The Hired Hand
Tags: revenge, murder

Plot synopsis:
Harry Collings (Fonda) and Arch Harris (Oates) are two saddle tramps who have grown weary after seven years of wandering through the American Southwest. Along with a younger companion, Dan Griffen (Robert Pratt), they stop off in Del Norte, a ramshackle town in the middle of nowhere, which is run by the corrupt McVey (Severn Darden). Harris and Griffen discuss traveling to California to look for work when Collings abruptly informs them he has decided to return to the wife he left years before. Griffen temporarily leaves the two in a bar and goes to buy supplies. Some town thugs shoot him to death out of pure meanness. Collings and Harris escape, but they return that night. Collings shoots McVey in the feet, crippling him.
After riding hundreds of miles back to his old house, Collings finds a cold welcome from his wife Hannah (Bloom). In order to be allowed to stay, he offers his services simply as a “hired hand”. Hannah agrees and quickly puts him to work. Gradually, the distrust and unease caused by years of estrangement slip away, and the two begin to become close again. For the first time, Collings feels willing to settle down, but Harris leaves, wanting 'to see the ocean'.
McVey and his troupe of hooligans interrupt his life. Learning that they have kidnapped Harris, Collings leaves Hannah again, this time to save his friend. In a subsequent brutal shootout with McVey's gang, all of the villains are killed and Collings is fatally wounded. Harris rides alone to Hannah's house.

Review: This is not only an overlooked western, but a sorely overlooked piece of filmmaking, beautifully shot by Vilmos Zsigmond (who uses some of the slowest dissolves anywhere in cinema) and directed by Peter Fonda, who seemed bent on capturing an authentic period flavor often missing from westerns of that time.
This is a very understated film, at a time when few coming from the American market were.Ultimately, it is a sort of 'buddy' film about the deep friendship between two characters played by Fonda and Warren Oates.
It also has in common with EASY RIDER the tragic, "backward" movement from West to East, which goes against the "natural" flow of American history and literature, and which ends in death here as in the earlier film, when the "hired hand" of the title takes on a sadly ironic new meaning.Fonda directs his actors in an understated, low-key, highly naturalistic style; Warren Oates was never warmer or more at ease seeming on camera.
The understated THE HIRED HAND will probably not satisfy western fans looking for action and violence in the Wayne or Eastwood mold.
Even then, I was impressed by a film I had only heard described as a commercial flop and a come-down after "Easy Rider." Maybe people were expecting another "counter-cultural" demythologizing of America's past, as was common in those days, and didn't know what to make of a surprisingly traditional and sensitive drama about loyalty, love, and the desire for new horizons versus the call of home.Finally, thanks to the 30th Anniversary restoration, I was able to see the entire work, and was not disappointed.
Nor is it merely "pretty photography," but key to the inner life of the characters, in that you can see how one could be drawn by such beauty into either wandering off through the world in search of new wonders, or returning to those which you've already known.It's a shame, to me, that Peter Fonda only went on to direct two more (relatively obscure) films.
But when the gun battles begin the pace quickens to a gallop.The delicate music is perfect blend of instruments for the visuals and provides the emotional depth that music should.Under Peter Fonda's creative direction the film's elements deliver a story of a man who returns home to make things right because he had the courage to change.
The Hired Hand had three interesting characters who used dialog sparingly(Fonda, Oates, Bloom).
It would take quite a few years for the American western to embrace this new take on the mythos of the old west - far removed from the works of John Ford, Anthony Mann or Howard Hawks.THH relates a small but intimate drama about three men travelling west for California - the gold, the ocean, the cold beer, it's a promised land of sorts for drifters like them.
After a deadly incident in a small, rundown village where they bury the younger companion, the other two, Harry (Peter Fonda) and Artch (Warren Oates) decide to turn back and instead of California return to Harry's wife - whom he abandoned six years ago to become a drifter.Upon their return Harris finds a frigid and distant wife, reluctant to have him back.
