As usual, ecarle, you've written an engaged and engaging history. Personally, I agree with Richard Schickel (who penned that 1978 Time cover story on Eastwood and Reynolds) when, in Clint Eastwood: A Biography (New York: Knopf, 1996), he writes that City Heat is "a largely agreeable, entirely forgettable movie." It is watchable, and it's mildly entertaining and occasionally amusing, but there's no depth and there isn't much heat, either. Schickel blames the lukewarm temperature on Reynolds' injury, and I'd be inclined to agree. Reynolds gives a solid performance, disciplining his comedic sensibility and providing wit and charm without self-indulgence. And yet it does seem as if his injury had an unsettling effect on the production. After that opening fight scene in the bar, it almost appears as if everyone is walking on eggshells a little. It's a rather imperceptible change, but it's as if City Heat can never quite let loose.
There are a few aspects of the film that make it commendable. I enjoy the period costuming and set design, the visuality is notable (the film is almost entirely shot at night), the dialogue is bantering and witty (especially for Eastwood), and the stars are in fine form for the most part. Eastwood manages to slyly satirize his stoic, super-cop loner persona without sinking into parody and he dominates the screen effortlessly. He uses stealthy physicality and cynical one-liners to suddenly control a scene at the drop of a hat, again proving that no other contemporary star is as mythic and commanding as him. But unlike The Sting (George Roy Hill, 1973), there isn't much fluidity, sensitivity, sophistication, or elegance to this film, and City Heat could not register the same blockbuster grosses as its superstar predecessor. City Heat grossed $38.3M at the domestic box office, finishing twenty-second on the list of the highest grossing films released in 1984 and nearly matching the domestic gross of The Terminator (James Cameron, 1984). Indeed, City Heat represented Reynolds' biggest success in six films dating back to The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (Colin Higgins, 1982). But compare City Heat's performance to that of Eastwood's Tightrope (Eastwood, 1984), released in August of that year. Tightrope grossed $48.1M domestically, finishing thirteenth on the list of films released in 1984. And compare City Heat's performance to that of Eastwood's Sudden Impact (Eastwood, 1983), released a year earlier in December 1983. Sudden Impact grossed $67.6M domestically, ranking seventh on the list of movies released in 1983. Most of all, compare City Heat's performance to that of the competing Beverly Hills Cop (Martin Brest, 1984), which led all 1984 releases with a domestic gross of $234.8M, or nearly $200M more than City Heat's domestic gross. Released on the same weekend in December 1984, Beverly Hills Cop opened at $15.1M compared to $6.3M for City Heat. In other words, young Eddie Murphy trounced Eastwood and Reynolds right out of the gate. As Richard Schickel writes, audiences treated City Heat "as a sort of second-choice movie, something to see if the hit police comedy of the season, Eddie Murphy's Beverly Hills Cop, was sold out. 'Disappointment'—studiospeak not for a failure to make money, but for a failure to live up to inflated expectations—was expressed by a Warners spokesman" (Schickel 400). In fact, City Heat's opening weekend gross only represented about two-thirds of the income generated by the likes of Sudden Impact, Tightrope, and Pale Rider on their opening weekends. Those "solo" Eastwood films from around the same time opened at over $9M.
Eastwood did his part during the production by helping out the crew, advising director Richard Benjamin, and consoling the injured Reynolds, in addition to delivering an effective performance. But the film's pre-production and post-production are more reflective of his ambivalence. Initially, Eastwood turned down Warner Brothers' offer of Blake Edwards' script, feeling that it was "too talky." Doubtlessly, the star also sensed the shallow nature of the material. In response, Edwards sent the script to Eastwood's then-girlfriend, Sondra Locke, offering her a major part. As Edwards had predicted, Locke mentioned the script to Eastwood and wondered why he hadn't liked it. Eastwood replied that he hadn't entirely hated it, and reconsidering, he imagined its self-satirizing possibilities along with the prospect of co-starring with his casual pal Burt Reynolds. And so it became a deal all the way around, until Edwards admitted that he'd actually promised Locke's part to his daughter. Naturally, Eastwood exploded a bit, realizing that Edwards had been using Locke to get to him. Then there was talk of Edwards casting his wife, Julie Andrews, instead of his daughter. Now Reynolds was upset, because he had just worked with Andrews in The Man Who Loved Women (Edwards, 1983) under Edwards' direction, and Reynolds wasn't eager to repeat that experience. Eastwood, tiring of the merry-go-round, threatened to withdraw. Finally, everyone agreed not to cast any loved ones, but then Edwards, instead of giving Eastwood the script rewrites that the star had asked for, started insisting that Warner Brothers rent a house for him in Bel-Air during shooting while paying for a car and a driver, too. Eastwood, aware that Reynolds was also growing anxious, finally recommended to Edwards that they forget the project and work together some other time on a script that they both liked. Warner Brothers, however, was not about to lose the attractive star pairing of Eastwood and Reynolds, so the studio fired Edwards and turned the project over to Eastwood's Malpaso Company, although Reynolds' Deliverance eventually shared credit. From there, Eastwood and Reynolds agreed upon Richard Benjamin as a director due to his recent helming of the period films My Favorite Year (1982) and Racing with the Moon (1984). Meanwhile, Eastwood hired his Sudden Impact writer, Joe Stinson, for the long awaited rewrite, while the late Madeleine Kahn filled the role once briefly held by Locke. But obviously, City Heat was a project that Eastwood had been rather apprehensive and ambivalent about.
