MartinHafer
When the film begins, a crazed gunman (Aldo Ray) comes into a crappy western town and terrorizes everyone. He brutalizes the women, burns down many of the buildings and kills a bunch of men--all the while, the town's mayor, Blue (Henry Fonda) does nothing. Eventually, the man leaves and Blue tries to put what's left of the town (and there ain't much) back in one piece.After a VERY long time and LOTS of meandering, the crazed gunman returns. What will Blue do? And, will you still be watching it by the time this EXTREMELY muddled ending occurs?!I have rarely seen a western that seemed to have no idea what it was talking about and left the viewers THIS confused and unsatisfied. The final scenes just seemed random and pointless--and most of it due to Fonda's confusing character. A seriously disappointing film that could easily have been better.
krocheav
I had managed to ride clear of Hard Times for many years, but gave in when TCM screened it this week. Such a pity to see Burt Kennedy's name on this woeful film. Then it's such a pity to see anyones name on this film! Not that the poor quality print TCM have helped any, nor did TCMs awful Automatic Sound Level Control - with all it's unnecessary HISS that comes up during the quite scenes or between spoken dialog! When will they ever correct this, and get it right in Aust...?? From some posts, there must be a lot of easily pleased viewers out there. This made for TV Pilot, was not even good enough for TV, let alone Cinema. Just another of those shocking films that helped send MGM to the wolves. The writer of the book must have wanted to 'shoot' the producers after he saw it. This is the type of 'evil' (now called dark) rubbish that copycat film maker Eastwood has re-made endlessly following his Spagetti films...and his are no better than this - just made with more money, and more psycho's!Difficult to find much worth saying about any of it. It wasted: Fonda, Rule, Ray, Spain, and several better than average supporting stars like Fix, Birch, etc. A very good D.O.P. could not even save this trite treatment Such a pity.
qormi
Ranks as one of the worst westerns ever. A fat madman comes into town and starts raping and killing people. As if that weren't enough, he decides to burn down the whole town. All the male citizens of this town of around 20 people are armed. They don't have to fight the guy. They don't have to argue with the guy. They don't have to reason with him. All they have to do is shoot him. He's constantly breaking the tops off whiskey bottles and guzzling enough booze to kill a horse from alcohol poisoning. Yet his vision is perfect - he shoots straight.He jumps on and off his horse in his inebriated state. All they have to do is shoot him. He is alone. He turns around. He bends over. Shoot him. What's wrong with these people? They let him do whatever he wants. It's insane. It's as if Custer and the 7th Calvary stood around while one Indian shoots and scalps them one at a time. This is how the movie begins. Then, he rides away.The next hour is filled with commiserating, arguing, and preaching. Then, he returns and rapes, kills, and burns again. Nobody does anything until it's too late. Do not watch this movie unless you are in a hospital, comatose, and cannot use the remote control.
whpratt1
This is a great Henry Fonda film from 1967 where Fonda plays the role as Mayor Will Blue who is a peace abiding man and hates to use his fists or a weapon against anyone. One day a man visits his town and takes over the entire town, raping women and burning the entire town to the ground. Mayor Will Blue is not very well liked by his town folk, however, he still wants to remain in what is left of his town and refuses to runaway like he has done in his past life. Molly Riordan,(Janice Rule) becomes rather close to Will Blue and also Keenan Wynn, (Zar, Whiskey & Girls) visits the town and opens up a Saloon for prostitutes and booze. Lon Chaney Jr. and Elisha Cook Jr., "I Wake Up Screaming" make very brief appearances in this film but give great supporting roles. This is a great Henry Fonda film which he made when he reached the age of 60 years and was beginning to find very few roles on the Silver Screen and then decided to perform on the Broadway Stage in New York City. Enjoy.
AD
