Cast:
Peter Fonda (Harry Collings), Warren Oates (Arch Harris), Verna Bloom (Hannah Collings), Robert Pratt (Dan Griffen), Severn Darden (McVey), Rita Rogers (Mexican Woman), Ann Doran (Mrs. Sorenson), Ted Markland (Luke), Owen Orr (Mace), Al Hopson (Bartender), Megan Denver (Janey Collings), and Michael McClure (Plummer) Directed by Peter Fonda.
Review:
“I’m sure they would have liked me to do another biker movie. But I wanted to try something different — something more like what my father might have done. I wanted to do a western, because it’s the genre where you can explore the mythologies of America. And, yeah, because of my own psychological links to the genre, because of the many my dad did. I felt I had to do this one because there were no clichés in this script, just western mythology.”
Hey, remember Easy Rider (1969)? That was the movie where Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda worked together on the counterculture movie-oh, sorry, was having a bit of deja vu. But hey, this movie is a directing debut, believe it or not. Fonda had directed exactly zero other things before this movie, no industrial stuff, no TV stuff. Universal gave money to Hopper and Fonda and plenty of privilege to make something for them that presumably would make oodles of money: Hopper went to Peru and Fonda went to New Mexico (okay he filmed a cameo for The Last Movie) and ended up making movies that, well, didn't exactly please the studio. Fonda was interested in the script, as written by Alan Sharp, a Scottish novelist that had gone from TV to film with The Last Run (1971). As it turned out, Sharp would be behind a handful of scripts of varying quality ranging from Night Moves (1975) to The Osterman Weekend (1983) to Rob Roy (1995). Fonda stated in later years that while he expected Easy Rider to make money, he didn't think about the idea of being an icon, and it was with The Hired Hand he wanted to "break that mold" (apparently, one instance of filming was briefly interrupted by a drive-in theater that nearby was playing, well, Easy Rider). At any rate, The Hired Hand was only shown for a few weeks in first-run engagement and Fonda contended that Universal wasn't behind the movie in general.* Apparently, the studio was going to do a billboard promoting the movie with Fonda in a cowboy hat and a billing of "That Easy Rider Rides Again!" that Fonda explicitly (read: preparing to blow it up) told them to take it down. Fonda directed just two more movies in his lifetime: The Idaho Transfer (1975) and Wanda Nevada (1979). The movie did live on in the drive-in circuit for a number of years and even being edited for TV (twenty minutes were actually put back in the movie, featuring Larry Hagman as a sheriff) before a DVD restoration happened in the 2000s, and the movie has a handful of admirers that include Martin Scorsese. Apparently, Fonda showed the movie to his father Henry late in his life, whereupon he stated, "Now, that’s my kind of western."
Admittedly, you can see where Universal probably wasn't big on the movie by the fact that it is a movie firmly about trying to settle oneself in the frontier rather than a slap-bang adventure. Anything that dwells on someone trying to move on from the dusty trail (and finding a reality that probably is a bit feminist, at least in some arguments) rather than duels in the desert has to sound like an art film to those without some sort of patience for a film that just soothes the soul of those who look (and hear) closer. Oh sure, the movie does feature a bit of action throughout its 93-minute runtime, but you will dwell more on the fact that some people really can't just go home again more than anything. The young (as seen in the opening sequence) might not understand what it means to rest, but the weary know all too well about knowing about the grass and how green it seems on the other side. It is funny to see a movie with three distinct presences that grace the screen with varying levels of sensitivity that you sometimes don't even see with experienced directors. Fonda and his understated nature come clear in a yearning that is striking when compared to what one sees with Oates and his natural instincts that does in fact also know what it means to care about certain folks and their feelings. Bloom has her own distinct interests that do not revolve around just letting old wounds go by the wayside. This is made clear in a sequence where she in fact says, yes, she had plenty of time to plow her field when her husband was away. A good chunk of the movie is driven by the very fact that the touch of a person like Bloom sounds more captivating than being on the road any longer but also that one has to earn one's trust and so on and so forth, since it all deals with responsibility in love and friendship. Granted, it isn't a movie to see a terrifying threat (Darden spends a chunk of it crippled, as one does when one's feet have bullets in them), but the resulting clash at the end probably makes for it quite well. The music was composed by Bruce Langhorne, the folk musician who apparently was the inspiration for the Bob Dylan song "Mr. Tambourine Man". Langhorne* did music here with the sitar, fiddle, and banjo and went on to do a handful more movies (ranging from the aforementioned Idaho movie to Melvin and Howard [1980]). Much like the landscape, it sure is a hell of a thing to experience. As a whole. what we have here is a sobering look on responsibility in the frontier for a "far out Western" that might be just up your alley for those looking for a sobering type of movie.
Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.
*I like this one quote by Fonda: “They had no intention, I think, of getting behind it. They hated me and Hopper, but mostly me and Bert Schneider. Yeah, they thought we were trying to overthrow the system. I mean, how egotistical. Overthrow the government, yeah. But Hollywood? Jesus, no…”
*Langhorne, I should point out, did his music without the use of two (and a half) fingers, as he had suffered an accident as a youth.
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