Eastwood's main contribution to City Heat's post-production, pre-release period seems to have been his playing piano on the City Heat soundtrack. When he saw Benjamin's director's cut, he accepted it immediately after watching it, rather than choosing to tinker with the film. And late in 1984, Eastwood was more concerned with making his new Western, Pale Rider, than with promoting City Heat.
But the thing of it is this: we still get to see Clint and Burt in this thing, and they ARE movie stars in it, Clint as always and Burt on his best behavior.
I rank "City Heat" with a select group of other movies -- Spielberg's "1941" with Belushi and Ackroyd, Burton's "Mars Attacks!" with Nicholson and everybody, The Coen Brothers' "Ladykillers" with Tom Hanks -- in which the movie goes very wrong but somehow fascinates and entertains just the same. Because its cool to see those big star guys doin' those crazy things together, no matter how bad the movies are.
Yeah,
City Heat was a matchup that was worth trying. Unfortunately, it wasn't
The Sting, but then again, its script and director weren't as strong.
As for Burt Reynolds. He's a survivor. I think people forget he did two TV shows after his movie career died out, and one ("Evening Shade") was a hit. Then he got an Oscar nom (finally) for "Boogie Nights." And now he's respectable enough -- if so WEIRD looking (white-hair toupees with dark black fake eyebrows?)
Yeah, Reynolds is a survivor, and he has remade himself decently and successfully enough. Now 70, he's still working consistently. The irony is that very few young people today have any idea how huge a star he was twenty-five years ago. Incredibly, he finished first in the Quigley Annual Top Ten Money Making Stars Poll for five consecutive years, from 1978-1982. Only Eastwood (five), Bing Crosby (five), Tom Hanks (five), and Tom Cruise (seven) have finished first so often.
Clint Eastwood moved well through "City Heat" as its True Icon (one critic likened Clint here to John Wayne opposite Jimmy Stewart in "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," dominating the picture) But he didn't quite escape the "Eddie Murphy beatin'", either. Eastwood slowed down his output, put out a face-saver Western ("Pale Rider") took a break to be the mayor of Carmel -- and embarked on a "mid-life crisis" in which some of his movies simply didn't dominate like they used to ("Heartbreak Ridge," "The Dead Pool," "Pink Cadillac", "The Rookie")
But Clint never really cheapened his brand like Burt Reynolds did. He weathered that weak period -- he was actually great in "Heartbreak Ridge" (Gene Hackman called it Eastwood's best performance) -- and remade himself in the 90's.
After finishing second in the Quigley poll behind Reynolds in 1979, 1981, and 1982, Eastwood reclaimed the top spot in 1983 and 1984.
Pale Rider proved successful enough to keep Eastwood at number three in 1985, and a Roper poll identified him as the person most admired by Americans ages 18-24, ahead of Eddie Murphy and former actor Ronald Reagan. Eastwood toured Europe in January 1985, receiving medals or retrospectives in Paris, Munich, and London, and a few months later he entered
Pale Rider at the Cannes Film Festival.
The New York Times Magazine put Eastwood on its cover ("Clint Eastwood, Seriously," by John Vinocur) and
Newsweek ran a major story on him that summer, declaring him an "American Icon." So Eastwood seemed to have survived
City Heat unscathed. It is true, however, that he was about to enter something of a "mid-life crisis." Early in 1986, at age 55, Eastwood ran for Mayor of Carmel, California (his adopted hometown) and won. Naturally, his moviemaking output declined during his two-year political stint. In 1986, he still managed to make and release
Heartbreak Ridge, which grossed solidly enough (in the top twenty) to place Eastwood on the Quigley list for the nineteenth consecutive year. But in perhaps the first sign of slippage, Eastwood finished seventh, his lowest showing ever in the Quigley poll and only the second time that he hadn't finished in the top five (the other being 1975, when he came in sixth). Then in 1987, he missed the list for the first time since 1967, when he was first establishing himself as a movie star in America with the Sergio Leone Westerns (which had made Eastwood a huge star in Europe, South America, and Japan between 1964 and 1966). After his record nineteen consecutive Quigley appearances (which may never be topped), Eastwood missed the poll for five straight years, from 1987-1991. During that time, his career, which had typically balanced personal and commercial ambitions in a rather organic way (
City Heat excluded), seemed to be operating on two totally separate tracks. Eastwood went way outside genre in directing two of his most ambitious (and best) films to date,
Bird (Eastwood, 1988), which won him a Golden Globe for Best Director (in a film where he doesn't appear), and
White Hunter, Black Heart (Eastwood, 1990). (Sadly, both movies registered very low domestic grosses of a little over $2M each.) But when Eastwood returned to genre, the formulaic results made it clear that the star had grown somewhat disinterested, even though he still did professional work. What's more, the results were no longer commercial, either.
The Dead Pool (Buddy Van Horn, 1988) was a mild, profitable hit, but it came up way short of the blockbuster standard established by the previous four Dirty Harry movies. Whereas
Sudden Impact had finished seventh among 1983 releases with a domestic gross of $67.6M,
The Dead Pool ranked thirtieth among 1988 releases with a domestic gross of $37.9M. Next came
Pink Cadillac (Van Horn, 1989), and despite some inventive, rangy, chameleon acting from Eastwood (paired opposite the voluptuous Bernadette Peters), the film's charm could not overcome the inconsistency of its writing and direction.
Pink Cadillac grossed only $12.1M, making it the third flop of Eastwood's career as a star (after
The Beguiled in 1971 and
Honkytonk Man in 1982, films that were very strong but not commerically-oriented).
