PLAY MISTY FOR ME (1971)

Director: Clint Eastwood

Writers: Jo Heims, Dean Riesner

Producer: Robert Daley

Cast: Clint Eastwood, Jessica Walter, Donna Mills, John Larch, James McEachin, Don Siegel (as Donald Siegel), Clarice Taylor, Jack Ging, Irene Hervey, Britt Lind (as Brit Lind), Duke Everts, Jack Kosslyn, George Fargo, Tim Frawley, Otis Kadani, Mervin W. Frates, Paul E. Lippman, Ginna Patterson, Malcolm Moran, (and jazz musicians as themselves) Cannonball Adderley and Johnny Otis 

Dave Garver (Clint Eastwood) is the evening disc jockey at KRML, a jazz radio station in Carmel, California. One of his frequent callers is a woman who always requests that Garver play the song “Misty.” After his shift one night, Garver stops at his favorite local bar and meets a woman named Evelyn Draper (Jessica Walter). Garver takes Evelyn home and she reveals that she went to the bar hoping to meet Garver since he had mentioned on his program that he hung out there. Garver realizes that Evelyn is the listener who always requests “Misty.” The two spend the night together. What Garver thought would be just a casual fling leads to Evelyn obsessing over him and disrupting his life. Garver soon reunites with Tobie Williams (Donna Mills), a past lover that he feels serious about. This drives Evelyn to increasingly erratic and dangerous behavior. 

The Flashback Fanatic movie review 

Clint Eastwood’s directorial debut is one of this Eastwood fan’s favorites. In Play Misty for Me, we see Eastwood’s typical manner applied to a character and situation much different than the crime thrillers and Westerns he is most associated with. This movie delivers a different kind of tension due to Eastwood’s character not being accustomed to a life of violence. 

During a 17-year acting career, Clint Eastwood had learned a few things behind the camera and knew how to relate to actors. Eastwood formed Malpaso Productions in 1968 and had begun starring in his own film projects. Everything really seemed to come together for his directorial debut, Play Misty for Me. Eastwood had been in the business long enough to have established some industry relationships for the talents he needed to collaborate with, he had made a marketable international name for himself as an actor, and Universal Pictures had already distributed three of his Malpaso Productions’ films. Therefore, Eastwood was able to secure a deal with Universal Pictures to distribute his first film with him as director. 

Play Misty for Me is far more than just a vanity project. Eastwood really delivers with an intimate and leisurely paced film that continues ratcheting up the complications and suspense to make for an intense and entertaining movie. 

This story’s role for Clint Eastwood gives him a chance to be a guy with an ideal lifestyle. He seems a bit more carefree at the start of the film than most of his other film characters, yet we are still treated to some of Eastwood’s typically terse wit. It is fun to see Eastwood play someone who is not an action hero get ensnared in an increasingly dangerous situation. His Dave Garver character is just a promiscuous disc jockey that has one too many one-night stands. You can’t blame the guy for being tempted by so much opportunity. With his looks, a classic Jaguar, and a real swingin’ bachelor pad, the Carmel-by-the-sea jazz DJ is bound to land plenty of ladies who are begging to be on his playlist. 

Casual sex quickly turns into crazy stalking from Dave Garver’s number one fan, Evelyn Draper. As the groupie from hell, Jessica Walter gives one helluva performance. She displays sentimentality and devotion that is so desperate it ultimately makes her seem rather pathetic. Initially, Evelyn seems sweet and naive, but she manages to manipulate confident stud Dave Garver. At first, Garver thinks that he is the one in control, but hooking up with Evelyn was just what she intended and she reels him in with her seemingly casual attitude about having sex immediately. There is always the risk of emotional entanglements when physical intimacy is involved. When Garver’s latest catch does not want to be released, she goes off the deep end and tries to capsize his entire life. Before long Garver feels “smothered.” 

Donna Mills plays Tobie Williams, the lady with whom Dave Garver had a recent relationship that he wants to renew. She is reserved, levelheaded, and a bit reluctant to start up again with the randy disc jockey, but Garver is persistent, has a way with words, and looks like Clint Eastwood, so he just can’t miss. Unfortunately, Garver had started taking more requests than just playing records from Evelyn Draper… 

This film’s main cast is pretty small, but there are other characters that help to dilute the tension before it starts to build again. Their humorous interaction with Eastwood’s Dave Garver not only entertains; it also helps to expand the audience perception of Eastwood as more than just a badass movie hero. Frequent Eastwood director Don Siegel takes the role of Murphy, the bartender at Dave Garver’s favorite hangout. James McEachin is full of witty banter, on-air and off, as Sweet Al Monte, Garver’s fellow disc jockey. Garver gets more teasing from Clarice Taylor as his cleaning lady, Birdie. Police officer Sgt. McCallum, played by John Larch, is the authority figure that has to help deal with Garver’s stalker problem and reminds us that Eastwood’s character is just another citizen in trouble. 

