skjam | Entries tagged with clint eastwood

Coogan's Bluff (1968) dir. Don Siegel

Deputy Sheriff Coogan (Clint Eastwood) is sent from his native Arizona to New York City to extradite escaped felon James Ringerman (Don Stroud). He expects it to be a quick process, but Ringerman had a bad trip on LSD and is currently under observation at Bellevue. NYPD Lieutenant McElroy (Lee J. Cobb) explains a bit of the bureaucratic process in a rather dismissive fashion (he's got his own worries.) While at the police station, Coogan becomes interested in parole officer Julie Roth (Susan Clark) though they start off poorly due to his misunderstanding of how her job works.

Despite Julie warming up to him a bit, Coogan is generally unimpressed by New York City's people and culture, becoming impatient to pick up his prisoner. He bluffs (thus the title) the Bellevue staff into thinking he's got the releases needed to get Ringerman out of the hospital. But his carelessness and rush to be done results in him losing Ringerman and his gun. Despite being warned off by the New York police and taken off the case by the Arizona sheriff's office, Coogan's pride has been damaged, and he will not rest until he's personally recaptured the criminal.

This was Eastwood's first go-round as a "cowboy cop", before the much better received Dirty Harry series. It's notable here that Coogan's antics make life much more difficult for himself and everyone around him, and are ultimately a big waste of time. He could have accomplished just as much by taking Lt. McElroy's advice and waiting it out, with much less personal injury and property damage. Yes, New York City is disgusting in this late Sixties setting, with its permissiveness and criminal coddling and chiseling, not to mention the hippies. Ringerman's girlfriend Linny Raven (Tisha Sterling) is a particularly rancid example of the Love Generation gone wrong. But if he'd just held on, Coogan would have gotten what he wanted. Heck, there's even a moment where Julie suggests an activity that would have shortcut his search by Ringerman by a day by coincidence if he'd been able to turn off his pride for a moment.

At the beginning of the film, we see Coogan in his native territory, ignoring orders from his sheriff to apprehend a fugitive in his own way, then chaining the man up so he can visit a girlfriend before taking the man in. Coogan repeatedly shows a tendency to not listen to instructions or suggestions, defy protocol and violate privacy laws, and will gladly seduce women and betray them to get what he wants. (Apparently he does make some apologies offscreen at the end of the movie, since McElroy and Julie act as though he's mended fences.)

A highlight of the movie is one scene where Coogan tries to get information out of Ringerman's mother Ellen (Betty Field) only to be outmatched by her brazenness. (He did have a follow-up plan but he'd screwed up the NYPD's investigation in the process, canceling out both.) There's a nifty scene in a psychedelic nightclub, and general glimpses of New York City in the late 1960s, like the Pan Am helipad. (No scenes of the actual Coogan's Bluff, though.) Oh, and the motorcycle chase is pretty good.

Content note: Gun violence and fisticuffs, hospitalization but no deaths. Female nudity and male shirtlessness. Sexual assault. Extramarital sex. Drug abuse. Coogan breaks a lot of laws and ultimately faces no legal consequences. Older teens should be okay.

This is a lesser Eastwood film, to fill in checklists for his fans, or for fans of the cowboy cop subgenre in general.

Current Mood: sick
Current Music: Someone practicing the clarinet

High Plains Drifter (1973) dir. Clint Eastwood

The people of Lago are in fear. And perhaps they have good reason for it. A year ago, three outlaws whipped the town marshal to death in the street of this tiny lakeside mining town. They were caught and imprisoned for an entirely different crime, vowing vengeance on the townfolk they felt betrayed them. Those outlaws are about to be released from prison. Lago's town council had hired three bully boys to protect them against the incoming outlaws, but today a stranger (Clint Eastwood) came to town. When the bullies tried their luck with him, the stranger proved himself deadlier with a gun.

Next, town prostitute Callie Travers (Marianna Hill) deliberately bumps into the stranger and is exceptionally rude to him, apparently under the impression that "negging" will make him want her services. He rapes her, and even though this is plainly happening in broad daylight, the townsfolk do nothing. Having established that the stranger is able to do exactly as he pleases without fear of consequences, the townsfolk decide to hire this gunslinger as their new protector.

The stranger agrees to the fee of "anything you want", among other things appointing little person Mordecai (Billy Curtis), the odd-job man, the new combination sheriff and mayor. But the people of Lago have no idea how high the price they're paying actually is, for the stranger is even more than he seems, and he rides a pale horse.

This was Clint Eastwood's second go at being a solo director, and his first time directing himself in a Western. While it draws on what he learned from his work with Sergio Leone, and his character has no name, the Stranger is definitely not the same person as The Man with No Name from those films. This man is deliberately cruel and following an agenda of vengeance.

Exactly who or what the Stranger is, is never directly stated in the movie. There are hints of the supernatural about him, but they're not confirmed. The dead marshal is played by Buddy van Horn, Clint Eastwood's long-time stunt double, to set up a strong resemblance. But if the stranger is the marshal's brother (as in early versions of the script) how does he know so much about what happened and who the people of the town are? How does he pull off some of those tricks? On the other hand, if he's the marshal's ghost or some other supernatural being (the Devil? the personification of Death?), he's an awfully earthy ghost, eating, drinking, smoking and having sex.