The Rookie (Eastwood, 1990), which paired the pushing-60 star with a young hotshot less than half his age (Charlie Sheen), only faired marginally better, with a weak domestic gross of $21.6M. Making matters worse, the film represented Eastwood's least inspired directing ever, even though he handles a couple of action set pieces with aplomb. As ecarle has indicated elsewhere, Eastwood's darkly melancholic sensibility failed to mesh with the comic book spirit of recent action blockbusters
Lethal Weapon (Richard Donner, 1987) and
Die Hard (John McTiernan, 1988), which
The Rookie was supposed to emulate. To some critics, Eastwood, obviously ill at ease with the new brand of Hollywood action movie, was about to follow Reynolds to the commercial fringe, with one article referring to him as Warner Brothers' "fading house star" (Schickel 451).
Eastwood had admitted to feeling "fringed out" by his stint in mayoral politics, but he possessed a Western script that would return him to the center of the movie industry. Having sat on it for some eight years, Eastwood broke out David Webb Peoples'
Unforgiven and in the fall of 1991, he filmed his crowning glory as both an actor and a director. Eastwood returned to the Quigley list in 1992 and then topped it in 1993 at the ripe old age of 63, over twenty years after he initially finished first. Now, Eastwood was a huge star once again, and finally, the critical establishment recognized him as a director of substance and significant accomplishment as he captured Oscars for Best Director and Best Picture in March 1993. That summer, Wolfgang Petersen's
In the Line of Fire gave Eastwood two $100M domestic grossers in a row. Proving that
Unforgiven was no fluke, Eastwood closed 1993 with another splendid directing job on
A Perfect World, co-starring Kevin Costner. And although the film disappointed in domestic release, it cleaned up overseas. By the end of 1993, Eastwood had fully transitioned from being a legendary, iconic action star to being a grand old star and a director who commanded respect and attention.
That 1978 article suggested that fans' dreams might come true: Clint and Burt in a movie together. A possible project was mentioned, title only: "Fort Apache." Did Time mean a remake of the John Wayne-Henry Fonda Ford film? A NEW Western plot set in Fort Apache? Or that NYC cop movie that would be made with Paul Newman in 1980 and called "Fort Apache: The Bronx." I don't know. It was never made with Clint and Burt.
ecarle, re-reading the
Time article, I see no mention of
Fort Apache or any proposed co-starring vehicle for Eastwood and Reynolds. Is it possible that you read that elsewhere?
PS: Someone whom I used to know once attended a talk by Dean Riesner, the trusty "house" writer who co-wrote the Eastwood movies
Coogan's Bluff (Don Siegel, 1968),
Play Misty for Me (Eastwood, 1971),
Dirty Harry (Siegel, 1971), and
The Enforcer (James Fargo, 1976), while doing major uncredited work on
High Plains Drifter (Eastwood, 1973) and minor uncredited work on
The Outlaw Josey Wales (Eastwood, 1976). Riesner was the kind of guy whom Eastwood (or Siegel) would call in to polish and strengthen someone else's story, tailoring it to the specifications of the filmmakers and stars. Anyway, this former acquaintance said that in his talk, Riesner claimed that
he wrote the "Go ahead, make my day" line for
The Enforcer, only it didn't make the final script (for whatever reason) and instead reappeared in
Sudden Impact seven years later. Whether or not that's true, who knows ...
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joekiddlouischama
18 years ago
(2) in a final fight sequence, his character wears a "Big Bad Wolf" mask for the fight -- I assume there's a stuntman under there;
Yes, I've also read that somewhere.
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joekiddlouischama
18 years ago
I just watched City Heat for the first time since 2002, and my assessment stands (and I also still agree with ecarle's points). City Heat is mildly enjoyable, but it's just too slack and occasionally tedious to be anything more than mediocre. The film features some smashing comedy-action moments and dynamic scenes, and Eastwood is masterful in a broad, slyly satirical performance, but ultimately there's not enough sophistication and depth to render City Heat a significant film. There's also not enough "heat," either. The whole enterprise is rather tepid, and while director Richard Benjamin can be blamed for not bringing enough visual and psychological intensity to the movie, Reynolds' unfortunate injury can also be cited. Although he delivers a smart, suave, tough performance, Reynolds just cannot recapture the sizzling energy that he'd brought to the opening bar scene (before he broke his jaw in the subsequent fight). As a result, the heat melts before our eyes, despite an engaging jazz soundtrack that closes with the legendary Joe Williams singing a dandy tune. Also, City Heat misses Richard Roundtree's deft sparkle after his ill-fated character is killed early on.
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ecarle
18 years ago
Been away for awhile, looking to respond to a few points:
1. If the projected Eastwood/Reynolds "Fort Apache" isn't in the "Time" article, I misremembered. I KNOW I read a piece on that project, around the time of the Time article -- maybe in the LOS ANGELES TIMES?
(Archivists, go to work! 1978...)
2. To his credit, in his autobiography, Burt Reynolds takes personal blame for "City Heat"'s fizzling. With that early injury, Reynolds claims, he could never give "City Heat" his all, and he felt that he personally ruined his one shot at a movie with Clint. He believed, rightly, that they had a much better movie in them.
I'm not sure if Reynolds deserves ALL the blame, though. That script would have been a problem if Reynolds had been tip-top; methinks the tossing overboard of Blake Edwards and subsequent maneuvering (Eastwood's takeover of the movie, which gave it more of that Malpaso cheapness than that Blake Edwards plushness, Benjamin's signing as director) took the wind out of the sails of the film as originally conceived even BEFORE Burt got hurt.
3. I didn't realize that Eastwood stayed in such good Quigley stead in the yer of "City Heat" and "Beverly Hills Cop." I suspect theater owners still saw EAstwood as guaranteed business (he'd had "Tightrope" earlier in the year.)
