The Last Hard Men (1976)

Director:

Andrew V. McLaglen

Writers:

Brian Garfield (novel)
Guerdon Trueblood (writer)

Release Date:

1 June 1976 (USA)

Genre:

Western

Plot:

In the early 20th century, some convicts while on a road gang escape and one of the convicts is Zach Provo...

Plot Keywords:

Escape | Navajo | Clothes Ripping | Half Breed | Revenge

Cast

Charlton Heston	...	Sam Burgade
James Coburn	...	Zach Provo
Barbara Hershey	...	Susan Burgade
Jorge Rivero	...	Cesar Menendez
Michael Parks	...	Pima County Sheriff Noel Nye
Larry Wilcox	...	Mike Shelby
Thalmus Rasulala	...	George Weed
Morgan Paull	...	Portugee Shiraz
John Quade	...	Will Gant
Robert Donner	...	Lee Roy Tucker
Sam Gilman	...	Dutch Vestal
James Bacon	...	Deputy Jetfore
Riley Hill	...	Gus, Bank President
Dick Alexander	...	Bo Simpson
Yolanda Schutz	...	Paloma

Also Known As:

Burgade (USA) (working title)
The Last Hard Man (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

98 min | Sweden:93 min (15-rated version) | Norway:94 min (cut)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

Finland:K-16 (uncut) (1989) | Finland:K-16 (cut) (1976) | Norway:16 | Sweden:(Banned) (1976) | Sweden:15 (re-rating) | USA:R | Iceland:16

Filming Locations:

Old Tucson - 201 S. Kinney Road, Tucson, Arizona, USA

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Quotes:

Pima County Sheriff Noel Nye: This came in about six o'clock. Twenty two escaped. They've captured or killed fifteen so that leaves seven.
Sam Burgade: Hmm. Gant. Weed: he could track a duck across a pond. Shiraz: a knife. Lee Roy Tucker: that coyote sniffed under every boulder in the territory. Mike Shelby: nineteen years old, in for life. Menendez: that must be Cesar Menendez. Real handsome lookin' man - cut the head off a little gal in Nogales one time. Said he wanted her earrings.
Pima County Sheriff Noel Nye: And Zach Provo.
Sam Burgade: I though he was dead.

THE LAST HARD MEN (Andrew V. McLaglen, 1976) **

This one came out during the Western genre’s last gasp; unfortunately, it emerges to be a very minor and altogether unsatisfactory effort – even if made by and with veterans in the field! To begin with, the plot offers nothing remotely new: James Coburn escapes from a chain gang, intent on killing the man (now retired) who put him there – Charlton Heston. While the latter lays a trap for him, Coburn outwits Heston by kidnapping his daughter (Barbara Hershey). Naturally, the former lawman – accompanied by Hershey’s greenhorn fiancé (Chris Mitchum) – sets out in pursuit of Coburn and his followers, all of whom broke jail along with him.

Rather than handling the proceedings in his customary sub-Fordian style, McLaglen goes for a Sam Peckinpah approach – with which he’s never fully at ease: repellent characters, plenty of violence, and the sexual tension generated by Hershey’s presence among Coburn’s lusty bunch. Incidentally, Heston and Coburn had previously appeared together in a Sam Peckinpah Western – the troubled MAJOR DUNDEE (1965; I really need to pick up the restored edition of this one on DVD, though I recently taped the theatrical version in pan-and-scan format off TCM UK). Anyway, the film is too generic to yield the elegiac mood it clearly strives for (suggested also by the title): then again, both stars had already paid a fitting valediction to this most American of genres – WILL PENNY (1968) for Heston and Coburn with PAT GARRETT & BILLY THE KID (1973)!

At least, though, Heston maintains a modicum of dignity here – his ageing character attempting to stay ahead of half-breed Coburn by anticipating what his next move will be; the latter, however, tackles an uncommonly brutish role and only really comes into his own at the climax (relishing his moment of vengeance by sadistically forcing Heston to witness his associates’ gang-rape of Hershey). Apart from the latter, this lengthy sequence sees Heston try to fool Coburn with a trick borrowed from his own EL CID (1961), the villainous gang is then trapped inside a bushfire ignited by the practiced Heston and the violent death of the two ‘obsolete’ protagonists (as was his fashion, Heston’s demise takes the form of a gratuitous sacrifice!).

The supporting cast includes Michael Parks as the ineffectual town sheriff, Jorge Rivero as Coburn’s Mexican lieutenant, and Larry Wilcox – of the TV series CHiPs! – as the youngest member of Coburn’s gang who’s assigned the task of watching over Hershey (while doing his best to keep his drooling mates away!). Jerry Goldsmith contributes a flavorful but, at the same time, unremarkable score.