{"id":33853,"date":"2023-09-23T06:24:00","date_gmt":"2023-09-23T10:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=33853"},"modified":"2023-09-23T06:24:00","modified_gmt":"2023-09-23T10:24:00","slug":"hard-times-1975-directed-by-walter-hill-starring-charles-bronson-james-coburn-z-view","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=33853","title":{"rendered":"“Hard Times” (1975) directed by Walter Hill, starring Charles Bronson & James Coburn \/ Z-View"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/b><\/p>\n

Hard Times <\/em><\/strong>(1975)<\/span><\/p>\n

Director: Walter Hill<\/strong><\/p>\n

Screenplay: Walter Hill, Bryan Gindoff, Bruce Henstell <\/strong>from a story by Bryan Gindoff, Bruce Henstell<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stars: Charles Bronson<\/strong>, James Coburn, Jill Ireland, Strother Martin, Margaret Blye, Michael McGuire, Michael McGuire, Bruce Glover, Robert Tessier, Nick Dimitri, Maurice Kowalewski, Naomi Stevens, Brion James<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>and Frank McRae.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tagline: New Orleans, 1933. In those days words didn’t buy much.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Plot\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

1933.\u00a0 The depression rages.\u00a0 A man known only as Chaney (Bronson) travels the rails from town to town.\u00a0 He makes some money and moves on.\u00a0 In New Orleans, Chaney happens on a warehouse where underground fights are taking place.\u00a0 High rollers bet on the outcomes of each match.<\/p>\n

Chaney watches with interest.\u00a0 Chaney later meets with Spencer “Speed” Weed.\u00a0 Weed manages fighters.\u00a0 Chaney offers Weed the opportunity to manage him. They agree on percentages and head back to the warehouse.\u00a0 When a promoter offers odds for anyone to take on his fighter, Chaney accepts. Odds are given and bets placed.\u00a0 Chaney has six dollars to his name and bets it all on himself.\u00a0 When he easily knocks out the other fighter, Speed sees dollar signs.<\/p>\n

Speed tells Chaney he has a plan. If Chaney can beat a well known undefeated fighter, they stand to make a lot of money.\u00a0 Chaney agrees.\u00a0 Little do they know the double crosses that await.<\/p>\n

Thoughts (beware of spoilers)<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

Hard Times<\/em> was Walter Hill’s directorial debut.\u00a0 Hill followed Hard Times<\/em> by directing The Driver, The Warriors, The Long Riders, Southern Comfort, 48hrs.<\/em> and Streets of Fire<\/em>.\u00a0 What other director came out of the shoot with so many hits?<\/p>\n

Hill’s original idea was for Chaney to be a younger actor. Someone like Jan Michael Vincent.\u00a0 While that would have worked, when Charles Bronson expressed interest, it was pretty much a done deal.\u00a0 I think that having Chaney be an older guy (Bronson was 53 at the time) works to the film’s benefit.<\/p>\n

Bronson and Hill got along well, but never made another film together.\u00a0 Bronson wasn’t happy with Hill’s opinion of Jill Ireland’s (Bronson’s wife) acting.\u00a0 He also didn’t like that some of her scenes were cut.<\/p>\n

Hard Times\u00a0<\/em>is one of my favorite Charles Bronson films.\u00a0 It’s gets better with each new viewing.<\/p>\n

Hard Times <\/em><\/strong>(1975) rates 4 of 5 stars.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hard Times (1975) Director: Walter Hill Screenplay: Walter Hill, Bryan Gindoff, Bruce Henstell from a story by Bryan Gindoff, Bruce<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[17,54,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-celebs","category-movies","category-z-view"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33853"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33870,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33853\/revisions\/33870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}