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At the Movies with The Old Man: Jim Kelly, Quiet Cool by Mark Hatmaker

 


[Taken from our book Frontier Fisticuffs: Brawls, Dustups & Mysterious Strangers--The Martial Arts Western on Film. To see another extract from the book, this time a delightful and accurate early Jonn Wayne film, hit the link. The behind the scenes scufflin’ is worth the read alone.]

Take a Hard Ride [1975]

This 1975 Italian-American coproduction was an attempt to blend the then popular Blaxploitation and Spaghetti Western trends. It was also the 2nd of three films starring the trio of Jim Brown, Fred Williamson, and our main man of interest here, Jim Kelly. [Three the Hard Way & One Down, Two to Go being the other two films.]

The director, credited as Anthony Dawson was the sometime screen name of Antonio Margheriti, a veteran of Italian exploitation cinema with Peplum, Spaghetti Westerns and cannibal films to his credit.

As per usual with Italian “Westerns” the film was shot nowhere near the American West, here, the Canary Islands stands in for the Southwest.

As is the practice here, plot details will be minimal to save that enjoyment for any who decide to screen the flick for themselves.

In precis, Pike [Jim Brown, wearing the tightest pants ever devised] accedes to his dying boss’s wish to take a saddlebag of $6,000 back to his ranch in Sonora, Mexico.

Along the way he acquires an untrustworthy but stylish gambler Tyree [Fred Williamson, wearing the second tightest pair of pants known to man.]

While on the journey they are pursued by various parties who think that $6 grand would look better in their own saddlebags.

Add to this they are being pursued by the ruthless bounty hunter Keifer [played by Spaghetti Western stalwart Lee Van Cleef.]

Also, along the way, they pick up a mute Indian scout by the name of Kashtok [played by Jim Kelly.]

Since fighting is our focus in these pages, let us turn to the non-gunplay action.

Jim Brown and Fred Williamson have a brief dustup, but neither lead seems up to really relinquishing cool status so it is a rather mundane affair.

Now, to Mr. Kelly.

Most of us remember him for his role as Williams in the iconic Enter the Dragon.

Jim Kelly, a Bonafide karateka began his study of Shorin-ryu karate in his college years. Kelly went on to perform well in Karate Championships of the early 70s, perhaps the acme being his winning of the world middleweight title at the 1971 Long Beach International Karate Championships.

Mr. Kelly parlayed this success into opening his own studio in Southern California, which led to more than a few celebrities giving karate a go, and these connections led to his debut in martial arts film.

Those of us who know Jim Kelly from Enter the Dragon, two films as Black Belt Jones plus a few others know the decision to have him play mute in this film was not because he could not deliver a line reading, oh, he could and deliver it with utter early 70’s Afro-Cool.

In Take a Hard Ride we may be denied his voice, but we do have the expressive vehicle of his body, and he uses that well here.

His easy grace fits the Indian scout role to a T. He does not mount a horse, rather, like actual Apache scouts who often preferred to “lope” vast distances afoot [see our offering on Apache Running here] or Larry McMurtry’s memorable character “Famous Shoes” from the Lonesome Dove quartet, we often see him treading easily and smoothly where our two tight-trousered stars stay ahorse.

Let’s get to what you came here for, the fights. Unlike the lackluster Brown-Williamson confrontation, we are treated to Kelly in a few brief scuffles moving smoothly, applying jump kicks on sand with facile ability and overall providing some of the more interesting aspects of the film.

Now, I adore Jim Brown, but…I don’t see this as his best film.

I’m not the biggest on Fred Williamson’s swagger style of “acting around his perpetual cigar,” so I can’t really say how he stacks up here—he always seems the same to me. Cocky and posing for the camera, never really performing.

The clear attractions, to this viewer are Van Cleef’s dependable laconic cool, and Jim Kelly’s mute grace.

It seems even without dialogue he out-cooled the main stars.

The film is no classic of the Wester-Frontier Martial Arts film but thanks to Jim Kelly it is worth a look for aficionados of the genre.

[Taken from our book Frontier Fisticuffs: Brawls, Dustups & Mysterious Strangers--The Martial Arts Western on Film. To see another extract from the book, this time a delightful and accurate early Jonn Wayne film, hit the link. The behind the scenes scufflin’ is worth the read alone.]

Old School Warrior Resources Below

The Black Box Warehouse

https://www.extremeselfprotection.com/

The Indigenous Ability Blog

https://indigenousability.blogspot.com/

The Rough ‘n’ Tumble Raconteur Podcast

https://anchor.fm/mark-hatmaker

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