Walter Hill celebrates his 83rd birthday on January 10th, 2025. He has made so many great films in his career, but the one that stands out the most to me is his directorial debut from 1975, HARD TIMES, with Charles Bronson, James Coburn, Jill Ireland, and Strother Martin. The film was known as THE STREETFIGHTER in some parts of the world, like England, but due to Sonny Chiba’s “Street Fighter” movie from around the same time, the producers decided to go with HARD TIMES in America.
Here are a few more interesting facts about Hill’s directorial debut:
- Chaney (Bronson) was originally supposed to be a much younger man, with Jan-Michael Vincent being considered for the role.
- Charles Bronson was 52 years old when he made HARD TIMES. According to Hill, Bronson “was in remarkable physical condition for a guy his age…. He had excellent coordination, and a splendid build. His one problem was that he was a smoker, so he didn’t have a lot of stamina. I mean, he probably could have kicked anybody’s ass on that movie, but he couldn’t fight much longer than 30 or 40 seconds.”
- According to Hill, Charles Bronson was easier to work with than James Coburn. Hill would say “Bronson was a very angry guy who didn’t get along with a lot of people. The only reason I can tell you he and I got along well was he respected that I wrote the script. He liked the script. I didn’t try to get close to him. Kept it very business-like. I think he liked that. James Coburn, who everybody liked and got along well with, he and I did not get along well. I think he was not in a good mood about being in a movie with Charlie, it was second banana. He had been up there more, and his career was coming back a bit. I don’t think he was wild about being second banana. But Charlie was a big star… and when things had seemed to not be working well, or there was some impasse, Charlie would come down hard on my side. That was a tipping point”.
- Walter Hill thought the project could become more “up market” if he made it more like a Western and set it in the past. Hill incorporated elements of an earlier Western he had written, “Lloyd Williams and his Brother”. He wrote it in a style inspired by Alex Jacobs–“extremely spare, almost Haiku style. Both stage directions and dialogue.”
- The settings for the Capcom arcade game Street Fighter are taken right from HARD TIMES. This film is titled “The Street Fighter” in Japan, and the game designer was instructed to take inspiration from this film. He did just that and copied many of them directly.
I’m so thankful for Walter Hill and HARD TIMES. In fact, it’s my all-time favorite film, as well as the first review I ever published for The Shattered Lens.
So, if you like movies like HARD TIMES, THE DRIVER, THE WARRIORS, THE LONG RIDERS, SOUTHERN COMFORT, 48 HRS., EXTREME PREJUDICE, and RED HEAT, join us in celebrating the great director Walter Hill on his 83rd birthday. He has brought me countless hours of joy over the years!
Here’s a trailer from the Masters of Cinema for HARD TIMES…
Through the Shattered Lens 
Many Happy Returns to a filmmaker and storyteller we all enjoy! Recently watched ‘ALIEN: ROMULUS’ (2024) and Walter Hill is one of the Producers along with Ridley Scott. Hill took a cut at the script for the first movie, ALIEN (1979) so created the ‘universe’ and has been a Producer ever since for the follow-ons. Recently learned Hill had an association with Steve McQueen films, like BULLITT (1968), THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR (1968), THE GETAWAY (1972). Also, 48 HOURS script had been around so long that the original stars were supposed to be Clint Eastwood and Richard Pryor, Hill has a lot of stories about Hollywood! Speaking of ‘Hollywood stories’, there are several calculations for his age, but let’s go with 83!:-) Tarantino likes Walter Hill, too. Thank you, Brad!
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Hill has dabbled in so much over the years. I liked his HBO series DEADWOOD. Did you ever see that? His movies over the last 20 years haven’t been great, but you can never take away HARD TIMES and so many of those other classics.
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Yes, I did enjoy DEADWOOD all 36 episodes, and the two-hour movie. HBO didn’t want to pay the production licensing fee anymore. Am also a fan of John Milius and David Milch (who wrote on Hill Street Blues, NYPD Blue, etc. with Stephen Bochco and David Anspaugh and Michael Duggan). Seem ironic, that I like to read about writers, but it only coincidence.:-) Well, I’m grateful to Walter Hill, and also to you, Brad! Thanks!
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I’ve never watched the movie. I almost feel like I need to rewatch the entire series to get ready for the movie and I haven’t gotten around to that yet.
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You are good, the movie is a ‘standalone’. The series ended in 2006 and the movie came out in 2019, thirteen years later. My recollection is HBO was going into S4 and had six episodes complete. In 2007, HBO CEO Chris Albrecht got a bad case of “show business behavior” if you know what I mean and I think you do! (lots on the internet). That behavior costs a lot of money, and HBO cancelled some marquee shows like Deadwood. The plan was to make three two-hour movies with the completed scripts. But the sets were torn down, and project shelved. The movie idea was revived in 2019, David Milch got writer credit and went into assisted living as he blah, blah, blah (lots on the internet). But! The actors all kept their look (Timothy Olymphant was a D1 swimmer at USC) and I’m recalling the one two-hour movie being a Christmas movie. Hmmm. If you ever want to read a fun book about marquee tv shows and the writers (Breaking Bad, Sopranos, Deadwood, The Wire, etc.) DIFFICULT MEN by Brett Martin is great!
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*****OOOPS! meant, SIX EPISODES WRITTEN (not complete!) *****
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