The Harder They Fall, Hardware Wars, and a few more movies

Hard Hunted (1992)
Streaming free at Tubi

A guy holds what looks like a 79¢ soap holder from Bed Bath and Beyond, and says with a (probably fake) British accent that it's "the most valuable artifact in the world."

That's the setup for an hour and a half of cleavagy cheesiness from Andy Sedaris, who makes cheapo boob-centric action movies that objectively suck (Malibu Express, the original Seven), but are still fun if you're in the right mood. This is one of them, and it sucks, and it's fun.

Verdict: YES. 

♦ ♦ ♦  

Hard Luck (1921)
Streaming free at YouTube

Buster Keaton is out of work, out of hope, and heck-bent on killing himself. He lies down in front of an approaching streetcar. He dawdles under a piano being hoisted into a building. He tries to hang himself from a tree branch. But whatever he does, he simply can't suicide.

It's frickin hilarious, and I don't even know how they filmed the last suicide attempt — from a three-story high diving-board to concrete below — without killing Mr Keaton.

If you are in crisis, please call, text or chat with the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988, or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741.

Verdict: YES. 

♦ ♦ ♦ 

The Hard Road (1973)
Streaming free at YouTube

Are you afraid of drugs and promiscuity, and what havoc such horrors have brought for the youth of today? Well, you should be, says this low-rent schlock.

17-year-old Pam gets pregnant, has the baby, but gives it up for adoption. After that, though, she's too embarrassed to go back to school.

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So her dad scores her a job... working for a rock'n'roll promoter! This, of course, brings Pam in contact with all aspects of the wrong element, and her life is certain to be ruined.

Early on, an unidentified dude in white 'doctor clothes' explains, "The creation of a child within her is the peak of a woman's life experience. During this beautiful time, she reaches the ultimate of her femininity." Which is the dumbest thing I've heard this week from anyone not Donald Trump.

Verdict: All schlock all the time, but YES.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

Hard Target (1993)
Available on DVD from your public library

Fresh from his huge Hong Kong successes (Bullet in the Head, Once a Thief, Hard Boiled), action director John Woo came to America, and this was his Hollywood debut. For which Mr Woo has my sympathies.

He was a proven major leaguer in China, but America started him in the minors, with Jean-Claude Van Damme. Nothing against Van Damme, but I think we can all agree he's a step down from Chow Yun-Fat and Tony Leung, the actors Woo had been working with in Hong Kong.

JCVD saves a lady from street hooligans, so she hires him to find her long-missing father. The trail leads to bad guy Lance Henriksen, who's running bum-hunts reminiscent of 1932's The Most Dangerous Game — for a high price, millionaires get to track and kill poor people on the streets of New Orleans. Mr Van Damme, being a righteous dude, objects to this.

Van Damme is Van Damme. Henriksen does nothing but snarl. The actress playing the female lead is given little scriptwise to work with, and delivers only wide-eyed surprise every time JCVD goes leaping and kicking.

My favorite bit is when JCVD shoots a guy 29 times, all from the same pistol without reloading, but still needs his famous sweeping-kick-to-the-head to bring the bad guy down.

Hard Target is adequate lowbrow entertainment, with scaled-back versions of Woo-usual acrobatics and slow-motion macho stuff, but it's soft-boiled, not hard.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

The Harder They Fall (1956)
Streaming free at Internet Archive

A boxing promoter has 'discovered' a musclebound giant in South America, and imports him to the USA to be a pro boxer. Then he hires Eddie Willis (Humphrey Bogart), an out-of-work newspaperman, as the fighter's press agent, to give him a publicity build-up.

Willis makes up a fake biography for the fighter, and the press swallows it. Soon all the fights draw big crowds, so everything's great, right? There's just one hitch: the rookie fighter has a glass jaw and can't punch, and he's only undefeated because the promoter bribes all his opponents to be 'knocked out'.

It's a fight film, yeah, but this ain't Rocky. There's nary a moment of the usual sports-movie heroics.

The Harder They Fall is a plea for honest regulation of boxing, and if it's even half-accurate in its portrayal of rigged fights and promoters taking all the money and advantage, then it accomplished its goal: As ugly as the sport still is, today's boxing is not as cruel, unfair, and dehumanizing as what's shown here.

This was Bogey's last performance, and one of his finest. Rod Steiger and Jan Sterling (Ace in the Hole) co-star, with genuine boxer Max Baer as a brutal champ who refuses a payoff to take a dive.

Excellent in every regard, this was written by Philip Yordan (Detective Story, Dillinger), based on a novel by Budd Schulberg (A Face in the Crowd, On the Waterfront). Cinematography by Burnett Guffey (Birdman of Alcatraz, Bonnie and Clyde). Directed by Mark Robson (Home of the Brave, Von Ryan's Express).

Trivia: Robson's uncle was Sam Jaffe, one of my favorite character actors.

