Coogan's bluff (1969)

[Neville]

Believe it or not, there are still several Clint Eastwood films I haven't seen yet over the years. This is one of them, an early pairing between Eastwood and director Don Siegel. Many people consider it a "Dirty Harry-lite" or a "Dirty Harry" precursor, and it's easy to see why.

Eastwood stars as Coogan, an Arizona deputy who tackles his job with the kind of cold-blooded profesionalism that movie buffs should recognise at once. After a quarrel with the Sheriff, he is sent to New York to scort a prisoner back to Arizona. There his methods clash even more against the politically correct (for the era, that is) police stablishment.

First things first, this is a cool little film. Eastwood was already charismatic enough to carry a film like this over his shoulders, and Don Siegel's eye for well edited action and dirty realism was already substantial, as the film often proves. Coogan's cowboy-like behaviour also provides some clever scenes, such as when he defends, chavalier-like, a she-lawyer against a flirty prisoner only to be reprimanded.

Despite this, though, one can see that the whole thing could have been handled with some more sense of risk. You can almost see Siegel or Eastwood restraining themselves in order not to blew the formula. Take Coogan's character, for instance. He does his share of problematic or even crooked things to do his job, but we are supposed to think -as he surely does- that they are necessary. Then there's his relationship with the she-lawyer, which doesn't click, despite some good early scenes. It looks either like padding or as a concesion to Eastwood's stardom status. You know, you make a pretty bad action hero, even if these days, if you don't score a few times before the credits roll.

Minor quips aside -this is supposed to be an early formulaic Eastwood vehicle, not one of his arthouse films-, this is a pretty good film, but watching it after "Dirty Harry" was definitely a mistake.

[RCMerchant]

L kinda like this one. A movie of his I havn't seen inna long time-the GAUNTLET! Thats the one where he hauls Sandra Locke to court in a steel plated bus,with an army of cops blasting away.Far out!

[peter johnson]

I saw this one first-run, back in the day, at our local single-screener in Kilmarnock, VA --
This was back before the ratings system had taken over.  Many of you won't remember, but before the ironclad "R" and "X" ratings, there were things like "GP" and the catch-all "M" for "Mature".  "M", whilst in place for all of 9 months or so, had no age restriction associated with it.  Therefore, I, as a very impressionable 12 or 13-year old, was able to get into this with all its glorious gratuitous nudity, sex and violence, no trouble at all!  Gosh, I loved that about the "M" time-period!!
I have a movie poster of "Zachariah" from 1970, showing the "GP" rating -- sure to be a collectors' item someday!
This movie also was the basis for Dennis Weaver's hit TV series "McCloud", which used to alternate with "Columbo" on the NBC Mystery Movie.  Them were the days, mon . . .
peter johnson/denny crane

[Yaddo 42]

This is the Eastwood and/or Siegel action or contemporary film that gets overlooked, maybe because it is so "tame" or restrained compared to the films that came later. Dirty Harry was so polarising when it came out a few years later. The sequels and stuff like The Gauntlet were TV staples and frequently copied.

This film gave us, McCloud, as Peter pointed out. A fun little cop series that got the job done without standing out much. But the only episode that stuck in my head was the one with the blizzard and Bernadette Peters (Wow!) spraypainting Williams Daniels blue (IIRC) since human males lacked the colorful plummage and colors of the rest of the animal kingdom.

Personally, I think the film also "inspired" more than a little of the title character of Lone Wolf McQuade. Just my own opinion though.

[Neville]

Could be. But then that would mean it also gave us "Walker Texas Ranger", and I don't really want to think about that.

[Yaddo 42]

Yeah, why blame Eastwood/Siegel for that brilliant theme song and Chuck's singing?

The show itself I could mostly ignore, when it finally went off the air here, I had to be reminded that it hadn't been cancelled already. The last time I had tried to watch it was when Sammo Hung's show "Martial Law" came on the same night.