Burt Kennedy who made so many good comic westerns back in the day, tried his hand at a serious realistic western and fell flat on his face with it. Henry Fonda must have felt like Tyrone Power in Nightmare Alley, he and the film got great critical reviews and the public stayed away in droves.
No accident, western fans expect certain things in their films and Welcome to Hard Times delivers none of them. It is a realistic depiction of the growth of a western town, maybe too realistic.
Henry Fonda is the mayor of this little burg and purportedly the hero of the piece. Problem is that there is nothing heroic about Fonda nor the town's people.
Aldo Ray is the silent Man from Bodie, the villain of the story. He's about the worst villain on screen since Liberty Valance, without any redeeming characteristics. He defiles some of the women, shoots some of the men, and sets fire to the town. A few including Henry Fonda try to stop him and fail. Fonda fails in a moment of weakness.
Fonda's girl friend Janice Rule is among the defiled and she grows understandably bitter. The main story line is the conflict between Rule and Fonda, especially over young Michael Shea whose father was killed by Aldo Ray and who Fonda has now taken over raising.
Some veteran players like Keenan Wynn, Warren Oates, Denver Pyle, Edgar Buchanan, and Lon Chaney, Jr., make things interesting as the story drags on. There is of course a final and very bloody confrontation again with Aldo Ray that has some unexpected consequences.
Somebody should have told the town of Hard Times what the town in Johnny Concho did about William Conrad who was in the Aldo Ray role in that film. The solution to the problems of Hard Times was right there.