As it happens, the outlaws have a genuine beef with the townsfolk of Lago, as the death of the marshal was no whim on their part. The dark secret of the village is that everyone there was either complicit in the marshal's death or stood by and let it happen. Their corruption and cowardice continue into the present day, which is how the Stranger is able to cow them into doing whatever he wants.

His choice of Mordecai as his sidekick is not just an insult to the townsfolk, either. While Mordecai is also no prize, puffing himself up with his borrowed authority, and also a cowardly bystander, he becomes a reliable ally to the stranger, and in the end finds his inner grit.

Make no mistake, there are no "good" people in this story. The outlaws are just as evil as you'd expect people who whipped a man to death to be, the townsfolk are backstabbing cowards (with a couple of minor exceptions), and the Stranger is monstrous. (The stranger is a bit kinder to Native Americans and Mexicans who are just visiting Lago.)

The directing is okay, but Mr. Eastwood would get a lot better over the years. He did very well in choosing the set design though, having all the Lago buildings built on the shore of Lake Mono in California so they could be repainted and destroyed as the script called for. The colors and flames make the climax of the film appropriately hellish in appearance.

Content note: A lot of violence, much of it lethal. People are shot, stabbed, hanged and whipped to death. The stranger commits rape on screen (no nudity) and never actually suffers consequences for it. Extramarital sex. Shirtless man. Verbal blasphemy and some other rough language. A bit of racism. This was an R-rated film for a reason, and even older teens might blanch.

This is very much a "revisionist" Western, and John Wayne hated it. There's a bit of the Kitty Genovese murder in here, and other concerns of the 1970s buried in the subtext. Recommended to fans of violent Westerns with murky morality.

Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970) dir. Don Siegel

The time: July 1865. The place: Mexico. Hogan (Clint Eastwood). at loose ends since the end of the American Civil War, is headed south towards Chihuahua when he stumbles across several bandits attempting to rape a woman. While Hogan is by no means a good person, he has his standards, and he promptly kills the bandits. He's surprised to learn the woman is a nun, Sister Sara (Shirley MacLaine). It turns out she's come from Chihuahua, fleeing the French army.

It seems that Sister Sara angered the French occupation forces by raising money for the revolutionaries battling the puppet emperor Maximillian. As it happens, Hogan was recruited by Colonel Beltran (Manolo Fábregas) of the Juaristas to assist in an attack on the Chihuahua garrison in exchange for half the loot, and Sister Sara's information on the setup there is good enough that he doesn't have to go himself to scout. Plus he can hardly let a defenseless nun travel through this dangerous territory alone.

Hogan and Sara encounter many dangers, including Yaqui warriors that wound Hogan with an arrow, and a dying French officer that recognizes Sara (though the language he uses to describe her is far from spiritual.) They also blow up a troop train.

Eventually they connect with the Colonel, and a plan is hatched, which will need a lot of dynamite. Hogan shows his integrity by not just absconding with the purchase funds.

Unfortunately, the attack plan goes awry when the French troops in the garrison turn out not to be drunk for Bastille Day. The freedom fighters are outnumbered, outgunned, and have an alert foe. How can they turn this around?

While the movie has some funny moments in it, the trailer made it look more comedic than it actually is, especially in the last third, when it becomes a full-fledged war movie. This movie is very much in the "spaghetti Western" mold, using props from the Dollars Trilogy, Clint Eastwood as a hard-bitten gunslinger in a serape, and Ennio Morricone music. (The title music is...odd, but distinctive from his other work.)

I am given to understand that the first script was more of a Hollywood romantic comedy intended for a more saintly-looking woman playing Sara, so that the surprise that she's not a nun would be less obvious. But after several changes of lead actors and directors, the rewrites had turned it considerably bawdier.

The location shooting in Mexico gives the movie lovely scenery, and many of the minor roles were played by local Mexican actors which helps with the authentic feel. (Much needed since MacLaine doesn't feel like a Mexican national at all.) While I am told MacLaine and Eastwood didn't get along behind the scenes, they do have good chemistry on screen.

The historical accuracy? Not so much, including the fact that during this time period, the French didn't celebrate Bastille Day as a national holiday.

Content note: Quite a bit of combat violence, some gory. There's an uncomfortable sequence where the arrow has to be removed from Hogan's shoulder, while it's covered in blood. Death of an animal (which unfortunately was real as the Mexican government insisted.) Attempted rape. Implied extramarital sex, prostitution is discussed. Very touchy Catholics may object to Sister Sara's portrayal.

Not one of Eastwood's great movies, but very serviceable. Recommended once you've blown through his other spaghetti westerns.

Current Location: Chihuahua Province
Current Music: "We Are"

Sudden Impact (1983) dir. Clint Eastwood

San Francisco is a dangerous city, as seen when a man is given a ".38 vasectomy" and a head shot in his car by his passenger. The next morning, Police Inspector "Dirty" Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) is not initially investigating that case. He's in court, where a previous investigation's evidence is thrown out because Harry didn't bother getting a search warrant. The assistant DA is not at all happy as Inspector Callahan has done this to him several times (but honestly should have known better than to go to trial with that evidence.) After that, Harry goes for his morning coffee, thwarting a robbery there by killing 3/4ths of the criminals.

