Hard Times 1975 123movies

Watch: Hard Times 1975 123movies, Full Movie Online – During the Great Depression, the mysterious drifter Chaney befriends the promoter of illegal street fights Speed and they go to New Orleans to make money fighting on the streets. Speed is welcomed by his mistress Gayleen Schoonoverand invites his former partner Poe to team-up with them. Meanwhile Chaney has a love affair with the local Lucy Simpson. Speed has a huge debt with the dangerous loan shark Doty and borrows money to promote the fight of Chaney and the local champion Jim Henry, who is managed by the also promoter. Casey wins the fight, they make a lot of money but Speed is an addicted gambler and loses his share in the dice table. But Doty wants his money back and Speed’s only chance is Chaney accepts to bet his own money that he is saving and fight a winner that Gandil brought from Chicago. Will he accept the challenge?.
Plot: 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.
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Ratings:

	7.2/10 Votes: 10,974
	92% | RottenTomatoes
	69/100 | MetaCritic
	N/A Votes: 159 Popularity: 10.306 | TMDB

Reviews:

Another great Walter Hill film with a strong cast. Bronson, Coburn, and Martin are all favorites of mine. A depression-era street fighter hooks up with a compulsive gambler and a morphine addict. I’ve watched it multiple times over it’s 40 plus year life. It’s worth your time…

You’re not going to do it for free.

Hard Times sees Charles Bronson play Chaney, a drifter who travels to Louisiana during the Great Depression and begins competing in illegal bare-knuckled boxing matches that are set up by his new found partner Spencer ‘Speed’ Weed (James Coburn). Directed by Walter Hill on his directorial debut & produced by Lawrence Gordon, the film also stars Jill Ireland, Strother Martin, Margaret Blye, Michael McGuire & Robert Tessier.

Hard Times, if you pardon the pun, pulls no punches, it’s tightly scripted (Walter Hill in conjunction with Bryan Gindoff & Bruce Henstell) and thankfully doesn’t get moralistic and didactic on the depression and hard times era in general. This features tough men earning a living, the respect is there, but it is brutal, with the violence on show very effective. It may be too strong for some, but Hill has pulled it together astutely to make sure we know these are masters of their craft during a very troubling time in history. It is by definition, an honest living for our pugilists. The bitterness that is here is reserved for those outside of the fight floor, as Chaney observes a bear in a cage as it roars in almost anguish, that whole scene then says so much without Bronson’s Chaney actually uttering anything. To which it sounds weird to call Hard Times an evocative period piece, but it is. The locations are perfect for the story unfolding, kind of acting as a rich counter point to the violence played out amongst the men. The land worth fighting for perhaps?

Tough and with no little bite, the film benefits from having Bronson as the lead. Yes, Coburn takes the honours for acting gravitas, but Bronson keeps Chaney enigmatically interesting. Chaney is loyal and has the potential for love. We know next to nothing about him, but such is the restraint that Bronson shows in the portrayal, we are grateful to not have had back story filler to bog the story down. This is about this point in a man’s journey and in particular the next phase of that journey, one which we, thanks to Bronson, are personally involved with. It’s a great understated performance from Mr. Buchinsky. Jill Ireland too is excellent with a touching performance as the down-and-out girl who captures Chaney’s attention, while Strother Martin is ever reliable as a dope addict forced to work unlicensed as a medic who Speed has brought in as Chaney’s cuts and bruises guy.

A smashing and undervalued 70s movie that takes this part of history and refuses to entertain by basking in histrionics and parable’s for the masses. Blood, brains and brawn cloaked in an evocative cloud of hope. 8/10

Just perfect !! Why don’t they make ’em like this anymore ??
Just a few days ago I saw HARD TIMES again, after I had seen it already twice some 10 to 20 years down the road. I did remember that I liked it a lot then, but I was not prepared to see how great it actually is! This is one of the movies that gets better with every viewing (liek THE OUTFIT with Bob Duvall)!! Glorious, just perfect and that in EVERY DEPARTMENT!! The OPENING SCENE is so beautiful, it makes you fall on your knees! A long shot of a slowly arriving train in beautifully landscape and run-down buildings of New Orleans, SUPERBLY shot in first rare camera-work, THE MAN standing framed in the door of one of the trains’ wagons, the music (and what music, DeVORZONs probably best score, still unreleased = a shame!) starting slowly and you immediately realize here’s a drifter, a taciturn MAN arriving in town. Charlie looks sad, run down, tired, WITHOUT mustache, not having had much luck in live. These are just the first 3 or 4 minutes, but one probably never will forget them. GREAT! Like many of the directors, who started their work in the 70ies, Walter HILL is no exception to the “rule”, that most of them (if not all of them) made their BEST picture within their first 3 movies released (Carpenter: ASSAULT, Spielberg: DUEL & SUGARLAND EXPRESS, Coppola: THE CONVERSATION, M. Ritchie: PRIME CUT, John Boorman: POINT BLANK, …): Wlater HILL made HARD TIMES as his debut and although he made some nice pictures later-on, none of his later pictures (the DRIVER, which is # 2 included) could beat HARD TIMES. It’s – like EMPEROR OF THE NORTH POLE – a really beautifully shot study of depression-era America.