I suspect that Eastwood (or somebody) rather nicely managed that mid-eighties stretch mayorship and European honors. With new young 80's stars nipping at his heels, Eastwood may have felt it was time to get "serious" and "honorable," in more ways than one.
As I think I've posted before, Eastwood's minimalist "Dead Pool" looked cheap against "Die Hard," and his minor "Pink Cadillac" disastrously opened against the blockbuster "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade." He would not or could not compete at that budget level, and indeed would have headed to the fringes had he not very cannily figured out a way to use his iconic power and his directorial savvy to reinvent himself one last time for the nineties -- as a thoughtful, dour auteur.
Clint Eastwood was the Last Western Star ... but he was also the First Action Star. All sorts of guys used Clint's formula to move up: Arnold, Sly, Mel Gibson (Lethal Weapon), Bruce Willis (Die Hard), and lesser lights like Van Damme, Chuck Norris, and Steven Seagal.
Eastwood cleverly left those movies to "those younger guys" (as he said), and managed to recreate himself as a guy who made Sean Penn movies. Amazing.
P.S. Burt has an anecdote about Clint in his autobio. I have no idea if it is true, but here it is:
Burt and Clint had some beers in San Francisco bar restaurant. A drunk obnoxious woman kept insulting Clint...and finally poured a beer over his head. In a cold rage, Clint grabbed the woman by the arm, walked her from drinker to drinker, and poured all their drinks on HER head.
Clint then took the woman outside, threw her in a cab, tossed the driver money and said "drive her as far as this takes her." Clint then reentered the restaurnt and growled "who brought that broad in here?" Not a soul dared answer.
Burt also writes that in the 70's, the three most hot-tempered stars were: Gene Hackman, Burt Reynolds, and Clint Eastwood.
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joekiddlouischama
18 years ago
1. If the projected Eastwood/Reynolds "Fort Apache" isn't in the "Time" article, I misremembered. I KNOW I read a piece on that project, around the time of the Time article -- maybe in the LOS ANGELES TIMES?
(Archivists, go to work! 1978...)
Yeah, it's definitely not in the
Time article. I might try and see what kind of electronic access I have to the
L.A. Times archives and look there.
2. To his credit, in his autobiography, Burt Reynolds takes personal blame for "City Heat"'s fizzling. With that early injury, Reynolds claims, he could never give "City Heat" his all, and he felt that he personally ruined his one shot at a movie with Clint. He believed, rightly, that they had a much better movie in them.
I'm not sure if Reynolds deserves ALL the blame, though. That script would have been a problem if Reynolds had been tip-top; methinks the tossing overboard of Blake Edwards and subsequent maneuvering (Eastwood's takeover of the movie, which gave it more of that Malpaso cheapness than that Blake Edwards plushness, Benjamin's signing as director) took the wind out of the sails of the film as originally conceived even BEFORE Burt got hurt.
Watching the film a couple of days ago, I didn't feel as if cheapness was the problem, espcially since Depression-era Kansas City was the location (and even these days, K.C. isn't exactly lavish). Edward Carfagno, who a few years later would masterfully design
Bird, does a pretty solid job with the
City Heat set design, although admittedly it doesn't match up to Henry Bumstead's work on
The Sting (Bumstead, of course, worked with Eastwood on
Joe Kidd and
High Plains Drifter and would rejoin Eastwood nearly twenty years later for
Unforgiven and most of his subsequent films). But
City Heat does feel truncated, and that seems to have been a result of Reynolds' injury and the script. Of course, we don't know how much better (if any) Edwards' original script might have been. And really, Edwards only has himself to blame for being fired. First, he tricked Eastwood into the project by making a false offer to Eastwood's then-girlfriend, Sondra Locke. Then, instead of giving Eastwood the script rewrite that the star was looking for, Edwards started haggling with Warner Brothers over various perks. Eastwood, who never seemed fully committed to the project in the first place, then told Edwards that they should just forget the venture and maybe do something else down the road. Warner Brothers subsequently panicked and fired Edwards, leaving Eastwood and Reynolds to search for a new director. One obvious choice might have been Eastwood himself, but he usually avoided directing his shallower and less challenging films (
The Rookie would be a bit of an exception several years later). Plus, Reynolds might not have wanted to have been directed by his co-superstar. Eastwood could have just turned
City Heat over to the technically proficient Buddy Van Horn, who'd successfully directed
Any Which Way You Can a few years prior, but instead he went for a more creative sort in Benjamin. I haven't seen any of Benjamin's other films, so I don't know if
City Heat is above or below his usual standard.
Interestingly, the film's cinematographer, Nick McLean, and its editor, Jacqueline Cambas, were not Malpaso regulars. McLean was a Reynolds associate (and Reynolds' Deliverance company did share production credit) and Cambas was a Benjamin associate. It is possible that
City Heat suffers a little from not having the usual Malpaso regulars in those departments. After all, Joel Cox has received an Oscar and two Academy Award nominations for his fluid, thoughtful editing, and the regular Malpaso cinematographers (Bruce Surtees, Frank Stanley, Rexford Metz, David Worth, Jack Green, Tom Stern) have been exceptional and might have added more visual power. McLean's style in
City Heat is dark enough (which is how Eastwood likes it), but the use of shadow, lighting, and composition is not nearly as creative and powerful as it usually is in Eastwood's films. Curiously, Bruce Surtees, Eastwood's regular cinematographer at the time (who had done fantastic, impressionistic
noir work on
Sudden Impact and
Tightrope and would do breathtaking, autumnal work on
Pale Rider) was working on another film in 1984. Which film? None other than
Beverly Hills Cop! Maybe that was an omen. Still, Eastwood could have promoted Jack Green, who had filled in for Surtees during part of the
Tightrope shoot (while Surtees was ill) and would soon take over as Eastwood's new regular cinematographer. Instead, the nod went to Reynolds' guy, McLean.
