Hard Times (1975 film)

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. For the next fight against local brawling champ Jim Henry, Speed gets a loan from a gang of local mobsters headed by Doty to pay sponsor/fish tycoon Chick Gandil. Chick then unexpectedly raises the stakes to $3000 instead of the usual $1000. To cover the shortfall, Speed sets up a fight at odds with a Southerner named Pettibone. 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, brandishes a gun, flattens the hood's goons, shoots up the place, and gets the winnings from Pettibone after clubbing him with the pistol. 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 Gandil. 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, despite Poe's pleas. His relationship with Lucy ends as she finds a new man who offers more stability and has a “real job.” Chaney shows for the bout with Street. The Chicago fighter proves 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, instructing Poe to take care of his stray cat. == Cast==

• Charles 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) == Production ==

Development 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. Hill wrote and directed for scale even though "the truth is, I would have paid them for the chance." 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 (which also had a fighting component). He wrote it in a style inspired by Alexander Jacobs – "extremely spare, almost Haiku style. Both stage directions and dialogue." 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." 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." Hill later said Bronson received "very close to a million" dollars for his role. Pre-production 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. 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." 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." == Release ==

The film was profitable and in 2009, Hill said he was still receiving money from it. 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." ==Reception==

Critical response The film has a 71% fresh rating on the film review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes based on 89 critic's reviews. The consensus summarizes: "Hard Times occasionally gets knocked down by its slight and overly brutish narrative, but strong performances, atmospheric grit, and Walter Hill's sparse direction elevate it into a compellingly pulpy fable." 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." 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". ==See also==