Read Clint Eastwood Online

Authors: Richard Schickel

Clint Eastwood (100 page)

CHAPTER SIX

  
1
  
Don’t say you haven’t been warned:
Bosley Crowther, “Back in the Saddle Again,”
The New York Times
, November 2, 1966.

  
2
  
Cowboy camp of an order:
Bosley Crowther, “Screen: ‘A Fistful of Dollars,’ ”
The New York Times
, February 2, 1967.

  
3
  
deadpanned spoof:
Bosley Crowther, “A New Western Anti-Hero,”
The New York Times
, February 5, 1967.

  
4
  
the pleasures of the perfectly awful movie:
Judith Crist, “Plain Murder All the Way,” New York
World-Journal-Tribune
, February 2, 1967.

  
5
  
taking the western at its word:
Ethan Mordden,
Medium Cool
, p. 199.

  
6
  
The fact that this film:
Bosley Crowther, “Screen: ‘For a Few Dollars More,’ ”
The New York Times
, July 4, 1967.

  
7
  
The Burn, The Gouge and The Mangle:
Renata Adler, “The Screen: Zane Grey Meets the Marquis de Sade,”
The New York Times
, January 25, 1968. Reprinted in Renata Adler,
A Year in the Dark
, pp. 23–24.

  
8
  
The temptation is hereby proved:
Charles Champlin, “‘Good, Bad, Ugly’ Playing Citywide,” Los Angeles
Times
, January 12, 1968.

  
9
  
Leone’s skillful camera work:
“Cinema: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,”
Time
, February 9, 1968.

10
  
No, don’t you do it:
Post interview.

11
  
Is this the way:
Quoted in “Clint Eastwood’s Stock Hits New High,” United Artists press release, 1968.

12
  
gentle and tender lover:
Joan Mellen,
Big Bad Wolves: Masculinity in the American Film
, p. 270.

13
  
the year’s grisliest movie:
“New Movies:
Hang ’em High,” Time
, August 23, 1968.

14
  
in these exacerbated times:
Kevin Thomas, “‘Hang ’em High’ Playing Citywide,” Los Angeles
Times
, August 8, 1968.

15
  
I want to be in the picture business:
Interview with Leonard Hirshan, November 9, 1993. The entire account of Hirshan’s early meetings with Lang is drawn from this source, as are all subsequent quotations from Hirshan.

16
  
you get into a rut:
Clint Eastwood, “The Padrón,”
Film Comment
, September-October 1991.

17
  
jocular fatalism:
Andrew Sarris, “The Pro,”
Film Comment
, September-October 1991.

18
  
I didn’t get a job offer:
Quoted in Sarris, “The Pro.”

19
  
surprisingly modest:
Don Siegel,
A
Siegel Film
, p. 297

20
  
Sounds ominous:
Ibid., p. 297

21
  
I hate the script:
Ibid.
I figured you didn’t like it:
Ibid.

22
  
centered on the conflict:
Joel Doerfler,
Boston After Dark
, July 14, 1970.

23
  
Some of these guys:
Eastwood, “The Padrón.”

24
  
worked well under pressure:
Ibid.

25
  
He always used to joke:
Ibid.

26
  
He doesn’t require:
Quoted in Christopher Frayling,
Clint Eastwood
, p. 81

27
  
You can’t push Clint:
Quoted in David Ansen, “Clint: An American Icon,”
Newsweek
, July 22, 1985.

28
  
It’s too obvious:
Quoted in Siegel,
Siegel
, p. 310

29
  
a joke told by someone:
Vincent Canby, “Screen: Sheriff Eastwood,”
The New York Times
, October 3, 1968.

30
  
Fast, tough and so well made:
“Cinema: Blood Sport,”
Time
, November 5, 1968.

CHAPTER SEVEN

  
1
  
We are like boxers:
Bridget Byrne, “Around L.A.: The Beguiled,” Los Angeles
Herald-Examiner
, June 7, 1970.

  
2
  
Where Doubles Dare:
Quoted in Melvyn Bragg,
Richard Burton: A Life
, p. 196

  
3
  
I’m just going through the motions:
This incident is recounted in Gene Siskel, “Clint Eastwood: Long Overdue Respect Makes His Year” Chicago
Tribune
, June 9, 1985.

  
4
  
bunch-of-guys-on-a-mission:
Quoted in Chris Willman, “Celluloid Heroes,”
Los Angeles Times Calendar
, March 26, 1995.

  
5
  
Eastwood would just stand:
Ibid.

  
6
  
Why did you pick:
Quoted in Bernard Drew, “Brian G, Hutton: I’ve Made it, Baby,”
The New York Times
, March 23, 1969.

  
7
  
Elsewhere, other lunacies:
This incident was recounted in the author’s interview with Tom Shaw, January 10, 1995.

