Welcome to Hard Times (1967)

When the film begins, a crazed gunman (Aldo Ray) comes into a crappy western town and terrorizes everyone. He brutalizes the women, burns down many of the buildings and kills a bunch of men--all the while, the town's mayor, Blue (Henry Fonda) does nothing. Eventually, the man leaves and Blue tries to put what's left of the town (and there ain't much) back in one piece.After a VERY long time and LOTS of meandering, the crazed gunman returns. What will Blue do? And, will you still be watching it by the time this EXTREMELY muddled ending occurs?!I have rarely seen a western that seemed to have no idea what it was talking about and left the viewers THIS confused and unsatisfied. The final scenes just seemed random and pointless--and most of it due to Fonda's confusing character. A seriously disappointing film that could easily have been better.

this is one of the lousiest movies i've ever seen.The only reason i kept watching this is because i was trying to understand why H.Fonda was in this movie.It seems to be trying to promote pacifism but its so stupidly done that it actually manages the complete opposite,the viewer is convinced by the end of this movie that guns and violence are absolutely necessary.Fonda's character doesn't make any sense other than he is a total spineless coward.There is absolutely no rational excuse for his actions.The whole story is supposed to convince the viewer that Fonda's character is right,but there is very little argument in favor of a man who just sits around doing nothing to stop evil because he is afraid. Seems to me Fonda had played too many heroes before this and tried something different without thinking if it made any sense. Lousy and pointless movie.

It's amazing that Henry Fonda made the fantastic "Once Upon a Time in the West" the same year, or thereabouts, that he made this atrocity. Tonally inept, directed like a school play, with an obnoxious, heavy-handed score, this is an object lesson in how not to make a western. As you probably know by now, an impossibly brutal killer terrorizes a small town but no one has the courage to stand up to him. You'd think they could hand out a few guns and encircle the guy, instead of taking him on one at a time. Various central-casting western types cycle through, brandishing their mustaches and petticoats, and seem to have been left to their own devices on such matters as line readings (Keenan Wynn, in particular, barks his dialog as though dictating it to a sign painter). Ersatz Aaron Copeland music kicks up for interminable montages of town-building. Henry Fonda and Janice Rule have the same argument for two hours until, mercifully, some bloodshed makes the conversation moot. You will mourn the two hours of your life you sacrificed on the altar of this inert flick.

"Welcome to Hard Times" (Burt Kennedy, 1967) is a visibly cheap, shabby little Western starring Henry Fonda in his senior stage as a movie star. The film reflects the anarchic dissonance and harsh violence of the newfangled "spaghetti" Westerns then pouring out of Europe, but ultimately its sensibility and construction belong to television. It's a traditional Western (partly comedic and partly melodramatic) that plays like a bunch of TV Western episodes pasted together in slack fashion, while also projecting some of that "spaghetti" dirtiness and desolation. The 61-year old Fonda (playing a 49-year old but looking his real age) is excellent as a wary, avuncular, impotent realist who shies away from violence and heroic action until he has no other choice. Janice Rule, as Fonda's testily neurotic and misguided female antagonist, is also stellar, as is Aldo Ray as the wildly destructive stranger, an anarchic monster periodically haunting this muddy little outpost (which can hardly be considered a town). Unfortunately, these actors are diamonds in dung in a tonally inconsistent, unfocused, and clumsy little Western from Kennedy. The spastic, sudden violence of the opening and closing acts, and the conflict between Fonda and Rule over the fate of the young boy (played by 13-year old Michael Shea), make "Welcome to Hard Times" worthy of a look. However, the picture isn't pretty.