That evening, Dirty Harry crashes a mobster's daughter's wedding, and manages to give the elderly man a heart attack by suggesting he has evidence linking the man, Threlkis, to a murder. Threlkis' minions swear vengeance, and most of them die in an attempt to kill Harry. The next night, the jerks from the dismissed case try to murder Inspector Callahan and also perish.

Nobody's shedding any tears for the criminal corpses, but it's causing bad publicity for the department, plus civilians could get hurt if they're near Harry when he's targeted. However, due to his success rate in prominent cases, it's no longer possible to fire Harry or reassign him to a desk job. It's been discovered that the man who died in his car came from San Paulo, a small touristy place down the coast. Inspector Callahan is assigned to do a background check on him to cool off the heat.

The audience has learned that the .38 killer is artist Jennifer Spenser (Sondra Locke). Ten years ago, she and her sister were gang-raped near the amusement pier in San Paulo. Jennifer was traumatized and her sister driven into a vegetative state. The police chief Lester Jannings (Pat Hingle) covered up the affair as his son was a reluctant part of the gang. Recently, Jennifer spotted one of the gang in San Francisco, stalked him, and successfully killed him. This vengeance gave her some satisfaction, and now she's moved back to San Paulo to hunt down the others.

By a couple of coincidences, Jennifer and Harry meet and find themselves attracted to each other. It helps that Dirty Harry has been given a bulldog he names "Meathead" by his current partner Horace King (Albert Popwell, a bit of a casting gag as he'd been a criminal in each of the three previous movies.) Meathead's a bit of a handful, but successfully alerts Inspector Callahan to a final hitman. (The dog is injured, but does not die.)

As the bodies pile up, both the rapists and Harry begin to put together the pieces. Unfortunately, the final member of the gang, Mick (Paul Drake) is a real piece of work, and manages to get the upper hand for a while, sparking off a climactic confrontation.

This fourth Dirty Harry movie was also supposed to be the last (just like the third.) It's even darker in tone than the previous ones with its theme of the consequences of sexual violence. There's a lot of death here.

Harry's more sympathetic to the vigilante here than in Magnum Force, at least partially because he's emotionally involved, but also because she has a finite agenda and doesn't kill bystanders. Once the revenge is over, so is her vigilante career.

Chief Jannings is initially hostile to Inspector Callahan just for being a violent big city cop acting out of his jurisdiction, but it quickly becomes personal when he figures out the connection between the victims and how it affects him. He's been carrying around a lot of guilt for his and his son's actions, and Mick's been able to leverage that for special treatment. By the time Jannings resolves to do better, though, it's too late.

There is, as always, some great violent action. The darkened carousel and surrounding amusement park are an effective setting for the climax. There's a little fun with Harry being out of his element in San Paulo and taking care of a dog.

Political: Jennifer rants about "victim rights", and has been poorly served by the legal system. She admires Harry for being more about results than procedure. It's clear reading between the lines though that Inspector Callahan is not very good at getting convictions, only dead perpetrators.

Content note: Deadly violence, some a bit gory; with the last death being well over the top. Rape and attempted rape. Sex, no genitals. Nudity, mostly female. Sexist, racist and ableist slurs. Meathead provides body function humor. Attempted suicide in the backstory. General rough language.

Overall: By this time, "cowboy cops" were all too common in movies, many quite bad. Mr. Eastwood was getting tired of the character and anxious to try more diverse projects. So he directed this (almost) farewell to the series with an eye to how Dirty Harry had been affected by past experiences and a more sympathetic antagonist. It's not the best in the series, but it's pretty good. I would like to see a story sometime about the poor cops who have to clean up after Inspector Callahan and do all the paperwork.

Current Music: "Dirt and Fire"--Piotr Musial

Hang 'Em High (1968) dir. Ted Post

Jed Cooper (Clint Eastwood) used to be a lawman in Saint Louis, Missouri, but got tired of that job. So in 1889 he moved to the Oklahoma and Indian Territory. He used money he'd saved up to purchase cattle from a Mr. Johansen. Unfortunately, that man was actually a rustler who'd murdered Johansen earlier that day and was more than willing to make a quick buck off a careless stranger. This goes badly for Cooper when an impromptu posse of nine catches up with him, led by "Captain" Wilson (Ed Begley).

They believe Jed to be the killer since he's in possession of the cattle, and decide to become a lynch mob, with only a man named Jenkins (Bob Steele) expressing doubts. Members of the posse take Jed's saddle and wallet as trophies, and they hang him from a nearby tree. Luckily, none of them have ever hanged a man before and they botch the job. Cooper is still alive a few minutes later when U.S. Deputy Marshal Dave Bliss (Ben Johnson) happens by transporting prisoners. He cuts down and revives Jed Cooper and takes him into custody.

After Jed Cooper reaches Fort Grant and spends some time in the prison there, he meets Judge Fenton (Pat Hingle), currently the only federal judge in the territory, and thus the law. As it happens, the real rustler was caught, tried and sentenced to death, and the judge invites Jed to watch the hanging from his office. The rustler managed to spend most of Jed's money before being caught. Judge Fenton makes Cooper an offer. Based on his history, he'd make a good U.S. Deputy Marshal himself. The pay is good, the job is dangerous, and one of his assignments will be to bring in the members of the lynch mob. Alive.