In any event, even the presence of say, Cox and Green, would not have fully redeemed
City Heat's clunky narrative construction.
3. I didn't realize that Eastwood stayed in such good Quigley stead in the yer of "City Heat" and "Beverly Hills Cop." I suspect theater owners still saw EAstwood as guaranteed business (he'd had "Tightrope" earlier in the year.)
I suspect that Eastwood (or somebody) rather nicely managed that mid-eighties stretch mayorship and European honors. With new young 80's stars nipping at his heels, Eastwood may have felt it was time to get "serious" and "honorable," in more ways than one.
As I think I've posted before, Eastwood's minimalist "Dead Pool" looked cheap against "Die Hard," and his minor "Pink Cadillac" disastrously opened against the blockbuster "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade." He would not or could not compete at that budget level, and indeed would have headed to the fringes had he not very cannily figured out a way to use his iconic power and his directorial savvy to reinvent himself one last time for the nineties -- as a thoughtful, dour auteur.
Tightrope was a pretty big hit, out-grossing the much-ballyhooed
The Natural (Barry Levinson, 1984), which marked Robert Redford's first screen appearance in four years. Then consider that the blockbuster
Sudden Impact, released in December 1983, played widely early in 1984 and that
City Heat at least made a dent at the end of the year, and Eastwood appeared in three successful films while the calendar was turned to 1984.
Regarding movies such as
The Dead Pool (Buddy Van Horn, 1988) and
Pink Cadillac (Van Horn, 1989), not only did they lack the budgetary strength to compete at the box office in the new Hollywood era, but the material was rather frivolous and lightweight. Eastwood may not have been taken seriously from an intellectual perspective for years, but sociologically, his films were taken seriously enough to draw outrage from critics and charges of fascism and sado-masochism. But by the late eighties, critics could chuckle at Eastwood to a certain degree, as they had been doing with Reynolds for years. Of course, Eastwood was already remaking himself as a "thoughtful, dour auteur" with films such as
Bird (Eastwood, 1988) and
White Hunter, Black Heart (Eastwood, 1990), but those movies made no commercial impact. Then Eastwood was able to merge those streams (critical and box office) with
Unforgiven, and the result was the greatest joint critical-commercial success of his career.
P.S. Burt has an anecdote about Clint in his autobio. I have no idea if it is true, but here it is:
Burt and Clint had some beers in San Francisco bar restaurant. A drunk obnoxious woman kept insulting Clint...and finally poured a beer over his head. In a cold rage, Clint grabbed the woman by the arm, walked her from drinker to drinker, and poured all their drinks on HER head.
Clint then took the woman outside, threw her in a cab, tossed the driver money and said "drive her as far as this takes her." Clint then reentered the restaurnt and growled "who brought that broad in here?" Not a soul dared answer.
Well, that would be a great scene for a movie, and actually, there's a somewhat similar scene in
Sudden Impact. In doesn't involve the beer pouring and the cab, but some of the elements are there.
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joekiddlouischama
18 years ago
I should note, however, that even though critics and cultural arbiters began to view Eastwood as a more serious and respectable actor and filmmaker in the mid-1980s, that process didn't attain fruition until Unforgiven's release in 1992. Here's a quote from famous screenwriter William Goldman, discussing Eastwood's Bird (1988). Goldman was a juror at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival, where Eastwood had entered Bird into competition (after entering Pale Rider three years earlier).
"It [Bird] was by far the outstanding directorial work of the fortnight. The only stigma being Eastwood and our memories of all those action films. How dare he attempt a serious movie? And bring it off. I believe that if Francis Coppola had directed it, frame for frame, the critics would have put him back on top with Woody Allen. And if Allen had done it, they would have elevated him up alongside Welles."
[Pages 433-4 of Richard Schickel's Clint Eastwood: A Biography (New York: Knopf, 1996).]
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ecarle
18 years ago
Enjoyed your overall analysis of the "City Heat" production complexities (whose cameraman could be hired, who could direct, etc.)
I'm sure that Clint thought it would be fun to work with Burt, but as we know, Clint was by then a very particular and controlling kind of superstar, and Burt would learn that negotiation was necessary every step of the way. I've read the Schickel and the Reynolds autobio on this movie, and it is clear that Burt "needed" the movie more than Clint, who kept looking to back out of the project unless things changed (like firing Blake Edwards.)
As a matter of power politics, I've always suspected that Clint waited to work with Burt until Burt's power had diminished. It's possible that Clint had been offered a "Burt movie" every year since 1978 ("Fort Apache"?) So now its 1983, and Burt's had a buncha bombs, and Clint has just opened "Sudden Impact" and maybe Clint figures: "Yeah, now I'll work with you, Burt. I'm a bit in the lead now."
Richard Benjamin was chosen to direct "City Heat" on the basis of his very good fifties period comedy "My Favorite Year," with Peter O'Toole doing Errol Flynn on 1953 live New York TV. That movie was brisk and funny and assured -- which "City Heat" is not. Per Burt Reynolds, almost every time Benjamin chose a complex camera move, Clint would shake his head, and Benjamin would change his mind: "OK, we'll just do it in one simple shot." Or Clint would suggest a "better" camera angle, and Benjamin complied. Or Clint shook his head at a 40-angle gunfight (better to just shoot 5) and Benjamin complied. Rumor: Clint really directed "City Heat."
