so i have watched a couple (a few) (well, three, look you see) of films lately. as usual this means that for some reason i feel compelled to post some comments here, along with some relatively nice and possibly interesting images.
but of course no, it's not three modern or "new" films i watched. give me a break, it is only within the last few days that i gave comment on the latest, finger on the pulse of Spiderman movies for you all. instead i went back and watched some films that i have seen "more than a few" times before, seeking and indeed taking considerable entertainment from the comfort of watching movies which i knew to be good.
as the title of this post implies (kind of), yes, three Clint Eastwood films. if you for some reason thought the title referred to me watching three Clint Howard films, actually that's not a bad idea, but not this time around. the usual warning seems appropriate around about now, so once you go past the picture below do be warned as something of a *** POSSIBLE SPOILER WARNING *** is in place for all films.
what prompted this? one of the tv stations here had a thing where they seemed to screen High Plains Drifter every saturday night, without fail, for a month or so. although i thoroughly enjoyed watching this brooding, brutal masterpiece again and again, it occurred to me that what would be even better than watching High Plains Drifter every time a station cared to broadcast it was watching other motion pictures featuring Clint Eastwood. so, i did.
by no means do i have all of the Clint films on shiny discs or tapes. lots of them, though. for some inexplicable reason, for instance, i do not have them two where he had the monkey and went around punching people quite hard in the face (Every Which Way But Loose and Any Which Way You Can, i believe they are called). let me get around to fixing that gap, but for now a look at the three (which is to say excluding the prompt of High Plains Drifter) that i did watch.
for some reason i have elected to do this chronologically in terms of when the films were released, rather than the order in which i have just watched them. some of you may be most pleased by this, some will be frustrated, but i would trust that the majority could not care less.
starting chronologically means going to the "most recent" rewatched, then, which would be (as you can no doubt work out from the above) Dirty Harry from 1971. having by this stage established himself as one of the most iconic characters in film history as "the man with no name" in those "spaghetti western" films (called such because they were made in and ostensibly for the Italian market if you've always been too afraid to ask), off Clint went and ramped it up to a whole new level with yet another creation of one of the most iconic characters in film history.
plot? a maverick cop who will stop at nothing to uphold the law and bring justice is called in when a vicious, seemingly unstoppable killer is holding San Francisco to ransom. his brutal, unnerving, unrepentant and relentless obsession with bringing evil to book frequently prompts the question as to how much of a monster is one prepared to tolerate in order to stop another monster.
if you wanted a "film history analysis" thing, it would be fair to say that Dirty Harry took the concepts of vengeance and redemption from westerns, observed how they could be transposed on a modern setting (specifically the magnificent Bullitt) and set the tone for all future action / thriller films. better, though, to just take it all as intended, which is as a remarkably entertaining motion picture that one shouldn't really ever tire of watching.
that said, on watching it again for the first time in a fair few years, something struck me that once you see it you can never ever unsee it. what this would be is just how influential Andy Robinson has proven to be in his role as Scorpio, the very very bad man of an antagonist. there has been acres of justified praise for the performance Heath Ledger gave as The Joker in The Dark Knight. once you watch Dirty Harry, you (well i) can't but help feel that somewhere around 75% of that magnificent performance can be seen as channelling Scorpio. have a watch and see.
a particularly famous piece of trivial trivia concerning Dirty Harry is of course that Clint Eastwood should have been nowhere near this film. it was hoped that Mr Sinatra would play the lead, but he flat refused, possibly rightly concerned by the levels of violence in it. it was so that Mr Sinatra also turned down the option to make a sequel to one of his films, The Detective, due to the violence in it. that one was Nothing Lasts Forever, and eventually got filmed as Die Hard.
with the other two Eastwood films i watched recently being 80s ones, i suppose i should really have elected to watch one of the two 1980s Dirty Harry films. however, i felt that Sudden Impact was just too dark and heavy to be suitable saturday evening entertainment, and The Dead Pool nearly won but then i spotted the Dirty Harry disc and that was that.
to Firefox, then, one of two films released by Warner in 1982 that somewhat "failed" at the box office due to every single film released in 1982 "failing" because they were not E.T. The Extra Terrestrial. as many of you will know, the other was Blade Runner. both were rather good films indeed, and it is most pleasing that they have survived. this is all the more true in the case of Firefox, for the "of its time" plot suggest it should maybe have become dated and of little relevance from the early 90s onwards.
and what is that plot? well, Clint Eastwood plays one of America's greatest ever military pilots, one troubled by the psychological scars of the tortures of being a prisoner of war. he is necessarily called into action, however, when the Soviet Union develop Firefox, a lethal, radar invisible fighter jet capable of causing great damage and fatally shifting the balance of the Cold War. America believes their only option to beat it is to steal it.
perhaps the greatest part of Firefox is that audiences are not spoon fed. the plot premise is simplistic enough, so as little time as possible is spent on any sort of "origins" story, or lengthy explanations. we, as the audience, are trusted to accept the scenario, and are allowed to just get on with watching the plot unfold. various "leaps of faith" in terms of plausibility are required by the audience of course, but would that not be true of all films?