That last bit might be a tall order.

This film was the first made by Clint Eastwood's own production company, Malpaso, and thus the first where Mr. Eastwood had a large say in how the film was made, picking the director and getting script changes to suit him.

Jed Cooper is an interesting contrast to both The Man With No Name, and Dirty Harry Callahan, the other famous roles Eastwood played around this time. Unlike No Name, Marshal Cooper is a person with a past, a present and future goals that aren't just for himself and the immediate moment. He's also introduced with a bit of gentleness, Cooper's first on-screen act being saving a calf from being stuck in a creek. His policing style bears a resemblance to Harry's, but his problem with the system isn't that it's too tilted towards the rights of criminals, but that it's arbitrarily too harsh on people who perhaps could be rehabilitated.

Judge Fenton is a "hanging judge" who feels that he has to mete out harsh justice to control the large territory he's been put in charge of. He has no personal joy in the act of execution, unlike many of the townsfolk of Fort Grant, who treat a mass hanging as a festival event, with singing and cold beer. Fenton is looking forward to the day when Oklahoma becomes a state with a proper legal system that has checks and balances. At the end, he asks Cooper to stay on as a marshal as Jed has worked through his personal vengeance issues and rediscovered his conscience.

The love interest is Mrs. Rachel Warren (Inger Stevens). Two unnamed drifters murdered her husband and raped her, so she takes a good look at the men brought to the Fort Grant prison in hopes that one of them might be caught. The compression of time to fit her subplot in the movie makes it look like she got over her intimacy issues way too fast once she fell in love with Jed.

Dominic Frontiere was hired to compose the music score in a Morricone style. It's not quite as good as the Dollars trilogy music, but still enjoyable.

The personalities of the nine lynchers are varied, as are their reactions to what they've done and its consequences. Reno (Joseph Sirola) is a scumbag, but the rest are more or less decent men who allow their anger and sense of self-righteousness to override their good sense and commit a horrific mistake. Jenkins turns himself in, but others flee the area or double down on killing Cooper. One dies offscreen as Marshal Cooper is forced to deal with a more pressing capture--he doesn't have the luxury of only working one case!

An interesting bit. All the guards at the Fort Grant prison are black men. This is never mentioned in dialogue, I wonder if it's a historically accurate detail from the real-life Fort Smith?

New Mexico stands in for Oklahoma, creating some odd landscape moments.

There's enough moral complexity here to provide good thinking material, without going quite to the cynicism of the Sergio Leone movies.

Content note: Western-style violence, some a bit bloody. Multiple hangings. Extramarital sex. Suicide. Abuse of alcohol (one of the men to be executed blames his killings on this.)

Overall: A very good Western. It's perhaps not one of the greats, but well worth watching.

Current Mood: warm
Current Music: "Rock of Ages"

Magnum Force (1973) dir. Ted Post

San Francisco is a city riddled with crime. Police Inspector "Dirty Harry" Callahan (Clint Eastwood) knows too well that the system is often rigged in the favor of criminals. Sometimes it seems like the police are drowning in regulations and procedures. He does what he can by skirting the rules, but what if the police could in fact just kill anyone they knew was a criminal?

Labor racketeer Carmine Ricca (Richard Devon) has just been acquitted of murder on a technicality, the evidence of his guilt having been ruled inadmissible. This apparently happens to him a lot. On the way home, his car is stopped by a motorcycle cop, who asks for the license and registration. The alleged mobsters consider this an annoyance right up until the cop shoots them all dead.

Meanwhile, although Callahan has rejoined the force despite his misgivings during the Scorpio Killer case, he's currently off Homicide and on stakeout detail with his new partner Early Smith (Felton Perry). He clashes with Lieutenant Briggs (Hal Holbrook), who derides Harry's violent tendencies and openly wonders why Inspector Callahan has driven out of his way to view the Ricca killing.

Rather than return directly to the stakeout, Harry and Early head out to the airport for lunch at a dining spot operated by one of Harry's old friends on the force. Thus they're on hand when a hijacking situation takes place, and Harry is able to take out the hijackers.

Later that evening, Callahan arrives at the police firing range, where he first meets veteran motorcycle cop Charlie McCoy (Mitchell Ryan) who's now divorced and harboring thoughts of suicide, and complains that cops aren't allowed to shoot "hoods" (despite Dirty Harry's frequently doing just that.) Then Harry meets four new motorcycle officers, Davis (David Soul), Sweet (Tim Matheson), Astrachan (Kip Niven) and Grimes (Robert Urich). They're all excellent shots, especially Davis, and have a strong bond.

Soon, a gangster's pool party is massacred with no survivors, a murderous pimp is shot very dead, a bisexual drug kingpin and his sex partners are killed...and a cop is also murdered by the mysterious motorcycle officer. It's clear that no survivors are to be left to testify.

After their current stakeout ends violently but successfully, Early and Harry are reassigned to Homicide. Callahan has a sneaking suspicion who the vigilante killer is, but Lt. Briggs is sure it's Ricci's rival crime boss Palancio (Tony Giorgio) and orders the inspector to concentrate on him.

Eventually Harry figures out who's really behind the Magnum killings, but that only exposes him to deadly danger--without his gun! Does this man know his limitations?

