Year of Eastwood #42

Absolute Power (1997)

Starring: Eastwood, Gene Hackman
Directed by Eastwood

It’s getting down to the wire here. Ten Clint masterpieces to go. Actually, it’s been a bit of a scramble to come up with the final entries in Year of Eastwood … a fact which will be transparently clear as the next few entries are posted. This will clear the way for the big bang at the end. For now we’ll have to do with a few leftovers and a chunk of Clint films in the late nineties that really struggle to distinguish themselves from one another. Thus it begins with Absolute Power.

Clint is a masterful cat-burglar. OK, so he somehow got caught once and spent some time in the joint which cost him his marriage and strained his relationship with his daughter. In an odd twist, Clint now has full-grown, adult children in the form of Laura Linney. But she won’t talk to him so he spends his time planning for his next big heist - a billionaire fat cat in the world of finance and politics. He studies the blueprints. He breaks down the security system. And he waits for the family’s annual trip to Disney World.

He’s in the house. He’s broken into the secret vault hidden away behind a two-way mirror in the bedroom. But suddenly and without warning, Mrs. Moneybags returns home, but she’s not alone. No, she’s skipped the family vacation to meet up with her lover. Seems like Mrs. Moneybags likes things rough in the bedroom. Clint can only sit by and watch things unfold thru the mirror. Then things get out of hand. Mrs. Moneybags grabs a letter opener from the nightstand and is just about to kill her lover … when Bang! The Secret Service rush in and shoot her in the head.

What?? Turns out the other man is none other than the President of the United States. Things get pretty silly from here … the President’s Chief of Staff (who for some reason is at the house with the President and his lover) decides to cover up the murder and stage the whole thing as a robbery gone bad. This eventually leads the police to Clint. He’s really in between a rock and a hard place this time, but Clint has a trick up his sleeve … or at least the letter opener with fingerprints and blood all over it.

The police (namely Ed Harris who’s got the hots for Clint’s daughter) convince Laura to set up a meeting with Clint so they can safely take him into custody. The Secret Service have a different plan as they send a guy (the Good Hands from Allstate guy) to shoot Clint with a high powered rifle. Just to add more suspense, Mr. Moneybags hires a guy to show up at the same meeting spot with his own high powered rifle. Clint high tails it outta there.

There’s lots of holes in this script and plenty of stuff that just don’t make a whole lotta sense. Besides the outrageous lengths to protect a slimy president. The film seems to jump back and forth between scenes where one moment people are trying to kill Clint to the next they just throw him some dirty looks. Gene Hackman is wasted in his role as the President. It’s a role that could have been played by any number of actors and Gene seems to do little to give it his own spin. I guess it really shows Clint’s pull in show business that he can get so many talent stars to appear in such a silly movie.

Year of Eastwood #41

Where Eagles Dare (1968)

Starring: Richard Burton, Eastwood
Directed by Brian Hutton

Now for a rarity in Eastwood’s career … a movie where Clint doesn’t receive top billing. Sir Richard Burton (from Englund) is the star of Where Eagles Dare. A WWII espionage thriller with so much double crossing going on that by the end of the film, everybody’s paranoid. Clint’s really along for the ride in this one - but on the plus side, he gets to kill more people than probably any other film he’s made.

An American General has been captured by the Germans, and a rag-tag team of commandos is instructed to sneak into the German headquarters and rescue the American. The prisoner is being held in a fortress high in the Alps, where eagles dare not perch (Shakespeare).

The team of 7 operatives parachutes down into the snowy Bavarian town. Among the team is the leader (Burton) and a marksman (Clint) ... A moment of silence for the guy who didn’t survive the jump from the plane. So the mission’s barely started and already we’re down to 6 operatives. The men hide out in a cabin, warm up with some hot Cocoa, and prepare to sneak into town bright and early the next day.

The team makes their way into town, disguised as German soldiers (Clint‘s got a nice tan for a German). Since it’s Germany, the guys end up in a Bierhaus. Burton gets drunk, makes out with a couple of women, and another operative gets killed … silence … now we’re down to 5. That’s a more comfortable number to deal with anyways. It’s hard to keep track of all those people when the only recognizable ones are Burton and Clint.