She satisfied her natural sexual frustration over the years by sleeping with the men she hired - and that's exactly how she takes Harry back, a hired hand to do work around the house, until he can earn his way back as her husband.This little vucolic drama unfolds in some neck of the woods, unpretentious and stripped of all fat, laconic as much as it is melancholic.
Where Henry Fonda always had women lusting after him in the westerns, Peter Fonda's movie wife, Verna Bloom, does not want much to do with him.
One day Peter Fonda decides to go home to see what happened to his wife after seven years of abandonment.
First time i know of where the director wanted his movie shorter than the Man did!It's probably a good thing too because it's a very slow plodding atmospheric film that would likely be very boring with a 2 hour running time!It's a very slow movie and it doesn't really built.
I just have to add my praise to continue the interest in the Peter Fonda master work-"The Hired Hand."In many ways, this is a KEY  '70s era film;from casting(c'mon-Oates ,Verna Bloom,Dardren !!!),the very definition of psychedelic 19th century photography,the Bruce Langhorne lost& found ~out of time~ score...the best of what was & continues to shimmer out across the universe!I saw it in "the day" & have been depressed by the washed out video offerings that seem to have been it's fate since.The main point of this listing is to pass on the fact of it's restoration & re-release glory,in England...so far.Last Dec./'01, a beautiful new print was theatrically released; I have been in touch with the Landmark Theater chain(revival/contemporary foreign find specialists) & they said there is a strong possibility that the release rights for the North American market may be imminently secured.To bring this forgotten film to an audience now, would be just rewards !So...contact the Landmark Theater people...other distributors as well..keep the interest up.Maybe there will be cinematic justice for "The Hired Hand" !.
During a time when the western genre was filled with action,Fonda slipped this film in.It is a story about relationships and values that few films, this day have(they make way too many movies anyway).
Beautifully photographed(eye candy as some would say)by Vilmos Zsigmund(Easy Rider,Sugarland Express),and a score to that will hypnotize(Bruse Langhorne-the one man band).A cast of strong stalwart performers,(Warren Oates,Verna Bloom,Severn Darden) who are actually into their parts,round out this film..
Because of the era of presentation, and the relative obscurity of Peter Fonda, (even though he had directed/stared "Easy Rider" 2 years earlier) I had thought it was a made for TV movie.
Peter Fonda's character, has haunted memories of an abandoned wife and child and feels drawn to return.
The photography, music and editing are second to none and Warren Oates, Peter Fonda and Verna Bloom are brilliant.
Why is shot Dan Griffen (Robert Pratt), the young companion of Harry Collings (Peter Fonda) and Arch Harris (Warren Oates)?
The film takes its languid time with wonderful Vilmos Zsigmond cinematography and Bruce Langhorne soundtrack, with pauses and silences galore that makes me ache for more movies with that quality.
Harry (Peter Fonda) returns home to his wife and farm after drifting with his friend Arch (Warren Oates) and has to make a difficult decision regarding his loyalties.Due to the huge financial success of "Easy Rider" (1969), which Fonda co-wrote, produced and starred in, Universal Studios gave him full artistic control over "The Hired Hand", his debut as a director.
(Universal also did the same for Dennis Hopper with "The Last Movie" that year.) How interesting that Fonda went or a more conventional western rather than a personal, boundary-pushing film.Upon release, the film received a mixed critical response and was a financial failure.
A visually splendid western by Peter Fonda who uses the marvelous landscapes with great skills ;his characters move in a very precise space and the fade in fade outs are worthy of George Stevens ;the three leads (the director ,Warren Oates and Verna Bloom),sparing of gestures and words ,give impressive restrained performances ;except for the "prologue" and the "epilogue" ,violence is almost absent -Peckinpah's fans should move on- and you could almost call "the hired hand" (a very adequate title)a pastoral western ,where nature itself becomes a true character (it predates " Jeremiah Johnson" ).Verna Bloom is a very modern woman in the macho world of western (compare her to the girl who gives water to the prisoner);she acts like a man ,without overlooking her daughter's education .She is much older than her husband ,which is almost incredible in a western.And for once the gossips in town are accurate .Peter Fonda would like to settle down and live a peaceful life between his wife and his daughter,not just be a "hired hand" .But the hand on fate is on him again;it's a character who reacts to events but is not able to initiate them.In a way ,he is still a teenager who needs to be part of a pack.