Eastwood's creative recognition was rather rapid when it happened. "Bird" was key, I think, because it reflected Eastwood's longstanding and passionate knowledge of the jazz world -- including the BLACK jazz world -- and he could make an assured and knowing film on the subject. That the film was eons away from Dirty Harry or Play Misty made a great difference. (And let's face it, megahit though it was, "Every Which Way But Loose" and its goofball bikers were never going to attract Oscar attention.)
"Black Hunter, White Heart" was very good, with Eastwood PLAYING a director (John Huston in disguise) and thus telling us something ABOUT directing (note: in this film, Eastwood LOSES a fistfight to another man.)
But it was "Unforgiven" that changed everything. Such a monumental film, I'd really like to wait and cover it over at its thread here sometime.
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joekiddlouischama
18 years ago
In Clint Eastwood: Film-Maker (London: B.T. Batsford, 1996), Daniel O'Brien writes the following:
Edwards found his authority rapidly undermined, finally quitting (or being fired) when his choice of leading lady, a newcomer named Clio Goldsmith (briefly in vogue after appearing in the French-Italian sex comedy The Gift 1982), was declared unsatisfactory by Eastwood, who wanted her replaced with the better known Madeleine Kahn (Reynolds claims that Goldsmith stayed on with the production following Edwards' departure, only to be fired a few days later for 'unprofessional' behaviour). Still not satisfied, Eastwood and Warners hired Sudden Impact writer Joseph Stinson to rework Edwards' script. The new version did not go down well with fellow cast member Marsha Mason, who resigned from the film on the grounds that her character had been altered beyond recognition. (Mason didn't hold a grudge against Eastwood, accepting his offer of a co-starring role in Heartbreak Ridge two years later).
ecarle, have you read similar information about Mason and especially Goldsmith? I'm guessing that O'Brien is using Reynolds' autobiography as a source, but he doesn't cite it. It's too bad that we don't have a Blake Edwards autobiography.
Per Burt Reynolds, almost every time Benjamin chose a complex camera move, Clint would shake his head, and Benjamin would change his mind: "OK, we'll just do it in one simple shot." Or Clint would suggest a "better" camera angle, and Benjamin complied. Or Clint shook his head at a 40-angle gunfight (better to just shoot 5) and Benjamin complied. Rumor: Clint really directed "City Heat."
That's somewhat curious, since Eastwood allegedly proposed the more complex possibilities in his collaboration with Don Siegel. In the April 6, 1969 edition of
The Los Angeles Times ("Anything for Art in 'Mules for Sister Sara'"), Wayne Warga quotes Siegel thusly on Eastwood: "He can dream up absolutely impossible shots, but the trouble is that they sound good" (page 229 of Richard Schickel's
Clint Eastwood: A Birography). If the opposite was the case on
City Heat, it probably supports my suspicions that Eastwood never really wanted to make this film in the first place. His mind was already, perhaps, racing ahead to
Pale Rider and worrying more about
Tightrope's release. In that case, Eastwood should not have made
City Heat, but Edwards had tricked him into the project and Warner Brothers lusted after the Eastwood-Reynolds combination. And as Schickel writes, in the 1980s, Eastwood allowed Warners to push certain projects onto him despite minimal personal interest from the star. Schickel writes that Eastwood's relationship with the studio might have been too comfortable for his own good, which may have been true. In the 1970s, Eastwood seemed edgier in his relationship with his studios and his filmmaking output proved more consistent.
Regarding that gunfight, though, according to the Schickel biography, that was Reynolds' fault. He had come to Eastwood and said that he didn't think that he would be up for the gunfight, and Eastwood spent an hour with Reynolds, walking through the deserted streets of Los Angeles and trying to encourage his fellow superstar. Eastwood then went to Benjanin (who had planned a four-night sequence) and said, "You've got one night. This guy's falling apart" (Schickel 399). It's possible that Eastwood had his eye on Reynolds' tenuous condition at other times during the shoot, too, thus preferring simpler setups. Either that or Eastwood was merely disinterested (although his performance is quite effective).
Regarding Eastwood's suggestion of "better" camera angles, apparently he did that to Siegel and Michael Cimino, too, but those directors had the personal fortitude to negate the star's ideas if they so desired. About the
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (Cimino, 1974) shoot:
Sometimes, he [Cimino] recalls, when he was in the midst of making a setup, Clint would "sort of sidle up to me by the camera [and say] 'What do you think about putting the camera here?'" pointing to some other spot, "and I'd say, 'Well, that's interesting, but I think it's better the way we have it,' and he'd sort of smile, you know, almost as if he's saying, 'Just testing.'" ...
Cimino says he asked Clint at the end of every day that he worked if he was content with the way things were going, if there was anything he wanted to change. "Every single time he said, 'Nope, I want you to shoot ... exactly the way you envision this movie.' I mean, he didn't change one period, one comma, one word in the script; the way I wrote it was the way it was made."[Schickel 309-10.]
(By the way, re-reading that passage, Eastwood cut short the
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot shoot by one day, not three. It was still an unfortunate decision, but it doesn't seem to have hurt the film.)
Siegel, meanwhile, knew how to embrace Eastwood's ideas while still maintaining his own vision. Said the veteran director of Eastwood:
"He's a natural. The times I've directed him we would end up shooting scenes we called, 'Clint's shots,' scenes which were Clint's ideas that I'd steal. I figured it was time for him to start getting credit for them himself.[DeWitt Bodeen, "A Fistful of Fame: Clint Eastwood,"
Focus on Film (no. 9, Spring 1972), page 19.]
