WELCOME TO HARD TIMES (KILLER ON A HORSE)

US, 1966, 103 minutes, Colour.
Henry Fonda, Janice Rule, Aldo Ray, Keenan Wynn, Janis Paige, Edgar Buchanan, John Anderson.
Directed by Burt Kennedy.

Welcome To Hard Times is a Burt Kennedy western. It is one of his best. It is one of his grimmest. Burt Kennedy is an expert at making short westerns with impact. Most of them have a light touch especially Support Your Local Sheriff, The Rounders. He has also made such John Wayne westerns as the War Wagon and The Train Robbers. This particular film is a symbolical western and features Henry Fonda and Aldo Ray. It is as if it were patterned on the drama of the ancient Greeks with a sense of fate, doom, revenge. This may make the western seem more solemn than it is. However, it is a very fine re-creation of a grimy west, the difficulties of what it is to be a hero in the west and suffer injustice. A western to be recommended and explored.

1. An alternative title for this film was "Killer on a Horse". Which is the more appropriate title for this film? How did the original title emphasise the town itself, the people in it, the irony of life there - "welcome"? How did the alternate title emphasise the killer and his brutality? Which was more appropriate?

2. How conventional a western was this? What conventions of the western did it use? The isolated town and its pioneering, the pacifist marshal, the mad killer, the young boy and idealism, the heroine and her taunts at the hero, the exploiters and the misers, the mining men and the shoot-up? Did the film use these well or did it use the conventions with originality? Comment on the starkness of the film and its directness.

3. How well did the film communicate the atmosphere of the town? Its origins and smallness? The desolation and hard times? The desert and the unattractive nature of the town? Its effect on the people who lived there? Its attraction for a ruthless killer?

4. How important were the people and their characters for this film and its conflicts? The attractiveness of Blue as a pacifist sheriff, helping the town and its people? Did you agree with his behaviour when the killer arrived? Was he a coward? Did he have any alternatives? The girl - her strength, her criticism of Blue? The boy and his reaction to Blue?

5. Your response to the killer on the horse? The fact of meaningless death and cruelty in the west? His burning the town and making it a hell? His murdering of the girl, and his murders?

6. What stances could have been taken against him? Was there more courage in attacking him or ignoring ]!m? What comment did the film say about courage and pacifisms? In Western society?

7. Was it better for Blue to rebuild the town? what did he contribute to its life? How did the taunts of sheriff and of cowardice still stay with him? Did he need another confrontation with the killer? Why?

8. How well did the film show the development of the town - with the hotel opening, the girls and the dancing, the miners coming in, the Indians, the storekeepers etc.? How interesting and realistic a picture of pioneer life was this? Did it seem real?

9. How was the prosperity of the town an invitation for the killer to return? What motivated him? Did he seem mad?

10.How did the film show the courage of the people at the latter part? What courage had grown in Blue? Did he handle the situation well? Did he betray his principles?

11.How ironic was the death of the girl?

12.What dilemma did the town find itself in at the end? Was it better to close the town or to build it again? Would it run the risk of such shoot-ups again? Was this the fate of the west, did the west need to build on such dangers and destruction?

13.Many commentators have seen this film as a symbolic western. As an arrangement of heroes, fate, malignance and malice. How did the characters represent these attitudes? Do you think the film was a symbolic western?