Up on the mountaintop (via a long cable car ride) - all the usual Germans are assembled … the Nazis, Gestapo, and Secret Service. Burton and Clint ditch the cable car and decide a real man would climb up the side of the castle instead of taking the stairs. If you find it hard to believe that a group of soldiers could sneak their way inside Nazi Germany … wait till you see Boozer McTipsy rock climb that sucker.

But wait a second, turns out the prisoner is just an actor pretending to be the American general. And the whole mission is a double cross to rat out some British spies. Burton convinces those Germans that he’s the spy - but it turns out those other 3 guys on the team are actually the traitors.

Then all hell breaks lose. Clint blows up a lot of stuff, kills more Germans than you can shake a stick at … and they make their way back to the cable car. A couple of the spies battle Burton atop the cable car. Good thing he was drunk or he probably would have been a little scared, but he jumps across to the passing-by car and the bad guys go boom.

After all this, the guys still need to make their way out of Germany. Good thing one of the women Burton was making out with arranges them a ride. But those pesky Germans are still in pursuit. I’ve seen enough Clint movies by now that the best way to escape is blow up that damn bridge - so they make it to the airstrip, crash into a few planes, and are rescued by the British army. Clint could use a good night’s rest after this one…

Year of Eastwood #40

the Beguiled (1971)

Starring: Eastwood, Geraldine Page
Directed by Don Siegel

Early in his career, Clint developed his own production company - the Malpaso Company - to allow him to have more creative control of the movies he starred in. Malpaso, which is named for a creek located near Clint’s home in Carmel California, has been associated with most of Clint’s films since it’s inception with Hang ‘Em High. Malpaso is also Spanish for misstep which Clint felt would be an appropriate name for his company since he was warned that starring in Spaghetti Westerns would be a bad move in his career.

Clint also produced a few films thru United Artists which allowed many of Hollywood’s biggest stars - including Paul Newman, Barbra Streisand, and Woody Allen - to have more control ... and also to reap more of the financial benefits of the blockbusters they worked on instead of most of the money going to the studios which had been the case during Hollywood’s golden years in the 1930s and 40s. Recently, when Tom Cruise (couch-jumper) was released from his contract with Paramount, he resurrected United Artists with the hopes of saving his own career as well.

With this creative freedom to produce the films he wanted to do, I’m sure Clint did back flips when he saw the script for Beguiled. The story begins as Clint, an injured Union soldier, is rescued by a Southern girl and taken back to the plantation which just happens to be filled with young, nubile hotties being taught all the etiquette and manners of being a fine, upstanding Southern lady. The school is operated by a strict matron played by Geraldine Page, who via flashbacks seems to spend a bit too much time rolling around in the grass with her brother. The girls, who haven’t seen a man in several years, are willing to put aside the fact that Clint plays for the other team and begin scheming against one another for the chance to jump around on Clint’s bed.

Geraldine has ideas of her own for Clint. As she nurses him back to health, she begins to weave her own web to catch herself a man to help her with the farming since her beloved brother probably won’t be coming home any time soon. Clint pulls some story out of his ass about being a Quaker medic in the Army, while we see scenes of him shooting men in the back and doing his best to burn down as much of the South as he can. He tells Geraldine he would like to plow her fields. He tells one of the lonely, young school teacher that he loves her. And he tells a busty young student to practice her stretching exercises.

Every one seems blissful with all the deception, until the night Clint must decide which lady’s room to make a special visit to: the old, cranky brother-lover, the marmy book worm, or the PYT. Clint, of course, chooses the hot thing and the school teacher pushes him down the stairs and Geraldine cuts off his … leg. Now Clint is pissed, but there ain’t much he can do because, you know, he ain’t got no leg. So he drinks too much wine, gets mouthy at the dinner table and ends up throwing the little girl’s pet turtle across the room. That crosses the line and for dinner the little girl feeds Clint some poison mushrooms and next stop for Clint is the big dirt nap.

It really is a rarity for Clint to end up dead at the end of any of his movies. Since I already ruined that Spoiler, I might as well say that Honkytonk Man is the only other Clint movie where he ends up dead. Beguiled is unique among Clint movies in other ways as well. Clint is hobbled for most of the movie so it’s easily got the least amount of action of any of his films, but he still manages to beat the crap out of a couple of guys with his crutches. The film relies more on the complex mind games and lies … and Clint considers it one of his best films.