The Last Hard Men

Our next installment in "movies back in the FXM rotation" is The Last Hard Men. It's going to be on again tomorrow at 11:10 AM, with another airing Wednesday morning at 3:00 AM.

James Coburn plays Zach Provo, who at the beginning of the movie is on a chain gang laying down some rails, or otherwise maintaining them, somewhere in the desert of southwest Arizona a few years before statehood. There are only two guards with guns, and a ruse is created for one of the guys to get his chains broken and overpower one of the guards. The other guard soon follows, and the prisoners can at make their escape.

At least, that's the theory. They're in the middle of the desert, so figuring out where to go is tough. Provo is able to make himself the leader of a group of seven of them, and head for parts unknown; among the group are Lee Roy (Robert Donner) and Gant (John Quade) who are only following out of convenience, looking for a chance to take over if they could.

Meanwhile, in town, we see Sam Burgade (Charlton Heston). He's the retired sheriff, and the man who was responsible for putting Provo behind bars. Sam understands that Provo is going to be gunning for him now. Sam has a daughter Susan (Barbara Hershey) who is loved by Hal Brickman (Christopher Mitchum). Susan was thrilled with her father's retirement and decidedly displeased that Dad is going to be sucked in to "just one more" case.

Dad has a good idea to set a trap for Provo. Provo had been convicted for bank robbery and absconded with a bunch of gold that was never discovered; Provo being half-Indian, Sam thinks that the gold is buried on the reservation where Sam and the rest of the white authorities have no jurisdiction. So Sam tries to draw Provo in to town by getting a shipment of gold on a train coming in, and having word of that leak out where Provo is bound to hear it.

Provo does come to town, but he's no dummy. He gets the distinct impression that this is a trap, and while Sam is out at the train station waiting for Provo to show up, Provo heads over to the Burgade place. He tells Susan that he's been sent over to keep Susan safe from people out to get her, but she's no dummy. Provo is telling a half-truth; there are people out to get Susan, but he's the people out to get her. So he forces his way in to the house and kidnaps Susan, heading off for the mountains.

Meanwhile, the other escapees see this nubile young woman, and want her for themselves because they haven't had carnal relations in a long time; this holds especially true for Gant and Lee Roy who see this as another way to get back at Provo. A posse headed by Sam and Hal heads off to find Provo and rescue Susan....

The Last Hard Men is a nice little 1970s western. Being made well after the breakdown of the Production Code, there's much more scope for violence and the natural adult theme of sex. There's nothing particularly memorable about the acting or the cinematography, but it's all in service of a perfectly serviceable story. If you were looking to introduce people to classic westerns, The Last Hard Men wouldn't necessarily be high up on my list, but if you want to sit down with some refreshments and watch an eminently entertaining movie, I don't think you'll go wrong with The Last Hard Men. Definitely worth a watch.

TCM lists it as being available on a cheap box set of Fox westerns from the 60s and 70s.

Insiang

I didn't intend it, but I watched a couple of movies in close proximity that have gotten their DVD releases courtesy of the Criterion Collection. Another of them is Insiang.

The title Insiang refers to a young woman of that name (played by Hilda Koronel). She lives in the slums of Manila with her mother Tonya (Mona Lisa) and Mom's extended family. Mom does the best she can by taking in laundry, while Insiang helps as best she can, although nothing Insiang does ever really seems to satisfy Mom. Even more unsatisfying are the extended family; they seem to be a bunch of lazy good-for-nothings; and Tonya eventually throws them out of the house.

Insiang has a boyfriend in Bebot (Rez Cortez), who has a job as a mechanic that ought to be at least mildly prestigious; and yet, Bebot and his friends spend a lot of their time drinking. This is outside the storefront run by the Karyas family, including son Nanding who hopes to further his education in order to get a better job and possibly get out of the slums. Nanding likes Insiang too, and would like nothing better than to be able to take Insiang out of the slums with him.

Meanwhile, Tonya and Insiang still can't quite support themselves. Since Tonya has an ex-husband who lives god knows where, she decides to take on a live-in boyfriend in the form of Dado (Reel Vernal). What Tonya doesn't know is that Dado doesn't really love her; he loves Insiang. Insiang, unsurprisingly, doesn't love Dado at all. Matters take a turn for the worse when Dado decides he should be able to have sex with Insiang at will, raping her and then blaming her for it.

Insiang gets no help from her mom, and when she tries to look to Bebot for comfort, he takes her to a cheap hotel, has a one-night stand with her, and bolts before she gets up in the morning! Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and Insiang decides she's going to get back at all the people who hurt her, which leads to a shocking conclusion.

Insiang is a fascinating movie, taking a look at a sort of place we'd never get in an American movie, for the fairly obvious reason that we don't have the sort of third-world slum depicted here. The story is quite good, looking for the first two-thirds like an excellent example of cinema verite, before swerving into a universal revenge story.

One thing I found interesting was the technical work. Insiang was released in 1976, and some of the camerawork, especially the way the director used close-ups of characters' faces, gave me the distinct vibe of 1970s US TV shows. One slight negative was the editing; there were several cases where a cut caused the music score to stop abruptly, right in the middle of a theme.

Insiang is part of a box set of several films from the third world selected as part of Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Project. Unfortunately, being Criterion, it's quite pricey.