordon was from New Orleans and suggested setting it in that city. Hill says the script incorporated elements of an earlier Western he had written, Lloyd Williams and his Brother. He wrote it in a style inspired by Alexander Jacobs – "extremely spare, almost Haiku style. Both stage directions and dialogue."[7]

Hill wrote one draft, then rewrote it "five or six times before I finally got it. But I did get it and I knew it. I knew it was going to get an actor and get made."[7]

Casting edit

Hill says he originally wrote the film intending to cast a younger actor, like Jan Michael Vincent, and that he wanted Warren Oates to play Coburn's role.[9]

According to Hill, "they had offered it to a couple of actors and they didn't want to do it." Then it was sent to Charles Bronson even though Hill thought he was "too old". A day later, Bronson's agent called back and said Bronson had read the script and wanted to do the film "but he had to meet me. He wanted to see if I measured up."[10]

Hill remembers that Bronson "was in remarkable physical condition for a guy his age; I think he was about 52 at the time. He had excellent coordination, and a splendid build. His one problem was that he was a smoker, so he didn't have a lot of stamina. I mean, he probably could have kicked anybody's ass on that movie, but he couldn't fight much longer than 30 or 40 seconds."[9] Hill later said Bronson received "very close to a million" dollars for his role.[2]

Pre-production edit

The film was shot on location in Louisiana. Hill says his cinematographer Philip 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. I can already tell you you are ahead of other directors." He said "Anything we shoot we will cut together." He said "The problem that you're going to have is making everybody getting along and you getting what you want." And he was of course 100 percent right. That is the problem with direction. Beyond my first or second film, I don't think I've ever had terrible dilemmas based upon resources, but shooting and figuring out how is not a problem, never was. The problems that you have are getting everybody to be on the same page.[11]

Hill says that Bronson was more supportive to work with than Coburn:

[Bronson was a] very angry guy ... Didn't get along with a lot of people. The only reason I can tell you he and I got along well was he respected that I wrote the script. He liked the script. Also I didn't try to get close to him. Kept it very business-like. I think he liked that. Jimmy Coburn who everybody liked and got along well with, he and I did not get along well. I think he was not in a good mood about being in a movie with Charlie, it was second banana. He had been up there more, and his career was coming back a bit. I don't think he was wild about being second banana. But Charlie was a big star, perceived to be low rent. That was part of his anger ... He thought there was a cosmic injustice when he was not a movie star at 35. He didn't get there till 45 or whatever ... [However] When things had seemed to not be working well, or there was some impasse, Charlie would come down hard on my side. That was tipping point.[11]

Hill had troubles with Strother Martin. "When he was good he was very good, but he could be just awful", Hill later said. "I said to him once, 'Divide it in half, Strother,' and he said 'In half,' and I answered, 'That's if you want it to be in the movie.'"[12]

Hill said he used few tracking shots and zoom shots because "I like to work within frame and composition, but when you move your camera you can lose composition because it is altering shape." He also decided to use background music quiet and subdued "to get a sense of restraint in the movie ... people fighting is an ugly thing and I didn't want to encourage people to go out and fight. The concept of movie was hopefully legendary and somewhat heroic so that one couldn't really take a realistic approach."[13]

Hill said the fights were "dances. That is why there was no blood. People commented, "the fights are great but they would have been better if you had put some blood in them." What they don't realize is as soon as you put blood in those fights they would then have gotten so real that they would have lost their dramatic truth."[14]

The original cut of the movie was around two hours long. When it was cut down to around 90 minutes several fight scenes were deleted. Some stills however show some of the deleted fights.

Hill described the music as "kind of western; kind of simple and country. Nicely understated. "[14]

Release edit

The film was profitable and in 2009, Hill said he was still receiving money from it.[9]

"It was the best deal I ever made", he recalled. "Got a career out of it. Picture was well received on the whole, made money. Got me off and going."[11]

However he never made another film with Bronson. "We had kind of a falling out over the film," the director said. "He thought I'd been a little too ... how do I put this? Too draconian in my editing of his wife's (Jill Ireland's) scenes."[9]

The movie established a template to which Hill often returned.

