The Hired Hand

on

The Hired Hand 

Moviedrome Introduction

No Video - Just Text 

Film Details


Release Date: 1971

Director: Peter Fonda

Stars:
Peter Fonda as Harry Collings
Warren Oates as Arch Harris
Verna Bloom as Hannah Collings

Plot Summary:
Harry, Arch and a young man have spent 7 years drifting around the wild west.  After an incident with a local "gangster", Harry decides to head back to his long suffering wife and ranch, convincing Arch to come with him. Quickly, the past catches up with them and Harry has decisions to make - loyalty to his role as husband, or as friend.

Personal History

Never heard of it. Never seen it. The movie poster above would suggest that it would hold little interest, looking like a standard 1950s Horse Opera. Even though I like Warren Oates as an actor.

Current Review

Hippy Westerns..... who knew such an sub-genre existed. The version I watched was just 90 minutes long and with poor dialogue, its doesn't make total sense. I understand that there is an additional twenty minutes - that includes an uncredited Larry Hagman, that may have added some much needed detail. Interestingly, this was added in during restoration and then subsquently removed again by Peter Fonda for the "director's cut".

The movie came about from the success of Easy Rider.  The main talent on that film each given $1m to go off an attempt to recreate the formula. Low budget, low expectations, appealing to the new generation of movie goers. This is the "future inspiration" section sorted easier than most.

Ignoring some flashy and trippy camera techniques - including frequent vom inducing zooms - the cinematography is excellent, capturing the Western vistas.  Plenty of pseudo religious iconography, if you pay attention. 

Hired Hands, working on the farm

The soundtrack is notable - with a haunting but repetitious score from Bruce Langhorne.

It's a simple story - man leaves wife, man comes back to wife, gangsters cause trouble, man meets destiny. Would Hannah have taken a man back after 7 years, who seemingly just drifted off?  Verna Bloom plays the downtrodden woman well, with a nice feminist bent in that she didn't really save herself for him.

Non formulaic and interesting film.... better than expected.

Quirky Facts

  • The role of Harry was originally offered to Jack Nicholson.  Other commitments meant this didn't happen 

Quotes

  • Arch Harris: [to an insistently insinuating stranger in a bar] You can always tell a man who's got something on his mind. He keeps talkin' to people he don't know.  

Sustenance

Cowboys eat beans but I don't think a Tuscan bean soup for lunch really counts.  Post Christmas moderation does not permit whiskey or tequila for cinematic sustenance. 

Future Inspiration

I am currently reading "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls" - a gossipy look at the new Hollywood of the 1970s. This film fits in rather nicely the book's themes, with many of the same "players" documented.  Easy Rider and the films that were spawned is an obvious choice;

  • Easy Rider
  • The Last Movie
  • Drive, He Said
  • A Safe Place
  • Five Easy Pieces


  

Comments

Post a Comment