Verdict: BIG YES.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

Hardware Wars (1978)
Streaming free at Tubi

"Meanwhile, in another part of the galaxy, later that same day..." 

Star Wars had been the biggest hit ever at the movies, and played for more than a year in first run, to unanimous acclaim and nonstop buzz. And then Ernie Fosselius (later a founding member of Oingo Boingo) made this hilarious spoof, set to Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyrie."

It's a fast, cheap, frickin' hilarious synopsis of the original, with an iron as the Millennium Falcon, steel wool as space rubble, and cinnamon rolls in Princess Leia's hair.

I first saw Hardware Wars at a sci-fi convention circa 1978, and laughed and laughed and laughed. Saw it again the next day at the same con, and laughed and laughed and laughed. Now I've seen it in 2024, and laughed and laughed and laughed.

For anyone who's seen the original Star Wars, this has to be among the funniest 12½ minutes ever put to film.

"Basketball is a peaceful planet!"

Verdict: BIG YES.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

Hare Tonic (1945)
Streaming free at Internet Archive

Porky Pig's gone hunting, and brought home Bugs Bunny in a basket, but Mr Bunny resists the idea of rabbit stew and instead invents a phony epidemic of rabbititus.

From director Chuck Jones and the mouthwork of Mel Blanc, this is a rather average Loony Tunes cartoon, which means it's funny and smart and you'll be smiling for seven minutes.

Verdict: YES. 

♦ ♦ ♦ 

Harpya (1979; Belgium)
Streaming free at YouTube

Here's a surreal mix of live action and animation, horror done in noir levels of urban darkness, with nekkid boobies on a ghostly bald chick who haunts a hapless man.

It's Belgian, but there's no dialogue, so no need for subtitles. I'll confess to not fully understanding the storyline, but Harpya is quick (8½ minutes), visually appealing, and never boring. It won the Palme d'Or for Best Short Film at the Cannes Film Festival in 1979.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

Harriet (2019)
Available on DVD from your public library

Born to slavery in America's 19th century, Harriet Tubman got head trauma as a child, when her owner launched a heavy metal weight at her head. She recovered from the injury, but was left with recurring hallucinations which she believed were messages from God. When the messages told her to escape to freedom in the north, she did exactly that, and made it all the way to Philadelphia.

That would be enough for one hell of a happily-ever-after, but it wasn't enough for Tubman. She didn't want to be free without her husband and family, so she returned to the plantation she'd escaped from — again and again, 19 frickin' times — eventually leading her family and hundreds of other slaves to freedom.

The Southern bastards never caught her, and come the Civil War she became a Union spy.

Seriously, holy shit!

The good news of Harriet is, Ms Tubman finally gets her biopic. The bad news is, it's not terrific. Despite a slow start, though, the film offers some eye-watering moments, and gets quite engrossing once Harriet's escaped and starts making her journeys back.

British actress Cynthia Erivo is perfect in the title role, and Nina Simone's "Sinnerman" is on the soundtrack just where it's needed. Kudos too for Leslie Odom Jr, playing the Underground Railroad's main man in Philadelphia, aghast and disapproving of Tubman's (honestly) crazy idea of making return trips to the South.

But the screenplay skips or skims over some of the most interesting parts of Tubman's life, and to the best of my sparse knowledge and some quick research, everything about her owner, called Gideon in the movie, is an invention. This guy never existed.

Seems to me, there's enough inherent drama in the life and times of Harriet Tubman that we don't need to mess with it nearly so much.

But if the film wants to invent one white guy intended to represent all the evils of slavery, and even give us a (fictional) climactic confrontation between the ex-slave and her ex-master, having an actor in the role might've helped. Playing Gideon, Joe Alwyn looks like he walked out of some shitty teen drama on the WB, and never comes close to rising above the acting handicap of his stubbly pretty-boy face.

The director, Kasi Lemmons, made Eve's Bayou, a movie I didn't care for, but this is substantially better than that. Overall, it's a good movie, about someone who deserves far better than merely a good movie.

And then, for an added frustration, the closing credits are rendered in a 90% illegible font.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦  

• Gena Rowlands, star of Gloria and A Woman Under the Influence, dies at 94 

• RIP, Sergio Donati 

• When Salvador Dalí and Alfred Hitchcock brought surrealism to Hollywood

8/16/2024   

• • • Coming attractions • • •     

The Harryhausen Chronicles (1998)
Harsh Times (2005)
Harvey (1950)
Hatari! (1961)
Zero for Conduct (1933)

... plus schlock, shorts, and surprises

— — —

Now accepting movie recommendations,
especially starting with the letter 'I'.
Just add a comment, below.
— — —

Illustration by Jeff Meyer. Click any image to enlarge. Arguments & recommendations are welcome, but no talking once the lights dim, and only real butter on the popcorn, not that fake yellow stuff. 

 

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