Hard Times (1975)

Director:

Walter Hill

Writers:

Walter Hill (screenplay) and
Bryan Gindoff (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

4 September 1975 (Netherlands)

Genre:

Action | Drama

Tagline:

New Orleans, 1933. In those days words didn't say much. [DVD]

Plot:

In the depression, Chaney, a strong silent streetfighter, joins with Speed, a promoter of no-holds-barred street boxing bouts...

Plot Keywords:

New Orleans | Gambling | Tough Guy | Bare Knuckle Fighting | 1930s

Cast

Charles Bronson	...	Chaney
James Coburn	...	Speed
Jill Ireland	...	Lucy Simpson
Strother Martin	...	Poe
Margaret Blye	...	Gayleen Schoonover (as Maggie Blye)
Michael McGuire	...	Gandil
Felice Orlandi	...	Le Beau
Edward Walsh	...	Pettibon
Bruce Glover	...	Doty
Robert Tessier	...	Jim Henry
Nick Dimitri	...	Street
Frank McRae	...	Hammerman
Maurice Kowaleski	...	Caesare (as Maurice Kowalewski)
Naomi Stevens	...	Madam
Lyla Hay Owen	...	Waitress

Also Known As:

Street Fighter (Philippines: English title)
The Streetfighter (UK)

Runtime:

93 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Metrocolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:PG | UK:AA (original rating) | West Germany:16 (f) | Finland:K-16 | Netherlands:12 | Norway:15 (video rating) | Norway:16 (original rating) | Singapore:NC-16 | Sweden:15 | UK:15 | USA:PG

Filming Locations:

New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

Company:

Columbia Pictures Corporation

Trivia:

Charles Bronson's Chaney is a man of few words, speaking barely 500 of them in the entire course of the film.

Goofs:

Anachronisms: Not only are the heralds seen painted on the boxcars from the 1960's, the boxcars, themselves, are of a design type dating from the 1950's and later.

Quotes:

Poe: Some are born to fail, others have it thrust upon them.

Movie Connections:

Remade as Sucker Punch (2008)

Some of the best fight scenes

Great role for Bronson.

Compare Bronson's fighting style with almost any other fight movie like Kirk Douglas in 'Champion' or Stallone in the 'Rocky' series. Bronson slips and ducks his opponent's punches like a real fighter does, putting as much effort into not getting hit as he does hitting the other guy. Any fighter taking the hits that most movie boxers take would be unconscious or dead in a matter of minutes, and even sluggers like Rocky Marciano and George Frazier were constantly moving, never offering a good target.

This depression era movie is similar in flavor to the Lee Marvin Ernest Borgnine vehicle 'Emperor of The North'. Both movies have unsentimental, tough, taciturn heroes who communicate more with glances and gestures.