Brilliant and touching

Beautiful, moving film.

A Disappointing Continuation

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

You have to hand it to Hoot Gibson, a look at the cast list for many of his Westerns shows that some of the prettiest actresses in Hollywood were his co-stars - Marjorie Daw, Marceline Day, Laura La Plante, Esther Ralston, Billie Dove, Sally Eilers and last but not least Lina Basquette. Lina Basquette would have made a terrific vamp but she arrived on the scene too late, although she did get a break when she was given the lead in Cecil B. DeMille's "The Godless Girl". But she was already embroiled in court battles and custody disputes with the Warner family whom she had married into in 1925 and by 1931 pickings were slim and she was reduced to the old standby - poverty row.After "Clearing the Range", "The Hard Hombre" went for straight comedy with almost no action. Hoot, once again, plays another peace loving cowboy - "Peaceful" Patton who is back home with his mother after tiring of his old job's fighting ways. Will then applies for a job as a ranch hand at Senora Martini's (Basquette) place and she, upset that he has made himself right at home, sends him on a dangerous job to recover 30 head of stolen cattle. Martini thinks he will have a difficult time but he doesn't, owing to the fact that most of the men mistake him for "the Hard Hombre" - a tough, quick shooting leftie - Will is a leftie but that is all he has in common with him. Of course Will can't understand people's attitude, he only has to raise his hand and people head for the hills but when he realises why he pretends to be the real one so he can clear up the range war that is turning farmer against farmer. He has a particular look where he squints up his eyes which turns the cowboys to jelly!!!When the real "Hard Hombre" comes looking for the cowboy who has made his name a laughing stock, things turn grim for Will but when the real one tries to rough up Will's mother, Will puts his peaceful ways to one side and viewers get to see the only action in the whole movie - a big fight scene!! Having a small scene as the sister the hard hombre promised to marry was Florence Lawrence one of the very first film stars. With the aid of some publicity by the then IMP president Carl Laemmle, she was the first star to be actually named thus paving the way for the star system of future years.

In recent months, I have been watching quite a few series B-movies. While I am far from an expert and there is still so much to be seen, I was completely caught off guard by "The Hard Hombre". It was NOTHING like other films by the familiar stars such as Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Tim McCoy and the rest. Part of it was because Hoot Gibson's films were pretty unique and part of it was because it had an incredibly well written script--plus it was a comedy! The film begins with Hoot playing a character nicknamed 'Peaceful' Patton because the guy is so mild-mannered and meek. And, to boot, he was a complete mama's boy. However, using a familiar plot device, it turns out that Peaceful is the spitting image of another man--'The Hard Hombre'. This 'Hombre' has a reputation as a guy with a hair-trigger temper--and a guy who has killed many people. And so, when Peaceful goes to another town for a job, people recognize him as this Hard Hombre. Soon, Peaceful finds that everyone is suddenly VERY solicitous--and treat him with tons of deference and respect. At first, he's just baffled by it, but later, when he realizes what's happening, he takes full advantage of it! I would say more, but it would spoil the WONDERFUL ending.Overall, this is the best B-western I have seen...period. Hoot was a hoot, so to speak. His wonderful manner and delivery was great--especially since he was small and very non-macho compared to other cowboy stars of the day--making the plot work even better. See this film--you won't regret it.

Well I was surprised to see three reviews already posted for this film by the time I got here; it's not unusual to find one of these obscure B Westerns that no one has opined about yet. This one seems to have been written for a bit of tongue in cheek humor, but a lot of it falls flat with the uninspired performances of the principal players. Hoot Gibson had already had a successful career in silents, but at thirty nine years old, he doesn't look much like a cowboy hero, much less a 'Hard Hombre'. The casting for a lot of these older flicks manages to raise a head scratcher or two, in this one, Gibson's character looked like he was about as old as his mother, while in fact, actress Jessie Arnold portraying Mrs. Patton was only about eight years older. Which means on the flip side, Lina Basquette (Senora Martini) in her mid-twenties didn't seem like a reasonable match for her heartthrob hero.Of course the crux of the story rests on a case of mistaken identity, as William Penn 'Peaceful' Patton (Gibson) assumes the identity of an outlaw called Hard Hombre after he goes to work for Senora Martini. The thing that gets me is that at any time, a dozen tough guys in the proximity of the Hombre could have taken him down whenever they would have wanted to. Having Gibson posture with his squinty eyes and mean look would never have worked with a real hard case, and for half the picture, he didn't even wear a gun! Didn't Barlow (G. Raymond Nye) or any of his henchman notice that? Geesh! Aside from the actual story, keep an eye on the scene right after Gibson grabs Miss Martini off her horse and rides over to the old settlers' place. Gibson ties his horse to a tree, but as the group of folks walks out of camera range, the horse simply follows - the tether to the tree is simply gone! By the way, Gibson rode a variety of horses in his movie Westerns; the name of his sharp looking palomino in this one was appropriately named Goldie. No screen credit though, you just have to look these things up.The biggest kick I got from this otherwise bland film was when the 'real' Hard Hombre (Frank Winklemann) showed up and made the mistake of pushing Mrs. Patton around. In stand up fashion, Gibson's character brings the fight to his namesake, shouting out at the top of his lungs - "Keep your hands off my mother"! Yeah, that'll show him.

About 20 minutes into this ultra-low budget early thirties oater it struck me that it might actually have been intended as a comedy, although nothing I had seen on screen had made me laugh. A slightly podgy chap named Hoot Gibson plays the lead character, a nice mother-loving, churchgoing (i.e. dull) cowboy called Peaceful Patten who bears an uncanny resemblance to a tough guy known only as The Hard Hombre. Patten applies for a job with the comely Spanish widow Martinez (the also-comely Lina Basquette) who gives him the task of recovering her 30 head of cattle stolen by evil pot-bellied Joe Barlow. Evil Joe mistakes Patten for the hard hombre and, having sold the cattle, meekly hands over a roll of bills.Now it's pretty obvious by this point that all Patten has to do is pretend to have threatened evil Joe for the money to have the grateful widow Martinez leading him to her boudoir by the hand, but sadly he's a little slow on the uptake – in fact, the film is nearly over before he realises how he can put the case of mistaken identity to good use (and even then it's not to get himself in the Signora's boudoir).Poverty Row film crews must have been falling over each other back in the early thirties as they roamed the Californian hills filming their 'b' movie westerns. Most of these films weren't very good, but this one is worse than most. Otto Brewer's direction is truly bad – he seems to have no idea of where best to place a camera or how to move it, and simply seems to have planted his cameraman in front of the actors and hoped for the best. It's one of the few westerns I've seen with virtually no gunplay, and the absence of any music is particularly noticeable in the so-called action scenes. Hoot Gibson makes an insipid hero – neither funny nor heroic – and looks like a middle-aged caretaker who still lives with his parents.Even by Poverty Row standards this one's a dud.