This second Dirty Harry was something of a reply to both critics who thought Callahan was a "fascist" and misguided fans who had bought into a narrative where killing criminals without trial or procedure was an acceptable way of doing justice. Thus this time Harry is up against a police death squad like the ones that had recently been in the news in South America. Dirty Harry may hate the system, but he recognizes that some system is necessary to proper functioning of the police and courts. He's careful not to kill civilians, and rather than just execute criminals, he maneuvers himself into situations where lethal force is "justified" and then uses it. And notably, he guesses wrong about the criminal's identity initially--Harry's not omniscient.

Callahan's "hates everyone equally" is dialed back a bit in this one. He does not object to his black partner, and is less concerned about other officers' sexuality than their competence.

Less good is women throwing themselves at Inspector Callahan with no effort on his part. (The writer of the first movie also objected that this just wasn't the kind of thing Harry should be doing.)

Very good are the car chases and the violent bits. This is an action movie, however political.

Content notes: Violence, some bloody. Though it's just off camera, the drain cleaner being forced down a woman's throat is particularly brutal. Male and female nudity, extramarital sex. Drug abuse. One of the criminals is gratuitously racist towards Early (N-word), general foul language. The motorcycle cop stopping vehicles and then shooting the occupants may resemble certain real world events too closely for some viewers.

Overall: Clint Eastwood liked this one the best of the Dirty Harry films, and it's easy to see why. It's a superior "cowboy cop" movie that allows Inspector Callahan to show his lines that must not be crossed.

Current Mood: dirty
Current Music: "Core Pride"--Uverworld

Paint Your Wagon (1969) dir. Joshua Logan

It is the height of the California Gold Rush, and a motley assembly of prospectors from around the world have joined a wagon train to the next possible strike. The wagon of two Michigan ex-farmer brothers goes off a cliff, killing one of them. Affable scoundrel Ben Rumson (Lee Marvin) is conducting an impromptu funeral for the man when it's discovered that the local soil is rich in gold. He promptly stakes a claim, and makes the surviving brother (Clint Eastwood) his partner. Around them, a mining camp rises, No-Name City.

Partner is a straight arrow sort of man, in contrast to Ben's wicked ways. But the one line Ben won't cross is betraying a partner, and they become good friends.

One day a Mormon comes to No-Name City with two wives. Since there are no other women in town, he's down on his luck, and his wives don't get along at all, he agrees to auction off second wife Elizabeth (Jean Seberg). The high bid is made by a drunken Ben. Once he's married under mining law, and sobered up a bit, he and Elizabeth come to an understanding. He treats her as a proper wife, including building a long-term cabin, and she treats him as a proper husband. They soon love each other.

However, this does nothing for the blue balls of the rest of the miners. It's learned that a shipment of French bawds is coming into Fresno, and Ben comes up with the audacious plan to divert this shipment to No-Name City to set up their first cathouse. While Ben and his crew are absent, Partner looks after Elizabeth and they fall in love as well.

This causes some friction when Ben returns. Elizabeth has a solution. Since polygyny was acceptable to the Mormons, and no one in town has an issue with prostitution, polyandry should be okay as well. Thus, she's okay with having two husbands. And this being the frontier, Ben and Partner eventually come around to the idea.

Paint Your Wagon is a musical, loosely based on the Lerner and Lowe stage play of the same name. (That is, it shares the setting, some songs, and a few character names.) A darker screenplay was written by Paddy Chayefsky, then lightened up again by Alan Jay Lerner. It was shot on location in Oregon, standing in for old-time California. The production was famously troubled and went way over budget, so even though the movie sold a lot of tickets, it was considered a bomb.

After our three leads come to an agreement, they are happy for a season, while No-Name City becomes a wide-open boom town, with actual if flimsy buildings. But with this new prosperity comes the forces of civilization. First, a Parson (Alan Dexter) who preaches against sexual sin, and then a group of lost settlers, looking to make farms out of the fertile soil. Elizabeth takes in the Fenty family and suddenly develops a taste for "respectability", something that Ben is not at all interested in. Plus, the easily found gold is drying up. No-Name City's days are numbered.

One of the many issues with the movie was that none of the three leads were trained singers, a big problem for a musical. Ms. Seberg was dubbed over, but Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood had to just try their best. The results are...mixed. Mr. Marvin is at least entertaining. The one song that still gets a lot of radio play is "They Call the Wind Mariah", which is led by Harve Presnell as Rotten Luck Willie, gambler and eventual saloon owner. The placement suggests that even he has his regrets.

Ben is a character who reminds me a bit of Robert Heinlein's Lazarus Long in his contempt for "civilization." He values his freedom, and cannot conform to society's rules. So it is that he is constantly moving on to the next strike when a place gets too civilized. There's a bittersweet note to this comedy. The three-way marriage, and No-Name City itself, are by their natures unsustainable. They flourish for a brief glorious season, and then are gone. Partner and Elizabeth can adapt to the new ways, but Ben and many of his fellow prospectors cannot.

The scenery is gorgeous, and the destruction of No-Name City hilarious. The movie's long, nearly three hours, but that includes a ten-minute "intermission" to stretch your legs.