If Peter Fonda dominates the movie as the main character (and director, one of three he directed), it's really the feel of riding through the landscape and working the land that gives it its flavor.And all of this really isn't quite enough, the photography and mood-making strong but also a bit dragging.
We get the idea, we go along, but it's faintly felt.What does work is a sense of realism--not that the movie is gripping this way, for sure, but it actually avoids some romanticizing you might expect in an easy-going, flowing Western like this.
I would never have heard of it, but Peter Fonda himself had just gotten a good print of this film, and was showing it around the small art theaters on the West coast.
Warren Oates and Fonda are amazing; the photography is great; and yes, this is a psychedelic movie in the purest sense of absolutely changing perceptions, including larger physical sensations - a lot of the time that I was watching this I felt like I was floating above my body, or swimming in a cold clear river as the characters do so.
Fonda also gives one of his best acting jobs here as young but life experienced drifter Harry Collings.
When Harry returns back home to his wife Hannah (Verna Bloom) the film threatens to turn into sappy melodrama for the second there, but again manages to keep its realistic portrayal of human relationship.
Here one can't go without mentioning Verna Bloom's subtle, but never cold performance as an estranged wife.'The Hired Hand' is a film where little is spoken, but much is said.
The love story is made by the superb acting of Peter Fonda and Verna Bloom, as Harry and Hannah Collings.
I haven't seen Heaven's Gate in a while, but that was another Western he worked on in the same era, and I remember it looking pretty damned good, whatever else you have to say about the movie.The genius here is in the slowed down superimposed compositions, where for example you have a man superimposed with an image of water, who is only half there due to the effect, it's like he's been dreamt, or is dreaming, it's an ephemeral image, pure elegy encrusted with beaming coruscations.
It's brave casting, Verna Bloom is no oil painting in the film, and has years on Fonda.Warren Oates is extremely sturdy support as Arch.
Hannah has a wonderful line contrasting male friendship with a heterosexual relationship, "A man don't ask the things of another man like a woman does; he's easy to please, and he don't get bitter about the same things." It leaves you with treasure this movie, not least the first scene where the youngin is foolassing around in the crick.
Released in 1971, "The Hired Hand" was Peter Fonda's first stab at directing (he only directed two more films).
The story involves Fonda going back to his wife and homestead after several years absence; he brings his buddy Warren Oates along with him.
Peter Fonda stars in and directs "The Hired Hand", acting with his frequent co-star and real- life good friend Warren Oates.
Peter plays Harry Collings, a cowboy who abandoned his wife Hannah (Verna Bloom) and daughter (Megan Denver) years ago.
The definition of the "elegiac western", The Hired Hand was the directorial debut of the ubiquitous Peter Fonda.
Fonda also stars, as Harry, a world-weary wanderer finally planning to move back to his ranch and make good on his marriage to his wife Hannah (Verna Bloom) and their daughter.
Consider as well that at the time the western genre was in decline – the real classic, McCabe and Mrs Miller, also came out in 1971, and Robert Altman's film (also shot by Zsigmond) is the superior of the two.
This downbeat, salt-of-the-earth western drama is a meditation on forgiveness and the meaning of friendship, as well as a great showcase for Fonda (who makes his directorial debut), Warren Oates, Verna Bloom, and Vilmos Zsigmond, whose impressive cinematography is almost the fourth star of the movie.Fonda's character is an interesting one.
'The Hired Hand' is a criminally unseen Peter Fonda Warren Oates 'Revisionist western.
the pair who are tired from being on the road return to Fonda's homestead where several years before he left his wife Verna Bloom and their young daughter, Warren Oates and Peter Fonda work as hired hands on the ranch hence the title.
but when Oates leaves the ranch for California and subsequently runs afoul of greedy horse rustlers leaving Oates held captive it's up to Fonda to packs his gun and to rescue his friend which culminates in a bloody shootout 'The Hired Hand' is a brilliantly shot film from master cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond it's a film true lovers of the genre will continue to enjoy..
