TAKE A HARD RIDE: Sagebrush, Spaghetti & A Whole Lotta Soul

One of the rea­sons blax­ploita­tion was a reli­able trend dur­ing the 1970’s because it could be adapted to any pre­vi­ous exist­ing genre.  Everything from hor­ror (Blacula) to spy flicks (That Man Bolt) to come­dies (Monkey Hustle) was cranked out by enter­pris­ing film­mak­ers to fre­quently suc­cess­ful effect.

The west­ern genre in par­tic­u­larly worked well when cross­bred with blax­ploita­tion.  Fred Williamson knew this well because he made sev­eral dur­ing his 1970’s hey­day.  Perhaps the most unusual of his sage­brush soul adven­tures was Take A Hard Ride, a blend of blax­ploita­tion and spaghetti west­ern that reunited him with his Three The Hard Way costars Jim Brown and Jim Kelly.

The plot of Take A Hard Ride adds a third genre — the chase movie — into the mix.  Brown dri­ves the plot as Pike, a for­mer tough guy who has set­tled down to work with rancher Morgan (Dana Andrews) and finance a ranch in Mexico.  Before Morgan dies from a heart attack, he makes Pike swear to get their earn­ings for a head of cat­tle — $86,000 — back to the Mexican ranch.  Of course, it doesn’t take long for the news to spread and a vari­ety of scalawags are try­ing to take out Pike.  Leading the pack of pur­suers is Kiefer (Lee Van Cleef), an icy bounty hunter with an ends-justifies-the-means mentality.

Pike’s only offer of help comes from fast-talking gam­bler Tyree (Williamson), who pledges to help him get where he’s going but promises he’ll fight him for the money once they get there.  Along the way, Pike and Tyree join forces with  ex-prostitute (Catherine Spaak) and her mute half­breed body­guard, Kashtok (Kelly).  This mot­ley crew makes a run for the bor­der but Kiefer is never far behind — and Kiefer him­self has com­pe­ti­tion for Pike’s bankroll, includ­ing a shifty law­man named Kane (Barry Sullivan).

Take A Hard Ride’s strongest ele­ment is its nar­ra­tive drive: the script, penned by t.v. vets Eric Bercovici and Jerry Ludwig, hits the ground run­ning and piles on the char­ac­ters and set­pieces as it dashes towards the end cred­its.  It’s a bit slim on char­ac­ter­i­za­tion, rely­ing on the actors to flesh out its gallery of famil­iar types, and is so over­stuffed that it never has time to develop those char­ac­ters or any kind of themes.  Thus, the pre­pon­der­ance of ele­ments never pay off the way they could.

That said, Take A Hard Ride works if taken as a breezy pro­gram­mer.  Brown and Williamson have strong chem­istry (poor Kelly seems like more of an add-on for the kung-fu crowd here) and Van Cleef is reli­ably men­ac­ing as the main vil­lain.  The film leans heav­ily on their per­sonas and each deliv­ers.  Williamson seems to be hav­ing the most fun here, strut­ting around in fancy duds and using a sing-song style of line deliv­ery that suits his rogueish char­ac­ter to a ‘t.’

It also helps that the film is vig­or­ously directed by Antonio Margheriti (using his Anglo pseu­do­nym Anthony M. Dawson here).  He was no stranger to west­ern cross­breeds, hav­ing directed the kung-fu/spaghetti west­ern hybrid The Stranger And The Gunfighter the year before, and he applies him­self with kinetic verve here.  He keeps his cam­era mobile, fram­ing every­thing in a beau­ti­fully styl­ized way with the help of Italian D.P. Riccardo Pallottini, and his intense energy keeps the film on track.

Margheriti also piles on the action and it has a nice rough-and-tumble feel thanks to ace stunt chore­og­ra­phy by future car-chase movie king Hal Needham, who also directed the 2nd unit here.  The cherry on top is a grand Jerry Goldsmith musi­cal score that mixes a soar­ing, Elmer Bernstein-esque main theme with plenty of Morricone-styled off­beat touches (lis­ten for the harmonica-plus-synth motif used for Van Cleef’s character).

Simply put, Take A Hard Ride is a pro­gram­mer — but it’s a pro­gram­mer with a sur­plus of energy, a great tough guy cast and a breezy, ready-to-please style of per­son­al­ity.  As a result, it’s likely to enter­tain blax­ploita­tion and spaghetti west­ern buffs alike.

Rio Conchos / Take A Hard Ride [Double Feature] Rio Conchos / Take A Hard Ride — Double Feature      Rio Conchos: In aveng­ing him­self against the Apache Indians who have mas­sa­cred his fam­ily, ex-Confederate Army offi­cer Lassiter (Richard Boone) recov­ers a stolen U.S. Army repeat­ing rifle and finds him­self arrested by the U.S. Army in con­nec­tion with the stolen firearm. Lassiter is offered his free­dom if he leads a small group into Mexico, con­sist­ing of an Army cap­tain (Stuart Whitman), a Buffalo Soldier sergeant (Jim Brown, in his film debut), a knife-wielding Mexican pris­oner (Tony Franciosa) and an Apache woman war­rior. After blast­ing their way through ban­dits and Apaches, they dis­cover a mega­lo­ma­ni­a­cal Confederate sol­dier (Edmond O’Brien) sell­ing guns to the Apaches.Take A Hard Ride: Take a tough-as-nails trail boss (Jim Brown, The Dirty Dozen), a smooth gam­bler (Fred Williamson, Black Caesar), a ruth­less bounty hunter (Lee Van Cleef, The Good, The Bad And The Ugly), a mute mar­tial arts mas­ter (Jim Kelly, Enter The Dragon), a des­per­ate pros­ti­tute (Catherine Spaak, Cat O’ Nine Tails) and hun­dreds of greed-crazed gun­men. Turn them all loose in a chase to the Mexican bor­der for a for­tune in gold, and you have the action-packed epic Take A Hard Ride. Hollywood leg­ends Dana Andrews (Laura), Barry Sullivan (The Bad And The Beautiful) and Harry Carey Jr. (The Searchers) costar.