Content note: In addition to things already mentioned, a "bull vs. bear" fight is promised. It doesn't quite come off. Some humans engage in fisticuffs though. Parents of younger viewers should prepare to answer questions and discuss the characters' behavior.

Overall: Not one of the great musicals, but it has its charms. Worth watching.

The Enforcer (1976) dir. James Fargo

Two Pacific Gas & Electric employees violate company rules by picking up an attractive hitchhiker. Unfortunately for them, they're not in a Seventies porno film, but a Seventies action film. Meanwhile, Inspector Harry "Dirty Harry" Callahan (Clint Eastwood) of the San Francisco Police Department is having a typical day. First he demonstrates why you don't want to call the cops to deal with a heart attack victim (good thing the guy was faking), then he busts up a store robbery where the crooks have taken hostages by busting up the store itself with his police car.

To be fair to Harry's long-suffering supervisor Lt. Bressler (Harry Guardino) and new boss Captain McKay (Bradford Dillman), it's a textbook example of "excessive force", "reckless endangerment", and "a plan that only worked because the scriptwriter is on Harry's side." So it's not exactly a surprise when Inspector Callahan is temporarily reassigned to Personnel to take some heat off the department. But it's telling that when Harry says, "Personnel is for assholes," the captain's response is not, "you catch on fast", but "I spent ten years in Personnel," which is an early warning sign that he's a recipient of a Peter Principle promotion.

Harry's assigned to the board for examining new inspector applicants, and is not well pleased to learn that the mayor's office has imposed quotas for diversity hires. We only see one, Kate Moore (Tyne Daly), who up until now has spent her entire police career in Personnel. Inspector Callahan is astonishingly rude to her, which everyone takes as sexism but the audience can tell is really because she doesn't have the street experience he feels is necessary for success as an inspector. Kate does get a moment to show that she has the legal stuff down once she's actually allowed to respond.

Meanwhile, Callahan's most recent partner, DiGeorgio (John Mitchum), spots the stolen PG&E truck at a weapons warehouse. He tries to emulate some of Harry's cowboy cop police work, but gets himself shot up by the People's Revolutionary Strike Force, and they get away with some serious hardware, including Light Assault Weapon rocket launchers. Before he dies, DiGeorgio gives Harry a clue, one of the criminals was a pimp they'd questioned in a previous case.

Bressler gets Inspector Callahan back on Homicide detail, but that comes with a catch, new partner Inspector Moore. Her lack of street smarts and tough hide shows why Harry's right to be concerned about the affirmative action hiring process, but she is in fact competent and quick-witted, and she proves her worth by helping track down one of the Strike Force. He's not talking, but has a history with militant groups.

Inspector Callahan goes to Mustapha (Robert Popwell) of the Black militant group Uhuru, who aren't exactly law-abiding citizens, but don't do violent revolution things because they know what happens to black folks who try that. He reveals that the former member in question defected to a more violent group led by Bobby Maxwell (DeVeren Bookwalter), former pimp and Vietnam veteran discharged via Section 8. Mustapha's willing to provide more information in exchange for Harry doing something to help out a member of Uhuru who was busted on possession charges. But Captain McKay botches this by arresting all of Uhuru and blaming them for the PRSF's crimes.

When Harry refuses to go along with a photo-op getting a commendation from the mayor (John Crawford) and embarrasses Captain McKay in front of that dignitary by stating how badly the arrests have damaged the investigation, McKay orders Inspector Callahan to turn in his badge. When the real killers kidnap the Mayor for ransom, what will the police do?

This was the third Dirty Harry movie, and meant to be the last, as can be spotted by the ending. It was repurposed from a stand-alone script titled "Moving Target", which explains why for much of the film the terrorists and Inspector Callahan seem to be in two different movies.

Good: Very nice violence scenes--you did come for violence, I hope? Clint Eastwood and Tyne Daly act well together, and the script avoids any hints of romance. Mustapha gets some good lines in.

Less good: Some scenes seem padded for running time, and could have been trimmed up to allow more development for the PRSF. There's clearly much more going on with the terrorists as to which ones actually have political beliefs and which are solely in it for the money that could have made this a tenser movie. Bobby Maxwell is the "crazed Vietnam veteran" stereotype used so much in the media at the time. The cinematography is not up to the first movie.

Political: As you might expect, the movie is very much on Dirty Harry's side. Violently killing criminals is far more efficient than following rules or coming up with other ways to free hostages. "Bureaucratic" police officials just get in the way of "real" cops. While Inspector Moore turns out to be okay, affirmative action as a whole is a bad idea that can hold back more qualified candidates (and the movie elides why there might not be a greater number of "qualified" women or minorities.) Politicians are more interested in getting elected than in actually fighting crime.

Content note: Violence, some a bit gory. Nudity, sexual situations (at least two of the PRSF were sex workers for Bobby before he went into the revolution business.) Racism (Captain McKay just kind of assumes that the Black militants are violent), sexism (Inspector Moore gets some microaggressions, and then there's Harry's whole thing that looks like sexism if you don't know him.) There's a very uncomfortable scene where the male members of Uhuru play the "we're not actually going to do anything to you we could get arrested for, but we sure are going to imply we could" game with Inspector Moore.