Siegel, of course, was a veteran auteur and a mentor to Eastwood, so he maintained the power in that relationship. Cimino was a novice director, but he was also realizing his own script. Either way, both men were able to maintain their authority, something that Benjamin appeared unable to do. At the end of the day, I think that Eastwood deferred to a director on a Malpaso production only if that director was a fellow auteur (Siegel and John Sturges on
Joe Kidd), a father figure (Siegel and Ted Post on
Hang 'em High), or a fellow auteur-in-the-making (Cimino). If Eastwood viewed the director as more of a hired hand (Post on
Magnum Force, James Fargo, Buddy Van Horn, Richard Benjamin), then it seemed as if the star-producer was going to exert his authority. Benjamin, of course, was a modestly accomplished filmmaker outside of Malpaso, but perhaps he was too timid to exert his control, and perhaps Eastwood, seeing that Benjamin was not realizing a personal vision, was unwilling to cede control.
I think that Benjamim ultimately directed
City Heat, especially since Eastwood accepted the director's cut without a quibble. The film just doesn't feature the kind of meditative aura and visual flair that Eastwood's directorial films (such as
Tightrope, which he directed uncredited) boast. But as you've said, ecarle, perhaps Eastwood directed the director, if not the film.
Ultimately, I think that the problem with
City Heat is the content. It's a bawdy action-comedy without the irony, curiosity, and blue-collar romanticism of the
Which Way movies. For it to be successful, it needed to really deliver some "heat," and after Reynolds' injury, that wasn't happening.
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ecarle
18 years ago
Per the Reynolds autobio, he and Clint came upon Clio Goldsmith unconscious and dead drunk on the Warners lot prior to "City Heat" began production. On Clint's orders: out!
Blake Edwards had been pushing for Julie Andrews to take the other female role, but Burt Reynolds had just worked with Edwards and Andrews on "The Man Who Loved Women" and felt that together, that duo dominated their movies. Burt didn't want to do that again. Julie Andrews: out!
Consequently, Burt and Clint agreed to a "no loved ones" rule on casting. (No Sondra Locke; I don't know if Sally Field was still in Burt's life, then.) Marsha Mason indeed quit the movie and Eastwood took care to hire her for "Heartbreak Ridge."
The whole business of "who really directed the film" is a continuing Hollywood issue on lots of movies. Another movie star who was famous for demanding his own camera placements was John Wayne. Working a lot with journeyman directors in the sixties and seventies, Wayne usually got his way -- but not with Don Siegel. Some veteran directors had enough money saved that they could put their feet down with stars.
As you must know, joekidd, Clint Eastwood's directorial desires functioned critically in two of his movies:
1. "Outlaw Josey Wales." Soon after filming started, Eastwood fired the film's director AND writer, Philip Kaufman, and took over filming. The Director's Guild subsequently enacted "the Eastwood rule" which forbids a star from taking over a movie from the director in mid-filming. Reason being: all stars might try it eventually.
2. When working on "Tightrope" 8 years later, Eastwood reconsidered his allowing the screenwriter, Richard Tuggle ("Escape from Alcatraz") to direct his script on this film. To avoid "the Eastwood rule," Eastwood evidently told Tuggle this: "You can stay on as director and get the director's screen credit, but I'm directing this thing. Otherwise, I fire you and hire another director, since I can't take the credit."
Eastwood's anger towards Tuggle was evidently about Tuggle's lack of competance and confidence. Tuggle couldn't make direct decisions, shot too many takes, got behind schedule. Unacceptable to Clint.
Those guys like Fargo and Van Horn were definitely under Clint's thumb. Fargo, I think, screwed up the shooting on a "Which Way" movie. (Some cast members were told their scenes were done and dismissed, then needed to be rehired for reshoots, at some expense.) Fargo completed the film as director -- but never worked for Eastwood again.
We can idolize screen greats -- they bring a lot to our lives with their movies and their role modelship -- but they all have their personality quirks and "dark sides." William Goldman calls movie stars "deep sea monsters of complex emotion." They are given everything: wealth, luxury homes, world travel, mass adoration, unlimited sex with unlimited partners regardless of marriage -- but most are very insecure about "losing it all." Frankly, a lot of them DO lose it all (Burt Reynolds.)
There can be no doubt that Clint Eastwood's long survival in Hollywood reflects a man of strong will and clear vision. His record seems a fair one with his peers -- and could vary depending upon his confidence in a peer's reputation or ability -- but ultimately, and for a long time, Clint called all the shots in his career. ALL of them. Some writers and directors simply didn't make the grade with Clint, and he suffered them lightly.
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joekiddlouischama
18 years ago
Yeah, movie stars certainly seems to constitute and admixture of good, bad, and ugly. I suppose that that goes for all of us, actually, but it's less melodramatic for non-celebrities. In Eastwood's case, the "bad" or "ugly" was his dictatorial side, his temper, and his unwillingness to pay top-of-the line salaries; it has been balanced, however, by a "good" marked by mutual loyalty. If a craftsman did strong work for him, then Eastwood would tend to re-hire him or her time and time and time and time again, sometimes for a decade or two or three or four. Buddy Van Horn, Eastwood's longtime stunt coordinator, occasional director, and sometime bit actor (he played the suicide jumper in Dirty Harry and Marshal Jim Duncan in High Plains Drifter), has been working on Malpaso productions for 40 years, having started on Coogan's Bluff back in 1967. And actors and actresses, virtually across the board, have raved about working with Eastwood. William Holden, after being directed by Eastwood in Breezy (1973), apparently said, "I'd forgotten what it's like to make pictures this agreeably. I'll work with Clint any time he asks" (Shickel 295).