This film takes its time to establish the picturesque Carmel, California setting, Dave Garver’s lifestyle, and the gradual renewal of love between Garver and Tobie. Director Eastwood indulges in what amounts to a musical intermission with Roberta Flack’s song “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face“ playing during a lengthy montage of Dave Garver and Tobie Williams strolling and making love in the solitude of nature. This is followed up with attendance at the Monterey Jazz Festival. Some probably thought that first-time director Eastwood was just being self-indulgent, but this musical recess brings us down from an outbreak of insanity and makes us happy that Eastwood’s character has started to find some new joy in his life. We are given time to relax and become comfortable and hopeful that things are going Garver’s way after the conflicts he has had with Evelyn, which were becoming evermore alarming. 

Play Misty for Me spins us a twisted love triangle that has a little added bite in the midst of the sexual revolution era. At that time, people became more upfront about indulging their lust and openly skipped the responsibility of attachment before getting it on. Once some of them had been making it with the right person, they may have sought something more meaningful and lasting. The ongoing problem is that not all sexual partners evaluate feelings the same way or have the same motives. Play Misty for Me deals with the free love scene’s worst-case scenario: Hell hath no fury like a groupie scorned.

A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS (1964)

Director: Sergio Leone

Writers: Adriano Bolzoni, Mark Lowell, Victor Andrés Catena, Sergio Leone, Jaime Comas Gil, (and the following uncredited writers) Akira Kurosawa, Ryûzô Kikushima, Fernando Di Leo, Duccio Tessari, Tonino Valerii

Producer: Arrigo Colombo, Giorgio Papi, Pietro Santini

Cast: Clint Eastwood, Gian Maria Volontè, Marianne Koch, José Calvo, Margarita Lozano. Wolfgang Lukschy, Sieghardt Rupp, Antonio Prieto, Joseph Egger, Daniel Martin, Benito Stefanelli, Mario Brega, Bruno Carotenuto, Aldo Sambrell 

A gunslinger stranger (Clint Eastwood) rides into the small town of San Miguel just south of the Texas border. He finds that two feuding crime families dominate the town: the Rojos and the Baxters. The stranger decides that there is a lot of money to be made by playing the families against each other. 

The Flashback Fanatic movie review

An unofficial remake of the Japanese film Yojimbo (1961), A Fistful of Dollars is truly historic. It established the Italian-made “spaghetti western” as an internationally successful film genre and launched the international star status of American actor Clint Eastwood. Director Sergio Leone’s intense and stylish take on the Western genre changed it forever.

Death hovers over nearly every scene in the film. The arrival of Eastwood’s “Man with No Name” character immediately results in violence. Our assumptions that he will be the hero to set things right are challenged through out most of the story. He is an antihero that sees the grim situation of a town almost entirely populated by two rival gangs as an opportunity to exploit for wads of cash. Of course, he often has to use his deadly gun fighting skills to achieve his goals. Nobody could have played the part better than Eastwood, and he deserves all the success that followed. 

The “Man with No Name” character that Eastwood plays in this first of three films is so effective because we know nothing about him. He has an air of mystery about him that is due to him simply not telling anybody much of anything. In his world, all anyone needs to know is that he is looking for work as a gun fighter. The less anyone knows, the easier it is for him to turn things to his advantage. 

This film established the laconic attitude and individualism that would typify Eastwood’s characters in the multitude of films he would continue to headline. It takes an actor with real presence to pull off a role like this without seeming to be just an affected poser. Of course, it is Eastwood in this less-is-more role and performance that established most of the image many action heroes of later years vainly hope to achieve. Most of them come off as pale imitations. 

Eastwood’s impact is aided enormously by a great director in Sergio Leone. There is a style shown here that still seems fresh and exciting, no matter how many other directors in the decades since have been influenced by it. Gone is all idealism in people and society. Leone’s world of the old American West is populated by brutal characters dealing with the fragile beginnings of civilization being cobbled together in a barren wilderness. His films are full of men with striking and unusual features covered in stubble and sweat. Leone lavishes plenty of close ups on the many interesting faces he casts in his films. The testosterone levels reach the saturation point when the voices being dubbed for these barbarians sound so deep and guttural that they seem animalistic. 

The chief villain here is Ramón Rojo. He is one of three brothers that lead the Rojo gang of liquor sellers competing with the gunrunning Baxter family to control the town. While his marksmanship and quick thinking are admirable, Ramón is such a macho showoff and ruthless sociopath that you really have to hate his guts. Gian Maria Volontè is so commanding and despicable as Ramón, that he makes a welcome return as a different villain in the sequel For a Few Dollars More (1965). 

Director Leone not only infused the Western with a brutal and selfish cynicism, he energized it with gritty and melodramatic style. His interest in the music used in his Westerns was as important as the cinematography and the staging of his action scenes. He began his collaboration with composer Ennio Morricone on this film with fantastic results. The music punches up the emotions of every scene as well as establishing a break from the American attitude in this movie genre. Morricone’s music, as well as Leone’s directorial style, has become a classic standard for the Western film.