Walter Hill is one of those directors that has several films that I consider to be among my all-time favorites. THE DRIVER(due out from Twilight Time later this summer), THE WARRIORS, SOUTHERN COMFORT and even STREETS OF FIRE are films I hold very close to my heart. That being said, I'd never seen HARD TIMES until this viewing. That's pretty ridiculous, especially considering how much I love Charles Bronson AND that's it's Walter Hill's directorial debut. It's a great film and I can't believe it took me so long to finally get to it. For my money, HARD TIMES is a better boxing movie than ROCKY, which would come out the following year.

The Great Depression-era backdop adds some grit to the proceedings. Hill really gets some nice period detail into the grimy locations he's chosen. There's a palpable air of desperation that can be felt throughout. There's also an undercurrent of darkness as well. A sense that these guys may be in over their heads and the bottom could drop out at any moment. Gambling in this era is even more difficult for me to watch for some reason. Funny and fitting that Twilight Time would release to gambling pictures on Blu-ray on the same day. An excellent choice!
THE ONLY GAME IN TOWN(1970; George Stevens)
In Robert K. Elder's new book The Best Film You've Never Seen, he interviews a bunch of directors about films they think are forgotten or took a critical beat down when they were released. He told me that one interview he didn't get, but wanted to was with Vincent Gallo.
The film Gallo had chosen to talk about was THE ONLY GAME IN TOWN. This was no surprise for me to hear because I remembered hearing a great interview Gallo did with Elvis Mitchell right around 2000 or so. He discussed some of his favorite films with Elvis and he specifically mentioned an affection for Warren Beatty. I'm pretty sure I recall him mentioning LILITH, ALL FALL DOWN, MICKEY ONE and of course, THE ONLY GAME IN TOWN. I made a point to see all of them. ONLY GAME is my favorite of the four. It's one of the best gambling films I've ever seen. I put it right up there with CALIFORNIA SPLIT(which is the best gambling movie ever made in my opinion).Warren Beatty had quite a run of amazing films from the late 60s through the mid to late 70s. Many of them are not spoken about nearly enough. This is certainly one those that has nearly been completely forgotten at this point. Due in no small part to a lack of availability for quite a while. It's unfortunate because not only is Beatty great in it, but Liz Taylor is as well. In fact I think it's one of her best performances ever. In fact George Stevens directed both her best turns(this and A PLACE IN THE SUN). This would be Stevens' final film and it's really one of the better swan songs a director ever had. Not only in that I think it's a very good movie, but also in the story and themes that he's covering here. They seem to fit well as a final movie for some reason I can't even exactly articulate.

Still Available!
COVER GIRL(1944; Charles Vidor)My favorite kinds of musicals are typically those where the characters are working on or star some kind of stage show and that's where the singing comes in. I always find this less distracting than those films where characters burst into song out of nowhere. For the most part, COVER GIRL is the former kind of musical. It does have several "burst into song" sequences, but I must say I rather enjoyed most of those in this instance.

Though it was released in July of 2012 in a limited run of 3000 copies, there are still copies available at Screen Archives. Get em before they're gone!
http://www.screenarchives.com/title_detail.cfm?ID=20127
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