Overall: It's a decent action movie, though the whole "hey, look, a female homicide detective" thing makes it very much a period piece. Parents of younger viewers may want to discuss some of the themes of the movie and how attitudes have changed since the 1970s.

For a Few Dollars More (1965) dir. Sergio Leone

It is a time when life is cheap, but death can be lucrative, and bounty killers have come to the land. One such killer is referred to as "Monco" (Clint Eastwood) because of his preference for doing things left-handed. Another is Colonel Douglas Mortimer (Lee van Cleef), a former Confederate officer who's fallen on hard times. When notorious bandit El Indio (Gian Maria Volante) is broken out of prison, his bounty is raised to $10,000 dollars, dead or alive. Both hunters are eyeing this prize; can they work together long enough to collect it?

This is the middle part of the Man with No Name trilogy, and another classic spaghetti Western. Hard men do hard things in a harsh land where there are no good choices.

The movie has Sergio Leone sharing the writing credit, showing that he can come up with a good story (with help) even without a Japanese film to borrow from.

Monco (or Manco in the Spanish) remains the sarcastic Man with No Name or clearly identified past, though it would appear the hand that got injured in A Fistful of Dollars is still giving him some trouble. His character remains somewhat static.

Colonel Mortimer, on the other hand, has a very definite past, and hidden depths. He reads the Bible on long trips, has picked up safecracking skills and his bounty hunting has an end goal beyond mere money making. Which isn't to say that he is not a cold-blooded killer and manipulator.

Mortimer has realized that El Indio, being a bit loco, will head for the most impregnable bank in the territory, in El Paso. He's guessed right, as has Monco, but neither of those knows the real reason the bandit has picked that bank. El Indio has learned a secret that makes this bank much easier to rob than anyone might have guessed.

El Indio, despite his bland nickname, is a dangerous man. He pretends to have something of a code of honor, but cheats to make sure he does not actually have to fight on equal terms, and is unnecessarily cruel. He's subject to abrupt mood swings, self-medicates, and has flashbacks involving a musical watch that get more revealing as the movie returns to them. His large gang may be convenient for staging robberies, but not so much for splitting the loot, but El Indio has a plan for that.

Ennio Morricone does the music again, and I think I like it best here in the middle movie where it takes breaks more often and thus has a bit more impact.

Content note: In addition to a lot of gun violence, there's an extended torture scene, partial female nudity, rape and suicide. A minor character has his deformity picked on.

If you're watching the rest of the trilogy, this is also very worth seeing.

Current Location: Once Upon a Time in the West
Current Music: Ennio Morricone's Greatest Hits

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) dir. Sergio Leone

Our title characters are introduced in reverse order. The Ugly, Tuco (Eli Wallach), is an outlaw with a price on his head, guilty of a long list of crimes that have more than earned him a hanging. He's a survivor who's always thinking of his own hide and interests. The Bad, Angel Eyes (Lee Van Cleef), is a hired killer who's discovered a bigger payday than his client had hinted. And the Good, Blondie (Clint Eastwood), is the Man with No Name, whose goodness is shall we say relative?

Tuco and Blondie are running a scam where Blondie turns Tuco in for the bounty money, then saves his partner from the noose at the last moment. Blondie is smart enough to quit while they're ahead, but keeps all the money from their latest sting and strands Tuco in the middle of nowhere. Tuco is understandably enraged and seeks revenge. However, just as he's about to finish Blondie off, they learn clues about the location of the chest of gold Angel Eyes has been searching for. Since they now each need each other to get the big score, they must now cooperate.

However, they soon stumble upon Angel Eyes' trap for the original thief, and the killer learns half the secret. Now a series of side-switches and double-crosses will lead all three men to a final showdown.

Oh, and I should mention that this is all happening in 1862, during the Arizona campaign of the American Civil war, so the Confederate and Union Armies are fighting all around this.

This was the third film Sergio Leone made with Clint Eastwood, and the most epic. The American importers were the ones who decided to market all three films as though Clint's character was not just a very similar type, but actually the same person. In which case, this is a prequel to the other films which take place after the Civil War.

Ennio Morricone wrote the soundtrack music, which is excellent, especially when it switches up to a soft, beautiful piece the Confederate prisoners of war are forced to play to cover up the sounds of Tuco being tortured by Angel Eyes and his goons.

Lots of great visual sequences, long non-speaking scenes and nifty dark humor, particularly from Tuco. Speaking of which, we learn the most about Tuco of the three main characters. We meet his old friends and his estranged brother, and his version of why he became a criminal. Even though he's a bad person, we can sympathize with Tuco a bit, as opposed to the cold Angel Eyes.

In addition to the aforementioned torture, there are a couple of ugly wounds on display, and some male nudity. (There are almost no women in the movie and they're all fully clothed bit parts.)

The restored version runs almost three hours, and is not for the impatient.

One of the great Westerns, worth seeking out if you haven't previously seen it.

Current Mood: drained
Current Music: The Ecstasy of Gold

A Fistful of Dollars (1964) dir. Sergio Leone

San Miguel, a village near the Rio Bravo in northeast Mexico, is an unhappy place. There are more widows than wives, and the only man making an honest living is Piripero the coffin maker (Joseph Egger). The trouble is that there is not just one criminal gang in town, but two, the rumrunner Rojo brothers, and the gunrunner Baxter gang. Into this tense situation rides the Man with No Name (Clint Eastwood). He sizes up the village, and realizes that he can manipulate the gangs and earn...a fistful of dollars.