watching Firefox again was most refreshing. for a start, it all seemed to have a much faster pace than i recalled from the first screening. and what or when was the first time i saw it? 1983. my Dad happened to be in the beloved video rental section of that petrol station when they were unpacking new releases, so we got both Firefox and Blade Runner first, and watched them as a double bill as a family. also, whereas it was fashionable to portray the "Commies" as bumbling idiots, in Firefox the Soviet Union is presented exactly as it was - a formidable, intelligent and in many respects superior opponent to Western ideas.
as mentioned earlier, it appears not to have fallen into the trap of being "dated". maybe that is because in this day and age we still see Russia as some dark, evil empire enemy, although things are no longer as balanced or as clear cut as they were in the balance, stalemate era of the Cold War. in terms of influence, well, one can't watch this and not think that maybe a certain young Tom Clancy watched this, and instead of going "cool" said "you know, i could do a book like that, except make it a submarine instead of a jet fighter". which he did go and do, to remarkably good effect.
not really much in the way of trivia i can share here on this one. for some reason one of those "internet browser" things took the name of this film for itself, perhaps that is the browser you are using here. i think this was an established trend by this stage anyway, but nonetheless Firefox reaffirmed the idea that anyone "foreign" in an American film should be played by English actors, as their accents would be plausibly "foreign" enough for purpose. the only other bit of trivia i can think of is that the supporting cast features not one, not three, but two actors who had speaking roles in Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of A Clockwork Orange.
finally, then, the first of the three i recently (re)watched, in the form of Pale Rider. quite a natural selection, i believe, on the basis of being prompted by High Plains Drifter. this one works with very similar themes to that film, and in many respects is considered a "spiritual sequel" to it. in every sense, for a common interpretation of both films are that one is watching a ghost story.
plot? it is the gold rush. a group of individual prospectors are trying to find the precious metal on their claim, but face perpetual intimidation, violence and threats from a big businessman who wishes to drive them out and claim the land. just as all hope seems lost and the prospectors are prepared to quit rather than be crushed a mysterious stranger, who because of how he dresses they dub The Preacher, arrives and appears to change the odds......
this was one of the first Eastwood films that i saw in a cinema. it was certainly the first i saw at the movies in England, me and my good friend Mike went, somewhat with the approval of our fathers, despite us being slightly below the BBFC certificate of 15. first Eastwood i saw in a cinema? i think probably Honkytonk Man, with the family, whilst on holiday somewhere, most likely Malta. yes, i have been to see several since, and if i were asked which has been the greatest of them all then like most i would probably say Unforgiven, although for sheer entertainment In The Line Of Fire would be exceptionally close.
i haven't said all that much about Pale Rider have i? well, memories of youth suggested it was "a bit slow and boring in parts". this would not be the case on a rewatch, it's absorbing and perfectly paced. with regards to cast, well, there is a growing trend which says the world backed entirely the wrong Penn brother. we did. another stellar supporting performance from Christopher Penn here, the mind boggles as to why he got overlooked in preference of his gobsh!te brother Sean in the 80s.
a criticism of Clint Eastwood - both as a person and in his films - has been his apparent pursuit of a "right wing agenda". this is something i have always "seen" but never really understood. by no means, by all accounts, is he a flawless person, but he is somewhat more liberal than he is given credit for. for a start, Pale Rider has some "ahead of its time" aspects. it was very much a defence of the "little man" trying to make his way in the world against formidable opponents such as government, the law and big business. also, it rallies against pollution and for environmental concerns, all at a time when such things were not popular concerns. on a personal level, i think it was about this time (1985 ish) that he ran to be Mayor of his home town. a lot of his reason for doing so was to stand against the ridiculous and superfluous official and governmental interference in day to day life, with particular emphasis on the ban on eating ice cream in public. although leaning to the right, perhaps Clint is not quite the right wing advocate he is often pictured as.
may i make something of a serious observation here? a concern in the modern world is mental health, with being lost and a sense of loneliness being of major concern in general, but of often overlooked problems for "middle aged men", which is a bracket i guess i fall into. one identified worry in these confusing days is just how difficult it is to connect and make friends. may i suggest that for just about all men over 40, possibly the 35+ bracket, Clint Eastwood is the ice breaker? in my experience, all gents of this age have seen at least one Clint film, and liked what they saw. mentioning seeing one recently can often provoke memories of others seeing others, and act as a start for a conversation. this may not work for all, but this is something i have indeed experienced and seen work.
there is every likelihood that i shall be watching even more Clint Eastwood films in the near future. watching these three (four) again (and again) reminded me of how, given a free hand, basically i could sit with a massive pile of his films and just sit and watch them all day, every day, and be thoroughly entertained. whereas some of his films are not quite so great as others, each of them tends to retain a "perfectly watchable" quality, if just for his presence alone.
would there be any other actors i could watch three randomly (ish) selected films by on the bounce and be just as entertained? probably. 80s Schwarzenegger and Stallone i suppose are the obvious, if we assume in regards of the latter things like Over The Top and in particular Rhinestone were suspiciously unavailable. but, for now, i am inclined to stick with a spell of Clint re watches. let me see if i can dig out my In The Line Of Fire disc.......
if you are still reading this, many thanks for doing so, and hopefully some (if obviously not all) of it has been of some interest.
go ahead, make my day, do you feel lucky, punk, etc............
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