Regarding The Outlaw Josey Wales, Phil Kaufman was the writer, but only the last one. Sonia Chernus had penned the initial adaptation of Forrest (Asa) Carter's novel Gone to Texas (1973), and Dean Riesner had done some uncredited work on it. Kaufman put the script in its final form, but obviously the creative genesis did not belong to him, thus making his situation distinct from that of Cimino (who was solely responsible for an original screenplay on Thunderbolt and Lightfoot). Kaufman lasted a week before Eastwood fired him, at which point Eastwood re-shot Kaufman's footage because he was not pleased with it. Neither was former Malpaso producer Robert Daley, who called Kaufman's footage "milquetoast," claiming "there was just no power whatever in the thing" (Schickel 325). Eastwood later blamed himself, saying that he was mentally weak after his near-death experiences on The Eiger Sanction and thus was looking for another director rather than himself. That was a mistake because Eastwood held a vision for The Outlaw Josey Wales and did not want to lose it to someone else's.
In the case of Tightrope, apparently Tuggle, in addition to being indecisive, proved technically incompetent. Allegedly, Tuggle at one point opted for a camera placement that ensured that the actors in the scene would be blocked behind a door. Unlike Cimino, who had directed commercials in New York prior to Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, Tuggle lacked on-set experience. Whereas Kaufman lasted a week on Josey Wales, Tuggle apparently lasted a day as the real director of Tightrope.
With both The Outlaw Josey Wales and Tightrope, Eastwood cared passionately about the material and did not want to see it realized in a manner that would prove dissatisfying to him. With City Heat, he probably didn't care enough to make a wholesale change.
Regarding Jim Fargo and Every Which Way but Loose, apparently Fargo made a shot that implied that Sondra Locke's Lynn Halsey-Taylor was toting a rifle. Eastwood did not want the shot to be set up that way, the bikers had to be called back after being sent home, and Fargo ultimately didn't come back to Malpaso. So, yes, while Fargo was the director, Eastwood was still going to exert his creative control.
By the way, I forgot to mention that John Sturges (Joe Kidd, 1972) is an example of another veteran auteur who, because of his status, Eastwood did not usurp. I'll add his name to my earlier post.
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joekiddlouischama
18 years ago
You know what's curious about Goldsmith? All her screen appearances are bunched between 1980 and 1984. There's nothing after that ...
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Mississippi20
12 years ago
The film features some smashing comedy-action moments and dynamic scenes, and Eastwood is masterful in a broad, slyly satirical performance, but ultimately there's not enough sophistication and depth to render City Heat a significant film.
I would consider 'City Heat' in the realm of 'Every Which Way But Loose': lighthearted humor and simple-minded entertainment. Thus criticizing the film for a lack of sophistication and depth is unfair IMO; it never aspires to be more.
An interesting question is
should it have aspired to be more? In which case Eastwood and Reynolds probably would have picked a different script and another direction.
I'm not sure if Reynolds deserves ALL the blame, though. That script would have been a problem if Reynolds had been tip-top; methinks the tossing overboard of Blake Edwards and subsequent maneuvering (Eastwood's takeover of the movie, which gave it more of that Malpaso cheapness than that Blake Edwards plushness, Benjamin's signing as director) took the wind out of the sails of the film as originally conceived even BEFORE Burt got hurt.
I have enough faith in Eastwood to believe that if he didn't believe in Edwards' work, the results would not have been any better.
The direction they
did go, I think, was the natural choice: the buddy-cop movie (or in this case, cop and private detective) where the two are comedically at odds with each other; it allows the opportunity for two superstar statuses to amusingly play off of each other. In other words, it's a movie that attempts to fully utilize the appeal of its two stars. It is important for such a film to be slick and clever, of which I think 'City Heat' is able to accomplish mildly. All in all, I think Eastwood's involvement salvaged a decent film. We got as much as what Eastwood put into it. And this is the kind of schtick Burt Reynolds does best; his role is bigger than Eastwood's (who plays a satire of sorts on his image).
I'm glad ecarle mentions the opening scene in the diner; that's when the humor clicks and I think these moments are riddled throughout the film. In addition, I do like the Depression-era setting and the score.
Ultimately, I think that the problem with City Heat is the content. It's a bawdy action-comedy without the irony, curiosity, and blue-collar romanticism of the Which Way movies. For it to be successful, it needed to really deliver some "heat," and after Reynolds' injury, that wasn't happening.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by "irony" and "curiosity"; and I'm not sure it's fair to criticize it for a lack of blue-collar romanticism like the 'Which Way' movies. It's a bawdy action-comedy that is a satire of sorts on the 1930s "mob" films.
Reynold's injury is extremely regrettable and now we're only left wondering what might have been if Reynolds was able to give it his all. Unfortunately it seems to be apart of a black cloud that follows the film. The film was overshadowed at the box office by 'Beverly Hills Cop' and it seems to have been largely forgotten ever since.
I'm not sure it's
entirely the film's own fault. I can't help but wonder if the the same exact film had was released a few years earlier, would it have been better-received? It's hard to imagine the star power of Reynolds and Eastwood could fall so fast (1978 to 1984 is only a span of six years).
The trouble when two huge stars are paired like this is that it's just too easy to let expectations run wild. In the end, I enjoy the film for what it is: lighthearted and simple-minded entertainment.
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spookyrat1
10 years ago
Appreciated reading all the posts on this thread. The only thing I might add is that though I was and still am rather disappointed with the film, I do think Burt Reynolds was very unlucky to get saddled with a "Razzie" nomination for his performance. His generally lightly humoured Murphy, IMO, was not one of the film's low points.
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