Year of Eastwood #1

Every Which Way But Loose (1978)

Starring: Eastwood, Sondra Locke, Geoffrey Lewis, and Ruth Gordon
Directed by James Fargo

Let’s started things off with the 70’s phenomenon that was Every Which Way But Loose. This is the first film with Eastwood that I can remember seeing when I was younger. A movie with a flatulent orangutan and a foul-mouthed granny was pure comedy gold to me at the time. Watching it now, a film with a cartoon-like storyline, offensive pick-up lines, and crappy Sondra Locke country songs stills manages to be entertaining.

Eastwood was discouraged against making this movie. His agents feared that it would destroy Eastwood’s career and even though the film was blasted by critics, Every Which Way was a huge hit. Eastwood plays a beer-drinking loner who’s only friend is an orangutan named Clyde, who despite opposable thumbs makes more use of his middle finger throughout the movie. Finally, Eastwood meets the woman of his dreams, but when she skips town, most of the movie revolves around Eastwood and his monkey trying to track her down.

One critical scene where a gang of bumbling bikers rumble with Eastwood takes place in Georgetown, Colorado. It was interesting to see what this mountain town looked like in the late 70’s and the film also showed it’s age when at one point they drive by a gas station where gas is 27 cents a gallon. Speaking of age, that Ruth Gordon had quite a run during her later years. Recently, I watched a couple of Gordon’s other films - Rosemary’s Baby (which she won a supporting Oscar) and Harold and Maude (one of my personal favorites) - and I would challenge anyone out there to name another old lady with a better trio of movies.

Every Which Way qualifies as an Eastwood classic even though it hasn’t aged particularly well. In fact, along with the Dirty Harry movies and his early Spaghetti Westerns, it’s the only Eastwood film that spawned a sequel - the less successful Any Which Way You Can. The film will probably be remembered along with a string of other Eastwood films of the 70’s which were light on critical acclaim but were extremely popular with the public.