Hard Times, also known as The Streetfighter,[a] is a 1975 action drama sport film marking the directorial debut of Walter Hill.

It stars Charles Bronson as Chaney, a mysterious drifter freighthopping through Louisiana during the Great Depression, who proves indomitable in illegal bare-knuckled boxing matches after forming a partnership with the garrulous hustler Speed, played by James Coburn.

In 1933, an older man named Chaney watches a bare-knuckled street fight, on which bets are made.

Between fights, Chaney finds a down-on-her-luck woman named Lucy Simpson to sleep with.

When Pettibone, the loser's sponsor, refuses to pay off his bet, Chaney advises Speed to leave, as they are greatly outnumbered by the locals, but suggests they return later.

To cover the shortfall, Speed gets a loan from a gang of local mobsters headed by Doty.

Chaney must wager his entire winnings to take on a prize fighter imported from Chicago named Street, or Speed will be killed.

Afterward, Chaney gives Speed and Poe a generous cut of the winnings and leaves town.

In the early 1970s Walter Hill had developed a strong reputation as a screenwriter, particularly of action films such as The Getaway.

He was approached by Larry Gordon when the latter was head of production at AIP, who offered Hill the chance to direct one of his scripts.

"[7] The project began as an original screenplay by Bryan Gindoff and Bruce Henstell called The Streetfighter.

Hill says the script incorporated elements of an earlier Western he had written, Lloyd Williams and his Brother.

"[7] Hill says he originally wrote the film intending to cast a younger actor, like Jan Michael Vincent, and that he wanted Warren Oates to play Coburn's role.

"[10] Hill remembers that Bronson "was in remarkable physical condition for a guy his age; I think he was about 52 at the time.

Beyond my first or second film, I don't think I've ever had terrible dilemmas based upon resources, but shooting and figuring out how is not a problem, never was.

He didn't get there till 45 or whatever ... [However] When things had seemed to not be working well, or there was some impasse, Charlie would come down hard on my side.

What they don't realize is as soon as you put blood in those fights they would then have gotten so real that they would have lost their dramatic truth.

My heroes usually have a very talkative foil opposite them or reluctantly alongside them, such as Bruce Dern in The Driver, or Eddie Murphy in 48 Hrs, or James Coburn in Hard Times.

[17] Pauline Kael called the setting of Hard Times "elaborate period recreations that seem almost to be there for their own sake."

On the other hand, setting the film in the Depression might have been a way for Hill to make Chaney a more sympathetic character.

Kael explains, "Put [Charles Bronson] in modern clothes and he's a hard-bitten tough guy, but with that cap on he's one of the dispossessed — an honest man who's known hunger".

[18] Roger Ebert in his October 14, 1975, review of Hard Times in the Chicago Sun-Times called it "a powerful, brutal film containing a definitive Charles Bronson performance.