Bronson’s muscles are – THE MAN being in his mid-50ies then !! – just unbelievable, slim, trim, knock-out hard, every ounce hardened flesh (check out CHATO’S LAND, too!), his acting is 100% on target (he does not look “bored”, how some stupid critics wrote, but the way unlucky-in-life depression-era people would most likely look: sad), he is the ideal man for this role, and that just a year after he made DEATH WISH, which proves he was not out for an easy follow-up movie and certainly far away from getting as type-cast as Golan & Globus made him from Death Wish II (1982) onwards (sigh & weep).

JAMES COBURN is great, too, maybe slightly overdoing his sleaziness, but great nevertheless. Jill Ireland has her usual bit-part, she’s fine & OK, but not outstanding, whereas nearly all the other character parts are just that: outstanding! Nobody plays himself into the foreground, but everybody fits his part 100%. You’ll hardly find any other movie, where the whole cast is as great as in this one.

The STORY is simple but true! I just can’t stand those fancy elaborated twist-here twist-there stories , straight forward simple but high-crafted storytelling, one of THE craftsmanship’s of US cinema in the 40ies to 60ies (Ford, Mann, Huston) is brought here to another peak! The Camera-work is outstanding, too,a s is Barry DEVORZON’s superb bluegrass/jazz/hillbilly score (release it, please!), which is probably just half an hour of music, but certainly deserved a full or at least half-CD release.

In short: BREATHTAKING and certainly one of Charlies best movies of the 70ies (when he made all of his best movies), truly at the same level as MECHANIC & CHATO’S LAND, beating (a little) BREAKOUT and MR. MAJESTYC.

10 out of 10! Go and see yourself!

Anything For a Buck
Both Charles Bronson and Clint Eastwood played during the Seventies bare knuckle prize fighters. But Charles Bronson in Hard Times was infinitely more serious about it whereas Clint’s two films Every Which Way But Loose and Any Which Way You Can were played strictly for laughs.

Hard Times is set during the Great Depression and in those desperate economic straights people would do just about anything for a little cash. Bronson who grew up in that period actually did do some legitimate prize fighting at one time which is why he looks so natural in the role. With the possible exception of Robert Mitchum, I don’t know any other major male film star who came from such a hardscrabble background as Charles Bronson.

James Coburn is his co-star and the two veterans from The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape play beautifully off against each other. Coburn is a gambler/manager. Coburn likes to live life to the fullest and on the edge which exasperates his girl friend Margaret Blye.

It’s Bronson who approaches Coburn, but it’s Coburn with his reckless ways that nearly lands both of them in the toilet with other gamblers and loan sharks. Chief villain of them is Michael McGuire playing Chick Gandil.

An interesting choice of name for a villain because Chick Gandil was the ringleader of the infamous Black Sox who threw the 1919 World Series. I did a little research on Gandil and there was no mention of him being involved in the illegal bare knuckle prize fight game. Wikipedia does mention that Gandil did do some boxing before deciding on baseball as a career. At the time of these bare knuckle fights, the real Chick Gandil was involved in some outlaw semi-pro baseball leagues along with other banned players. And he was from California not New Orleans where this film is set. McGuire however is every inch the rogue Gandil was alleged to be.

Strother Martin gives a good account of himself as a would be doctor who got thrown out of medical school for opium addiction. As it was called back then, Martin was a hop head. He plays the corner man for Bronson.

Hard Times is a nice and occasionally brutal look at how some had to make a living during the Great Depression. A really worthwhile film capturing the era and some of the men who survived it.

Other Information:

Original Language en
Runtime 1 hr 33 min (93 min)
Budget 2700000
Revenue 5000000
Status Released
Rated PG
Genre Crime, Drama, Sport
Director Walter Hill
Writer Walter Hill, Bryan Gindoff, Bruce Henstell
Actors Charles Bronson, James Coburn, Jill Ireland
Country United States
Awards N/A
Production Company N/A
Website N/A

Technical Information:

Sound Mix Mono
Aspect Ratio 2.35 : 1
Camera Panavision Lenses
Laboratory Metrocolor, Culver City (CA), USA (uncredited)
Film Length N/A
Negative Format 35 mm
Cinematographic Process Panavision (anamorphic)
Printed Film Format 35 mm