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    Home»Movies»Movies by Decade»Movies - 1970s
    Movies - 1970s Movies - H 2 Mins Read

    Hired Hand, The (1971)

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    Peter Fonda had some clout in Hollywood when this post-hippie western was made, having produced and starred as Captain America in the cult hit Easy Rider two years earlier.

    In addition to starring here, Fonda also makes a fine job of his directorial debut with this cold, almost existential western which begins with three drifters (Fonda, Warren Oates and Robert Pratt) making their way to California.

    Their journey is interrupted by a confrontation with McVey, a sadistic merchant (Severn Darden). The evil man kills Dan Griffin (Pratt) in an exchange of gunfire, and in return is wounded by Harry Collings (Fonda).

    Griffin’s death causes Harry to reflect on his life. Filled with a nostalgic homesickness, he decides to return to the wife and daughter he abandoned seven years earlier. Arch Harris (Oates) decides to go with him.

    hiredhand8

    Fonda’s wife Hannah (the superb Verna Bloom) reluctantly accepts his return and hires the two men as farmhands, who work the land by day and sleep in the barn at night.

    Hannah is torn between her husband and the older Arch Harris but, eventually, she and Harry give in to their mutual desire and reunite as husband and wife.

    Then Arch is kidnapped and tortured by McVey. Out of loyalty to his fellow wanderer, Harry leaves his family and his farm once more to go save Arch.

    Fate intervenes and Harry is killed in a climactic shoot-out with McVey. He dies in Arch’s arms. An old fashioned plot twist has Arch and Hannah together in the end.

    This has all the clever bleakness and cyclical sense of destiny now associated with its writer, the mordant Alan Sharp, and is richly rewarding in its portrayal of the tough reality of frontier life.

    The film is also notable for the stunning photography of Vilmos Zsigmond, who later filmed DeliveranceΒ (1972), The Deer HunterΒ (1978) and Close Encounters of the Third KindΒ (1977) (for which he won an Academy Award). Some audiences might prefer more action, though, and perhaps a less pretentious visual style.

    Harry Collings
    Peter Fonda
    Arch Harris
    Warren Oates
    Hannah Collings
    Verna Bloom
    Dan Griffin
    Robert Pratt
    McVey
    Severn Darden
    Mrs Sorenson
    Ann Doran
    Luke
    Ted Markland
    Mace
    Owen Orr
    Will
    Gray Johnson

    Director
    Peter Fonda

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