  
8
  
pieced together by:
Joshua Logan,
Movie Stars, Real People, and Me
, p. 211 All of Logan’s other recollections of this production are drawn from this source, pp. 211–25

  
9
  
Not since Attila the Hun:
Donald Zec,
Marvin: The Story of Lee Marvin
, p. 162

10
  
If I’m going to make mistakes:
Eastwood and Schickel, “Director’s Dialogue.”

11
  
he hardly seems:
Pauline Kael, “Somebody Else’s Success,”
The New Yorker
, October 25, 1969. Reprinted in Pauline Kael,
Deeper into Movies
, pp. 32–39.

CHAPTER EIGHT

  
1
  
one who you believe is a nun:
Quoted in Frayling,
Clint Eastwood
, p. 7

  
2
  
My men have become:
Ibid., p. 9

  
3
  
seemed to be much more concerned:
Ibid.

  
4
  
an attempt to keep:
Stanley Kauffmann, “Stanley Kauffmann on Films,”
The New Republic
, August 1, 1970.

  
5
  
It’s kind of
The African Queen: Quoted in Warga, “Drifted into Stardom.”

  
6
  
It’s hard to feel:
Quoted in Stuart M. Kaminsky,
Don Siegel: Director
, p. 229

  
7
  
she was a doll:
Don Siegel,
Siegel
, p. 335

  
8
  
There are to be no changes:
Ibid., p. 324

  
9
  
He can dream up:
Quoted in Wayne Warga, “Anything for Art in ‘Mules for Sister Sara,’ ” Los Angeles
Times
, April 6, 1969.

10
  
A movie lover’s:
Roger Greenspun, “Screen: ‘Two Mules for Sister
Sara’,”
The New York Times
, June 25, 1970.

11
  
You’ll find the conversation:
Meriel McCooey, “A Faceful of Dollars,”
Sunday Times Magazine
(London), August 17, 1969.

12
  
Actors have their bag:
Warga, “Drifted into Stardom.”

13
  
his fussiness about his cars:
Quoted in Aljean Harmetz, “The Man with No Name Is a Big Name Now,”
The New York Times
, August 10, 1969.

14
  
as big as a bat:
Quoted in McCooey, “Faceful of Dollars.”

15
  
Dr. Doolittle style:
Quoted in Harmetz, “Man with No Name.”

16
  
As it turns out:
Warga, “Drifted into Stardom.”

17
  
Clint gives the feeling:
Quoted in Harmetz, “Man with No Name.”

18
  
In a matter of months:
See Roberta Brandes Gratz, “Clint Hitches His Wagon to a Song,” New York
Post
, October 26, 1969.

19
  
encumbered by a wife:
Quoted in Harmetz, “Man with No Name.”

20
  
tripped across the movie business:
Ibid.

21
  
I’m an actor:
Quoted in McCooey, “Faceful of Dollars.”

22
  
I didn’t realize:
Quoted in “Don Rickles Is So Clean He Could Play the Vatican,”
Parade
press release, December 16, 1993.

23
  
I can never think of anything:
Quoted in Kathleen Carroll, “At War with a Movie—or 3 Days on Location,” New York
Daily News
, August 17, 1969.

24
  
I’m always a little closed in:
Quoted in Ben Reisfeld, “No One Got Hurt,” Los Angeles
Times
, September 14, 1969.

25
  
We went twenty years:
Quoted in Ann Guerin, “Clint Eastwood as Mr. Warmth,”
Show
, February 1970.

26
  
in a fury:
Siegel,
Siegel
.

27
  
the film has no resources:
Roger Greenspun, “The Screen: Hutton’s ‘Kelly’s Heroes’ Begins Run,”
The New York Times
, June 24, 1970.

28
  
a romantic love story:
Quoted in Siegel,
Siegel
. Siegel’s other reminiscences, with the exception of all those noted below, are from the same source.

29
  
I said, ‘If you’d written this script’:
Quoted in Charles Higham, “Suddenly, Don Siegel’s High Camp-us,”
The New York Times
, July 25, 1972.

30
  
For the daylight scenes:
Quoted in Fuensanta Plaza,
Clint Eastwood/Malpaso
, p. 22

31
  
It just hit me wrong:
Interview with Carl Pingitore, October 7, 1994. All subsequent quotations from him are drawn from the same source.

32
  
a nice, ordinary young man:
Quoted in Gallafent,
Clint Eastwood
, p. 81

33
  
the social construction:
J. Haberman, “At War with Ourselves,”
Village Voice
, October 23, 1986.

34
  
Women are capable of:
Quoted in Kaminsky,
Siegel
, p. 238

35
  
I was still:
Quoted in Pat McGilligan, “Clint Eastwood,”
Focus on Film
, Summer-Autumn 1976.