With the bartender Silvanito (Jose Calvo) as his only confidant, the Man skillfully plays both sides, offering his services first to the Rojos, and then secretly to the Baxters. With a chestful of Army gold at stake, it's easy to make the bodies pile up. But the Man takes pity on Ramon Rojo's (Gian Maria Volante) captive Marisol (Marianne Koch, who gets second billing despite a relatively small part) and arranges her escape, which leads the Man into the hands of the enemy.

This was the first of Sergio Leone's "spaghetti Westerns" made in part because Hollywood had started moving away from the dominance of Westerns in the American film industry, and the Westerns that were coming out from the U.S. were "thinky." Leone wanted plenty of action and surprises, and he certainly delivered! Much of the movie's structure, plotline and characters were lifted from Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo (1961) which was in turn a very loose adaptation of Red Harvest (1929) by Dashiell Hammett. Leone made this movie his own with connotations of Italian and Spanish history, particularly their involvement in World War Two.

This was a very different sort of Western than American audiences were used to, with a morally ambiguous protagonist who winds up being actively punished for momentarily thinking of someone other than himself. Although not overly bloody, it's brutally violent--more people are shot in the opening credits than in most Hollywood Westerns' entire plots. The Man was no invincible hero, having to literally crawl and hide and beg for help at one point due to his injuries.

The movie is well shot, and Ennio Morricone's music is justly famous (though a couple of scenes early on have a bit too much of it.) Clint Eastwood was born for the part of the Man with No Name, and the other actors do a good job. Sadly, some of the dubbing isn't quite up to snuff.

Content notes: some of the violence is bloody and it's generally brutal, there's an extended torture scene, and while it's not called rape and not on screen, it's pretty clear what's happening to Marisol.

Recommended for Western fans who enjoy moral ambiguity and a plot that cuts out a lot of explanation in favor of moving ahead.

Current Mood: impressed
Current Music: Ennio Morricone's Greatest Hits

Dirty Harry (1971) dir. Don Siegel

Detective Inspector Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) of the San Francisco Police Department is not a nice man. He hates everyone equally (or at least that's what his coworkers say) and has trouble phrasing things politely. In an establishing moment early in the film, Callahan defuses a potential suicide by enraging the man into attacking Callahan instead. He's known as "Dirty Harry" because whenever the police department has a dirty job, Callahan's the man to send. Right now, his top priority is catching the "Scorpio Killer" (Andrew Robinson), a sniper who's demanding money from the city to stop killing.

With one partner dead and another in the hospital, Callahan doesn't want another partner, but that's not the way the brass operates, so he's assigned Hispanic college graduate Chico Martinez (Reni Santoni). As it turns out, sniping from rooftops is something a modern big city police department can shut down pretty well, especially if like the Scorpio Killer, you insist on leaving taunting notes telling them you're going to do it.

Barely escaping from an ambush by Callahan and Martinez, the Scorpio Killer switches to kidnapping, abducting a teenage girl and burying her with (he claims) a limited supply of oxygen. The mayor (John Vernon) agrees to pay a ransom, and Callahan is assigned as bagman. After running Harry all over town, the killer confesses that he has no intention of releasing the girl alive; he just wanted to also kill a cop. Martinez manages to save Callahan at the cost of being badly wounded himself, and the killer takes a crippling leg wound.

A doctor who treated that wound is able to tell Callahan and his new temporary partner De Giorgio (John Mitchum) where the killer hangs out. On a deadline, the police officers do not wait for a warrant and break into a local stadium. They are able to catch the Scorpio Killer and Callahan is able to extract the girl's location even as the killer screams that he has "rights."

As indeed the killer does. Even though the girl is found dead, the District Attorney (Josef Summer) says that due to Callahan's not having a warrant and having tortured the suspect, he's forced to toss out all the evidence and the killer will walk free (with a very bad limp.) For the record, the Scorpio Killer could still have been tried for assaulting a police officer (Harry) as Harry hadn't done anything illegal at that point.

The Scorpio Killer can't leave well enough alone, and hires a professional to rough him up, framing Callahan for this. And then the killer decides to kidnap a busload of children, leading to the final confrontation.

This movie was part of the vigilante justice fad in fiction, as recent court cases had seemed to give criminals more rights than victims. Thus the killer is entirely unsympathetic and it's pointed out how unjust his release is. (And the holes in the legal reasoning are ignored because movie.) Dirty Harry is surface cool, and all tough guy who likes to taunt criminals he has at a disadvantage. He does have friends, but only ones who are able to put up with his frequent barbs.

Good use is made of the San Francisco location, and I want to give a special shout-out to supervising hair stylist Jean Burt Reilly for Callahan's distinctive haircut.

The movie was hugely popular (four sequels!), though Clint Eastwood came to be uncomfortable with the role, and the last sequel The Dead Pool was only agreed to so that Mr. Eastwood could fund a film about jazz. Ronald Reagan loved it, and quoted the tagline "Make my day" at least once.

Content notes: violence, sometimes bloody; brief torture, full female nudity, mention of rape.

Very much a movie worth seeing, but beware falling for the politics.