My heroes usually have a very talkative foil opposite them or reluctantly alongside them, such as Bruce Dern in The Driver, or Eddie Murphy in 48 Hrs, or James Coburn in Hard Times. I like the kind of dialogue between people who have a mutual goal but very disparate appetites and needs, so that there's always a kind of friction that runs throughout the film. They don't like each other very much, and hopefully the movie supplies a reason for them to achieve a grudging kind of respect for each other.[15]

Reception edit

Critical response edit

The film has a 94% fresh rating on the film review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes based on 16 critic's reviews.[16]

Pauline Kael called the setting of Hard Times "elaborate period recreations that seem almost to be there for their own sake." The film is about the personalities of street fighters and their agents, people on the margins of society. On the other hand, setting the film in the Depression might have been a way for Hill to make Chaney a more sympathetic character. Kael explains, "Put [Charles Bronson] in modern clothes and he's a hard-bitten tough guy, but with that cap on he's one of the dispossessed — an honest man who's known hunger".[17]

Roger Ebert in his October 14, 1975, review of Hard Times in the Chicago Sun-Times called it "a powerful, brutal film containing a definitive Charles Bronson performance."[18]

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ Stanley, John (May 27, 2007). "Walter Hill's Dark visions". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2007-12-12.
  2. ^ a b RICHARD TURNER (Aug 23, 1989). "How Larry Gordon Got His $100 Million Movie Deal". Wall Street Journal. p. B1.
  3. ^ "Hard Times...A Worldwide Winner". Variety. 11 February 1976. p. 14.
  4. ^ "Hard Times Blu-ray". DVDBeaver. Retrieved 11 November 2017.
  5. ^ Yanow, Scott (2001). The trumpet kings : the players who shaped the sound of jazz trumpet. San Francisco. ISBN 0879306408. OCLC 45871220.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  6. ^ Murphy, Mary (Sep 18, 1974). "New Film Gift From Linda". Los Angeles Times. p. f18.
  7. ^ a b c McGilligan, Patrick (June 2004). "Walter Hill: Last Man Standing". Film International. Retrieved November 28, 2007.
  8. ^ Hill, John (Sep 5, 1976). "The Original Hard Time". Los Angeles Times. p. j2.
  9. ^ a b c d Jon Zelazny, 'Kicking Ass with Walter Hill', The Hollywood Interview, 8 Sept 2009
  10. ^ ""Tough Little Stories": Director Walter Hill at 92Y Tribeca". Filmmaker Magazine. 29 January 2013.
  11. ^ a b c "Interview with Walter Hill Chapter 4" Directors Guild of America accessed 12 July 2014
  12. ^ Gross, Larry (22 May 1982). . Archived from the original on 2012-01-29.
  13. ^ Munn, Mike. "Walter Hill on his way to the top". unknown. p. 32.
  14. ^ a b Greco, Mike. "Hard Riding". Film Comment. Vol. 16, no. 3 (May/Jun 1980). New York. pp. 13–19, 80.
  15. ^ John Patterson, "Walter Hill: a life in the fast lane", The Guardian,, 18 July 2014, accessed 6 February 2015
  16. ^ "Hard Times". Rotten Tomatoes.
  17. ^ Kael, Pauline. "The Visceral Poetry of Pulp." CSUN Cinematheque Notes:Hard Times', The Driver. 2005: 6-7
  18. ^ *Ebert, Roger. Review at www.rogerebert.com

Notes edit

  1. ^ Known as The Streetfighter in some regions.[4]