36
  
a big fish:
Eastwood and Schickel, “Director’s Dialogue.”

37
  
I know exactly:
McGilligan, “Clint Eastwood.”

38
  
with the big red scar:
Interview with Jessica Walter, July 27, 1993. All subsequent quotations from her are drawn from the same source.

39
  
He said, ‘You seem to have it’:
Eastwood, “The Padrón.”

40
  
I didn’t know:
Quoted in “That Self-Sufficient Thing,”
Time
, December 12, 1971.

41
  
Part of his sex appeal:
Ibid.

42
  
very, very surprised:
Interview with Pierre Rissient, June 1, 1993.

43
  
very fancy, outrageous fantasizing:
Vincent Canby, “Clint Eastwood Is Star of Siegel’s
‘The Beguiled,’ ” The New York Times
, April 1, 1971.

44
  
Let me add two words:
Quoted in Gene Siskel, “Hype Casting Cowan Knows How to Keep the Stars Shining,” Chicago
Tribune
, June 4, 1989.

45
  
too many easy decisions:
Roger Greenspun, “Eastwood as Director,”
The New York Times
, November 14, 1971.

CHAPTER NINE

  
1
  
a stunningly well made:
Pauline Kael, “The Current Cinema: Saint Cop,”
The New Yorker
, January 15, 1972. A somewhat-longer version of the review is included in Kael,
Deeper into Movies
, pp. 484–89.

  
2
  
neither tarnished nor afraid:
Raymond Chandler, “The Simple Art of Murder,”
The Atlantic Monthly
, December 1944. Quoted in Philip Durham,
Down These Mean Streets a Man Must Go
, pp. 95–96.

  
3
  
you always had the feeling:
Quoted in Richard Schickel,
James Cagney: A Celebration
, p. 18

  
4
  
the studio allowed six nights:
Quoted in Judy Fayard, “Who Can Stand 32,580 seconds of Clint Eastwood?”
Life
, July 23, 1971.

  
5
  
a sad and perhaps inevitable step downward:
Roger Greenspun, “Screen: ‘Dirty Harry’ and His Devotion to Duty,”
The New York Times
, December 23, 1971.

  
6
  
bound to upset:
Jay Cocks, “Cinema: Outside Society,”
Time
, January 3, 1972.

  
7
  
we are gradually being conditioned:
Pauline Kael, “Stanley Strangelove,”
The New Yorker
, January I, 1972. Reprinted in Kael,
Deeper into Movies
, p. 475

  
8
  
the real target:
Eric Patterson, “Every Which Way but Lucid: The Critique of Authority in Clint Eastwood’s Police Movies,”
Journal of Popular Film and Television
, Fall 1982.

  
9
  
the basic contest:
Kael, “Saint Cop.”

10
  
crime is caused by deprivation:
Ibid.

11
  
on sensual and primitive levels:
Kael, “Author’s Note,” in
Deeper into Movies
, p. XV.

12
  
a pragmatic willingness to kill:
Lawrence Alloway,
Violent America: The Movies, 1946–1964
, p. 11

13
  
to dig into the sexiness:
Pauline Kael, “Peckinpah’s Obsession,”
The New Yorker
, January 29, 1972. Reprinted in Kael,
Deeper into Movies
, pp. 494–99.

14
  
Those saved by the social revolutions:
Thomson, “Forgiven.”

15
  
which unites our lumpen proles:
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., “Annals of Race: Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man,”
The New Yorker
, October 23, 1995.

16
  
Somewhere along the line:
Quoted in James Wolcott, “On Television: The Dennis Menace,”
The New Yorker
, June 11, 1994.

17
  
I don’t make political movies:
Quoted in Paul Gardner, “Siegel at 59: Director, Rebel, Star,”
The New York Times
, May 31, 1973.

18
  
Not once throughout Dirty Harry:
Siegel,
Siegel
, p. 373

19
  
in a world of bureaucratic corruption:
Quoted in R. Allen Kider, “Dirty Clint,”
Good Times
, December 1977.

20
  
Harry is a terribly honest character:
Quoted in Guy Flatley, “At the Movies,”
The New York Times
, December 17, 1976.

21
  
It’s just the story:
Quoted in Stuart M. Kaminsky,
Clint Eastwood
, pp. 125–26.

22
  
Nietzschian superman:
Garrett Epps, “Does Popeye Doyle Teach Us How to Be Fascist?”
The New York Times
, May 21, 1972.

23
  
a virtually fascist endorsement:
Mellen,
Big Bad Wolves
, p. 294

24
  
I’d hate to turn around:
Quoted in Charles Champlin, “A Mellow Eastwood Keeps His Edge,” Los Angeles
Times
, June 30, 1984.

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