Director:
Don Siegel
Year: 1968
Rating: 7.0
Year: 1968
Rating: 7.0
This was Clint Eastwood's first collaboration
with director Don Siegel and it was an important film for both. For Siegel
it was the film that led to Dirty Harry for which he is best known for today
and for Eastwood it was a move away from Westerns to contemporary settings
and his second Hollywood film. His character is somewhere between his Spaghetti
Western characters and Dirty Harry though to some degree the only difference
between the two was the time period. I haven't seen a Clint Eastwood movie
in years. Ever since I read a few articles about what an asshole he was in
real life I have avoided his films. And then that dreadful empty chair routine
at the Republican convention. A low point. I know that sort of thing should
not bother me because if it did there would be a lot of movies I would
not watch. There are a lot of assholes or worse out there in Hollywood. But
he is getting up there in age and I had never seen this one before. No matter
how old they get I still won't watch anything with Mel Gibson or Russell
Crowe in it - one being a Nazi and the other just a bullying jerk.
This is certainly a lesser known film of Eastwood's but it is Eastwood at his best - rough, enigmatic (as he is called), surly, stubborn, laconic and slightly cruel but remarkably magnetic in his scenes with women. You forget just how good looking and masculine he was back then and he brings it all to the screen. But the film is laid back - almost comedic at times - for most of its running time and hell, he loses his gun early on and so there are no shootouts. Some good fisticuffs though. In his previous film Madigan, Siegel had Richard Widmark as his tough guy character but made the mistake of diffusing him by jumping around to other characters. He doesn't make the same mistake here. Eastwood is in nearly every frame or just off frame. It is pure distilled Eastwood and I realized again how much I liked his acting and persona on screen. Perhaps not in the best way, but he represents America more than anyone else I can think of on the screen for the past 60 years.
Coogan is a Deputy Sheriff in Arizona - disliked by his fellow officers for being a show dog - but one who gets things done. In the opening scene it feels right out of his Westerns as he tracks down a Native American out in the desert and brings him to justice - but not before stopping off to have sex with a married woman and handcuffing his prisoner outside. The sheriff catches him and as punishment sends him to New York City to extradite a man back to Arizona. This immediately takes us into fish out of water territory as a cab driver tries to fleece the hick from the sticks but this hick catches on quickly (fleecing back then was a $2.95 charge). Ringerman (Don Stroud basically playing the same character as in Madigan) is in Bellevue Hospital after a bad LSD trip and the New York cop (Lee J. Cobb) tells Coogan what bureaucratic hoops he has to go through to get him out. Coogan though wants to get out of NYC as fast as possible - is he crazy, on the Arizona tab, see the damn city - and bluffs his way to having Ringerman handed over to him. Ccogan's Bluff is a play on this and the location in the film called Coogan's Bluff.
But on the way to bringing him back he is ambushed and conked on the head - by no less than the future Bosley of Charlie's Angels, David Doyle - and his gun taken away. David Doyle as a thug? Talk about a strange casting choice. For the rest of the film Coogan tracks him down taking out time only to try and seduce Susan Clark and Ringerman's girlfriend played by Tisha Sterling. Two excellent scenes - Coogan gets suckered into a pool hall brawl - David Doyle again - and the motorcycle chase.
There are a couple classic shots of Eastwood - close-ups in rage with his arm pulled back ready to smash someone's face in. Pure Eastwood. Siegel was to direct him four more times. Previously, I would say that Siegel had three what are now considered classics but at the time I don't think they were - closer to B movies than A films. The great Invasion of the Body Snatchers and the two noirs The Big Steal and The Killers. Eastwood had no idea who Siegel was until they showed him a few of his films - I would bet these are the ones.
This is certainly a lesser known film of Eastwood's but it is Eastwood at his best - rough, enigmatic (as he is called), surly, stubborn, laconic and slightly cruel but remarkably magnetic in his scenes with women. You forget just how good looking and masculine he was back then and he brings it all to the screen. But the film is laid back - almost comedic at times - for most of its running time and hell, he loses his gun early on and so there are no shootouts. Some good fisticuffs though. In his previous film Madigan, Siegel had Richard Widmark as his tough guy character but made the mistake of diffusing him by jumping around to other characters. He doesn't make the same mistake here. Eastwood is in nearly every frame or just off frame. It is pure distilled Eastwood and I realized again how much I liked his acting and persona on screen. Perhaps not in the best way, but he represents America more than anyone else I can think of on the screen for the past 60 years.
Coogan is a Deputy Sheriff in Arizona - disliked by his fellow officers for being a show dog - but one who gets things done. In the opening scene it feels right out of his Westerns as he tracks down a Native American out in the desert and brings him to justice - but not before stopping off to have sex with a married woman and handcuffing his prisoner outside. The sheriff catches him and as punishment sends him to New York City to extradite a man back to Arizona. This immediately takes us into fish out of water territory as a cab driver tries to fleece the hick from the sticks but this hick catches on quickly (fleecing back then was a $2.95 charge). Ringerman (Don Stroud basically playing the same character as in Madigan) is in Bellevue Hospital after a bad LSD trip and the New York cop (Lee J. Cobb) tells Coogan what bureaucratic hoops he has to go through to get him out. Coogan though wants to get out of NYC as fast as possible - is he crazy, on the Arizona tab, see the damn city - and bluffs his way to having Ringerman handed over to him. Ccogan's Bluff is a play on this and the location in the film called Coogan's Bluff.
But on the way to bringing him back he is ambushed and conked on the head - by no less than the future Bosley of Charlie's Angels, David Doyle - and his gun taken away. David Doyle as a thug? Talk about a strange casting choice. For the rest of the film Coogan tracks him down taking out time only to try and seduce Susan Clark and Ringerman's girlfriend played by Tisha Sterling. Two excellent scenes - Coogan gets suckered into a pool hall brawl - David Doyle again - and the motorcycle chase.
There are a couple classic shots of Eastwood - close-ups in rage with his arm pulled back ready to smash someone's face in. Pure Eastwood. Siegel was to direct him four more times. Previously, I would say that Siegel had three what are now considered classics but at the time I don't think they were - closer to B movies than A films. The great Invasion of the Body Snatchers and the two noirs The Big Steal and The Killers. Eastwood had no idea who Siegel was until they showed him a few of his films - I would bet these are the ones.