Year of Eastwood #47

Revenge of the Creature (1955)

Starring: the Creature of the Black Lagoon
Directed by Jack Arnold

Clint became a huge star with the release of the Spaghetti Westerns directed by Sergio Leone. Before that Clint followed the usual path of struggling the first few years, working as a fireman, and taking on bit roles in movies and television. Revenge of the Creature is listed as the first film in Clint’s bio - he’s uncredited as a lab assistant - and doesn’t even get to share any screen time with the Creature himself. In fact, his entire performance is included in this clip…



The personality is there. You can almost sense that Clint is resisting the urge to wink at the camera - letting us all know that someday he’ll be the only recognizable bit of this horrible B-movie. I didn’t bother to watch the original Creature from the Black Lagoon, but there doesn’t seem to be much that I missed out on. Creature swims around in murky water of the Amazon. Gets captured by some hunters and taken back to the US, where he is put on display at a Aquarium. Makes googly fish-eyes with a lady. Escapes from the park. Swims in some more murky water. Terrorizes some people. Gets shot. I’m not really even sure what the Creature’s motivation is as a movie monster. He doesn’t eat people. He just seems to be in a bad mood.

Clint was born on May 31, 1930 to Clinton and Margaret Eastwood - weighing in at a whopping 11 ½ lbs. His father was a steelworker who moved his family about frequently to find work. Clint finally settled in Oakland where he graduated high school. Clint attended Los Angeles College but dropped out. He worked various odd jobs and then joined the military. While on leave, his plane crashed into the Pacific Ocean and Clint had to swim 3 miles to shore (take that Chuck Norris). Clint missed out on any military action in Korea, because he was busy as a swim instructor in boot camp. While in the Army, some friends encouraged Clint to pursue acting as a career.

Clint survived a few bit parts in bad movies before his big break. He was a jet pilot in some other horror movie - Tarantula in 1955. And then a year later he seduces Carol Channing in the First Traveling Saleslady (thanks Netflix for denying the world the chance to see that masterpiece).

Clint was dropped by the studio when a bright exec decided that his adam’s apple was too big … I’m sure that guy went on to a successful career. Clint went back to some odd jobs until he was spotted one day by a network exec looking for a young actor for a new TV show, Rawhide … and then Clint was on his way.

Over the years, Clint has given many opportunities to up and coming talent in his own movies. Many of which have been pointed out in this Year of Eastwood … Laura Linney, Lucy Liu, Dennis Hopper, err, Sondra Locke. I’m sure he remembers what a struggle it was for him and how grateful he was to get a shot in the movies … having to share his screen time with a monkey of all things.

Davie's Chuckwagon Diner

Year of Eastwood #46

Breezy (1973)

Starring: William Holden, Kay Lenz
Directed by Eastwood

I can’t quite figure out if Clint likes the hippies or would like to kick em in their bell-bottom wearing behinds. He certainly got lots of mileage out them in the 70’s. Usually busting a bunch of hippie-dippies for smoking dope and maybe smacking a few around before hauling them off to the slammer in the Dirty Harry pics. After all, the hippies represented everything that was going wrong with the great ol’ US of A in the 60’s. What with their psychedelic trips, anti-establishment tirades, and free-loving attitudes … well, I guess Clint kinda liked that last one.

That’s why he directed this May/December romance with the moon glow title character and her braless devil-may-care ways. But man, a lot of that hippy stuff is hard to swallow. Hey, the theme song lyrics … I always keep my pockets filled with pumpkin seeds and time … is just about enough to hit the Eject button in the first couple of minutes.

But there’s something infectious about this movie, namely Breezy herself. What middle-aged man wouldn’t want some free spirit gal showing up at his door, offering nothing more than a few tunes on her guitar and a smile? Not William Holden, that’s for sure. He tries to scoff away Breezy at first with his button-up, three piece suit ways. But Breezy hasn’t been hitchin’ half way across the country just to give up that easy. Nope, nothing would please her more than some old man to completely squash her lifestyle into some suburban homemaker. Dude’s so old that he wears a cardigan to play tennis … every hippies dream come true, eh?

Holden got his break into the big time by playing the other end of the cougar spectrum by hooking up with Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. That one ended up with him face-down in the pool, but Breezy’s not interested in anything that dramatic. She just wants a nice place to hang her poncho and maybe a nice apple every now and then. Later, Holden got mad as hell and wasn’t gonna take it anymore from those hippies in Network. But then he died … and they gave him an Oscar. Sound familiar?

Ok, back to the cougar thing. Aren’t we already sick of this whole phenomenon? Older, successful women hunting down young studs with no interest but a good workout. Clint’s been doing the reverse for years … but try to hook him up with a lady of a certain age, let’s say Geraldine Page, and he’d rather take a tumble down the stairs. So enough with the media frenzy, it’s nothing new … just look at Cher.

Breezy and Geezer take nice strolls on the beach. They go to see High Plains Drifter at the local Cineplex. Geezer starts lifting the medicine ball cuz he’s getting a bit saggy for such a young gal. That’s about the extent of the tension here … the old man can’t stand that the world just won’t accept his love for this flower child half his age. Damn you, world.

Lately, Clint’s directed a few movies in which he doesn’t appear, but early in his career it drove the movie companies bonkers that he wasn’t going to be in Breezy. They probably insisted that Clint at least put his picture on the poster. Clint was too young to play the lead, but he wanted to get that message out there … can’t we just be happy that these two star-crossed lovers found each other out there in this crazy world? Or at least until dementia sets in...

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