External links edit

hard, times, 1975, film, hard, times, 1975, action, drama, sport, film, marking, directorial, debut, walter, hill, stars, charles, bronson, chaney, mysterious, drifter, freighthopping, through, louisiana, during, great, depression, proves, indomitable, illegal. Hard Times a is a 1975 action drama sport film marking the directorial debut of Walter Hill It stars Charles Bronson as Chaney a mysterious drifter freighthopping through Louisiana during the Great Depression who proves indomitable in illegal bare knuckled boxing matches after forming a partnership with the garrulous hustler Speed played by James Coburn Hard TimesTheatrical release posterDirected byWalter HillScreenplay byWalter HillBryan GindoffBruce HenstellStory byBryan GindoffBruce HenstellProduced byLawrence GordonStarringCharles BronsonJames CoburnJill IrelandStrother MartinCinematographyPhilip H LathropEdited byRoger SpottiswoodeMusic byBarry De VorzonProductioncompanyLawrence Gordon ProductionsDistributed byColumbia PicturesRelease dateOctober 8 1975 1975 10 08 United States Running time93 minutesCountryUnited StatesLanguageEnglishBudget 2 7 million 1 or 3 1 million 2 Box office 26 5 million 3 Contents 1 Plot 2 Cast 3 Production 3 1 Development 3 2 Casting 3 3 Pre production 4 Release 5 Reception 5 1 Critical response 6 See also 7 References 8 Notes 9 External linksPlot editIn 1933 an older man named Chaney watches a bare knuckled street fight on which bets are made The fighter backed by the cocky fast talking Speed loses badly Chaney talks a very skeptical Speed into letting him fight the winner Chaney bets all of the six dollars he has on himself and quickly dispatches his younger opponent Chaney and a suitably impressed Speed travel to New Orleans to match Chaney against local fighters at long odds recruiting genteel drug addict Poe as a cutman Between fights Chaney finds a down on her luck woman named Lucy Simpson to sleep with Chaney easily disposes of his next opponent a Cajun When Pettibone the loser s sponsor refuses to pay off his bet Chaney advises Speed to leave as they are greatly outnumbered by the locals but suggests they return later That night Chaney sneaks into Pettibone s honky tonk joint with a gun shoots up the place and gets the winnings from Pettibone For the next fight the stakes are unexpectedly raised to 3000 instead of the usual 1000 To cover the shortfall Speed gets a loan from a gang of local mobsters headed by Doty Chaney wins this fight handily but gambling addict Speed blows all his winnings in a backroom crape leaving him unable to repay the loan sharks Afterwards Speed and Chaney disagree about selling a piece of Chaney to fish tycoon Chick Gandil the sponsor of Chaney s most recent victim Jim Henry Gandil instead pays off Speed s debt and takes him hostage Chaney must wager his entire winnings to take on a prize fighter imported from Chicago named Street or Speed will be killed Chaney does not want to rescue Speed from his own folly but Poe talks him into it Street proves to be a worthy foe but Chaney gradually gets the upper hand When Street is knocked down and is on his hands and knees Gandil slams two metal cylinders on the ground for him to wrap his fists around but Street is too proud to cheat Chaney then finishes him off Afterward Chaney gives Speed and Poe a generous cut of the winnings and leaves town Cast editCharles Bronson as Chaney James Coburn as Spencer Speed Weed Jill Ireland as Lucy Simpson Strother Martin as Poe Margaret Blye as Gayleen Schoonover Speed s girlfriend Michael McGuire as Chick Gandil Felice Orlandi as Le Beau Edward Walsh as Pettibone Bruce Glover as Doty Robert Tessier as Jim Henry Nick Dimitri as Street Frank McRae as Hammerman Maurice Kowalewski as Caesare Naomi Stevens as Madam Lyla Hay Owen as Waitress John Creamer as Apartment Manager Robert Castleberry as Counterman Becky Allen as Poe s Date Thomas Jefferson uncredited cameo 5 Production editDevelopment edit In the early 1970s Walter Hill had developed a strong reputation as a screenwriter particularly of action films such as The Getaway He was approached by Larry Gordon when the latter was head of production at AIP who offered Hill the chance to direct one of his scripts AIP had recently done this with John Milius on Dillinger 1973 Gordon subsequently moved over to Columbia where he established a unit making low budget action films and got funding for Hill s project it was to be the first from Gordon s unit 6 Hill wrote and directed for scale even though the truth is I would have paid them for the chance 7 The project began as an original screenplay by Bryan Gindoff and Bruce Henstell called The Streetfighter 8 Hill thought the project could become more up market if he made it more like a Western and set it in the past Gordon was from New Orleans and suggested setting it in that city Hill says the script incorporated elements of an earlier Western he had written Lloyd Williams and his Brother He wrote it in a style inspired by Alexander Jacobs extremely spare almost Haiku style Both stage directions and dialogue 7 Hill wrote one draft then rewrote it five or six times before I finally got it But I did get it and I knew it I knew it was going to get an actor and get made 7 Casting edit Hill says he originally wrote the film intending to cast a younger actor like Jan Michael Vincent and that he wanted Warren Oates to play Coburn s role 9 According to Hill they had offered it to a couple of actors and they didn t want to do it Then it was sent to Charles Bronson even though Hill thought he was too old A day later Bronson s agent called back and said Bronson had read the script and wanted to do the film but he had to meet me He wanted to see if I measured up 10 Hill remembers that Bronson was in remarkable physical condition for a guy his age I think he was about 52 at the time He had excellent coordination and a splendid build His one problem was that he was a smoker so he didn t have a lot of stamina I mean he probably could have kicked anybody s ass on that movie but he couldn t fight much longer than 30 or 40 seconds 9 Hill later said Bronson received very close to a million dollars for his role 2 Pre production edit The film was shot on location in Louisiana Hill says his cinematographer Philip 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 I can already tell you you are ahead of other directors He said Anything we shoot we will cut together He said The problem that you re going to have is making everybody getting along and you getting what