A Contemplative, Evenly Paced, Well Acted, Wonderfully Scored, and Beautifully Shot Story about Friendship, Family, and Lifestyles in the Latter Half of the 1800's.Fonda, Warren Oates, and Verna Bloom all give Believable Characters the Heart and Weary Souls needed in this Type of Thing.
Harry (Peter Fonda), Arch (Warren Oates) and  Dan_ (Robert Pratt) are sidekicks, drifting from noplace to nowhere, living free and, mostly, off the land.
Arch removes his hand from Hannah's lower calf and knows it is time to leave Harry to the happiness he will ultimately claim.
For Arch is now the `hired hand' who will claim for himself and his memories of Harry the life that both he and Harry wanted with Hannah and her daughter.
END OF SPOILERS However, nothing I have said captures the pure lyrical beauty of `The Hired Hand;' for, how much can one explain about a five minute opening scene without dialogue of  Dan swimming in the river while Harry fishes from the bank that is so beautifully scored and montaged that it is positively exhilarating, yet reinforces the plot by establishing the mood, history  and future of the sidekicks?
Harry Collings(Peter Fonda)decides it's time to head back to a home where a wife of his he left behind resides(he has been traveling for seven years as a hired hand making ends meet and moving to the next town).
Once Harry and Arch make the distance to the farm place of Hannah(Verna Bloom, very good)things are a little sticky at first.
Arch begins to feel out of place(..or in the way)after a while and decides it's best to let Harry, Hannah, & their daughter Janey(Megan Denver)begin a new life together.
It is quite slow at times; for example, it takes more than a third of the movie before Fonda's character first arrives at his wife and daughter's home.
Peter Fonda directs and stars in this small Western.
THE HIRED HAND falls into that category.Director Peter Fonda stars as Harry Collings, a saddle tramp riding the west with his best friend Arch Harris (Warren Oates) and young companion Dan Griffen (Robert Pratt).
Harry tells Arch he plans to return home to the wife he left years ago.
Not knowing what to expect Hannah turns a cold shoulder to Harry who asks if he can just stay on for a bit as a hired hand and see where things go from there.
But only one of them will come home.The movie is a slower paced film than most would expect with a western.
That is, maybe a better movie?This is not to say Fonda's lovingly-realised homage to the Western is not a good film, I'm just not convinced it is a great movie.
I would never have found this film if it wasn't for it featuring in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, it had good reviews and a good leading cast, so I hoped it would be worth it, directed by Easy Rider producer, writer and star Peter Fonda.
Basically saddle tramps Harry Collings (Peter Fonda) and Arch Harris (Warren Oates) have been wandering through the American Southwest for seven years, and have grown weary.
Fonda is good both acting and directing, Oates does well, and Bloom makes an impression in her time on screen, I will admit I agree this is not the traditional film in the genre, there are less gun filled sequences, horse chases and general action, it is certainly more talky than anything else, but it is interesting in its own right, a worthwhile western.
The Hired Hand is a New Hollywood masterpiece from Peter Fonda, a reflective Western in which redemption comes not through revenge, but romance, in all its selfish, selfless glory.
Its title comes from the stone of story at its centre, in which Fonda tries to atone for walking out on his wife (Verna Bloom, shorn of all vanity) by signing on as her hired hand, accompanied by his friend Warren Oates.
It's odd, then, that some of the interior scenes in the early part of the film look flat and cheap, if not '50s-B-Western shoddy.Fonda is superb, while Bloom, one of the best things about Eastwood's High Plains Drifter, gives a remarkable performance as a woman who refuses to repent after looking for sexual solace in his absence, but yearns to be loved - and not just wanted.
But then a hired hand returns to a homestead and closes a door, and we realise that there was never a Western like it, and that none ever gave us an ending like this, in all its simple, beautiful and perfect ambiguity..
The ranch where his wife and daughter lived was in the boring, dull prairie (which most of the "Old West" really was) with gossipy, private townies.I also liked the idea of three males, one middle aged (Oates), one in his thirties (Fonda), and a little known actor playing the youthful man named Dan .