Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: Hard Times/The Streetfighter (1975) - Hill debuts with Bronson gold, a boxing favorite

1/31/2023

Hard Times/The Streetfighter (1975) - Hill debuts with Bronson gold, a boxing favorite

♥♥♥♥♥♥

An imagination-fueling poster for Walter Hill's Hard Times that effectively sets us in a specific place and time

A fortune-hunting boxing promoter finds his new bare-knuckle sensation in an unimpressed man, who can punch so that even the heaviest adversaries see stars. But the promoter will have to borrow a big amount to get his new fighter going.

Hard Times is written by Bryan Gindoff (The Candy Snatchers (1973)), Bruce Henstell (The Candy Snatchers, assistant director) and debuting co-writer/director, Californian master filmmaker Walter Hill (48 Hrs. (1982)).

An enormously simple story gets presented in the most beautiful way in Hill's period boxing drama; handsome sets, beautiful image compositions (cinematography by Philip H. Lathrop (Class Reunion (1982))) and an iconic performance by Charles Bronson (Murphy's Law (1986)). Some of the nuances here lie in the fact that one senses the inherent degradation in having to fight until blood spurts in order to survive; SPOILER along with the ending's implicit point about protecting and helping those you have fought along with, even if you don't care much for them.

James Coburn (Intrepid (2000)) is strong as the promoter, a man caught between a rock and a hard place. The scene in which Bronson sets things right in Louisiana is fantastic. The film's final fight, (despite the fact that the camera doesn't linger much on the impact of the punches), is the fight of the decade.

Hard Times is a phenomenal, inconspicuous song of a hero, a gift for men - and probably Bronson's best starring picture.

Walter Hill: Alien 3 (1992) or, The Monsters Go to Jail! (co-writer)

Another 48 Hrs. (1990) - More of the same from your buddies Hill, Murphy & Nolte

48 Hrs. (1982) or, Reluctant Partners

The Getaway (1972) - McQueen/Peckinpah hit the bank with unrefined thriller (writer)

Watch 3 minutes of the film's beginning here

Cost: 2.7 - 3.1 mil. $ (different reports)

Box office: Reportedly 26.5 mil. $

= Mega-hit (returned 8.54-9.81 times its cost)

[Hard Times was released 13 August (France) and runs 93 minutes. AIP producer Lawrence Gordon gave Hill the chance to direct after he had been successful with a number of action screenplays. Bronson was paid "almost 1 mil. $" for his performance. Shooting took place around September 1974 in Texas, Arizona, Los Angeles, California, and in New Orleans, Louisiana. The film's box office numbers are not easy to dig up; the-numbers.com allege that it made 5 mil. $ in North America, relatively little compared to the 26.5 mil. $ total gross listed elsewhere, and the fact that Hill in 2009 said that he still received profits from the film. Roger Ebert gave the film a 3/4 star review, translating to 2 notches under this one. Hill returned with The Driver (1978). Bronson returned in Breakheart Pass (1975); Coburn in Skyriders (1976). Hard Times is fresh at 92 % with a 7.00/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Hard Times?

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

Born in Ohio, Hall didn't start acting until he was 30. His long list of credits include Zabriskie Point (1970), Miami Vice (1987, TV-series), Midnight Run (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Cheers (1993, TV-series), Hard Eight (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Seinfeld (1991-98), Rush Hour (1998), The Insider (1999), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), The Zodiac (2005), Zodiac (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004-09), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Modern Family (2011-12) and many more. Hall passed away at age 90. R.I.P.

Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

Eagerly anticipating this week ... (14-24)

1/31/2023

Hard Times/The Streetfighter (1975) - Hill debuts with Bronson gold, a boxing favorite

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