you want And he was of course 100 percent right That is the problem with direction Beyond my first or second film I don t think I ve ever had terrible dilemmas based upon resources but shooting and figuring out how is not a problem never was The problems that you have are getting everybody to be on the same page 11 Hill says that Bronson was more supportive to work with than Coburn Bronson was a very angry guy Didn t get along with a lot of people The only reason I can tell you he and I got along well was he respected that I wrote the script He liked the script Also I didn t try to get close to him Kept it very business like I think he liked that Jimmy Coburn who everybody liked and got along well with he and I did not get along well I think he was not in a good mood about being in a movie with Charlie it was second banana He had been up there more and his career was coming back a bit I don t think he was wild about being second banana But Charlie was a big star perceived to be low rent That was part of his anger He thought there was a cosmic injustice when he was not a movie star at 35 He didn t get there till 45 or whatever However When things had seemed to not be working well or there was some impasse Charlie would come down hard on my side That was tipping point 11 Hill had troubles with Strother Martin When he was good he was very good but he could be just awful Hill later said I said to him once Divide it in half Strother and he said In half and I answered That s if you want it to be in the movie 12 Hill said he used few tracking shots and zoom shots because I like to work within frame and composition but when you move your camera you can lose composition because it is altering shape He also decided to use background music quiet and subdued to get a sense of restraint in the movie people fighting is an ugly thing and I didn t want to encourage people to go out and fight The concept of movie was hopefully legendary and somewhat heroic so that one couldn t really take a realistic approach 13 Hill said the fights were dances That is why there was no blood People commented the fights are great but they would have been better if you had put some blood in them What they don t realize is as soon as you put blood in those fights they would then have gotten so real that they would have lost their dramatic truth 14 The original cut of the movie was around two hours long When it was cut down to around 90 minutes several fight scenes were deleted Some stills however show some of the deleted fights Hill described the music as kind of western kind of simple and country Nicely understated 14 Release editThe film was profitable and in 2009 Hill said he was still receiving money from it 9 It was the best deal I ever made he recalled Got a career out of it Picture was well received on the whole made money Got me off and going 11 However he never made another film with Bronson We had kind of a falling out over the film the director said He thought I d been a little too how do I put this Too draconian in my editing of his wife s Jill Ireland s scenes 9 The movie established a template to which Hill often returned My heroes usually have a very talkative foil opposite them or reluctantly alongside them such as Bruce Dern in The Driver or Eddie Murphy in 48 Hrs or James Coburn in Hard Times I like the kind of dialogue between people who have a mutual goal but very disparate appetites and needs so that there s always a kind of friction that runs throughout the film They don t like each other very much and hopefully the movie supplies a reason for them to achieve a grudging kind of respect for each other 15 Reception editCritical response edit The film has a 94 fresh rating on the film review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes based on 16 critic s reviews 16 Pauline Kael called the setting of Hard Times elaborate period recreations that seem almost to be there for their own sake The film is about the personalities of street fighters and their agents people on the margins of society On the other hand setting the film in the Depression might have been a way for Hill to make Chaney a more sympathetic character Kael explains Put Charles Bronson in modern clothes and he s a hard bitten tough guy but with that cap on he s one of the dispossessed an honest man who s known hunger 17 Roger Ebert in his October 14 1975 review of Hard Times in the Chicago Sun Times called it a powerful brutal film containing a definitive Charles Bronson performance 18 See also editList of American films of 1975 List of boxing filmsReferences edit Stanley John May 27 2007 Walter Hill s Dark visions San Francisco Chronicle Retrieved 2007 12 12 a b RICHARD TURNER Aug 23 1989 How Larry Gordon Got His 100 Million Movie Deal Wall Street Journal p B1 Hard Times A Worldwide Winner Variety 11 February 1976 p 14 Hard Times Blu ray DVDBeaver Retrieved 11 November 2017 Yanow Scott 2001 The trumpet kings the players who shaped the sound of jazz trumpet San Francisco ISBN 0879306408 OCLC 45871220 a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint location missing publisher link Murphy Mary Sep 18 1974 New Film Gift From Linda Los Angeles Times p f18 a b c McGilligan Patrick June 2004 Walter Hill Last Man Standing Film International Retrieved November 28 2007 Hill John Sep 5 1976 The Original Hard Time Los Angeles Times p j2 a b c d Jon Zelazny Kicking Ass with Walter Hill The Hollywood Interview 8 Sept 2009 Tough Little Stories Director Walter Hill at 92Y Tribeca Filmmaker Magazine 29 January 2013 a b c Interview with Walter Hill Chapter 4 Directors Guild of America accessed 12 July 2014 Gross Larry 22 May 1982 The 48 hrs Diaries Part Three Philosophical in San Francisco Archived from the original on 2012 01 29 Munn Mike Walter Hill on his way to the top unknown p 32 a b Greco Mike Hard Riding Film Comment Vol 16 no 3 May Jun 1980 New York pp 13 19 80 John Patterson Walter Hill a life in the fast lane The Guardian 18 July 2014 accessed 6 February 2015 Hard Times Rotten Tomatoes Kael Pauline The Visceral Poetry of Pulp CSUN Cinematheque Notes Hard Times The Driver 2005 6 7 Ebert Roger Review at www rogerebert comNotes edit Known as The Streetfighter in some regions 4 External links editHard Times at IMDb nbsp Hard Times at AllMovie Roger Ebert s original review of Hard Times Archived 2011 09 26 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Hard Times 1975 film amp oldid 1216530098, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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