Clint Eastwood On... Every Which Way But Lose
(1978, JAMES FARGO) "It was not quite the thing people were expecting," laughs Eastwood knowingly. Indeed, the two 'ape movies' stand out of his career like a temporary loss of sanity - what the hell was he thinking? "No one was particularly excited about it. It had nothing to do with Dirty Harry."
Which is exactly why Eastwood, at the peak of his box office appeal, elected to star alongside an orang-utan named Clyde (in reality a diffident ape named Manis) in a knockabout comedy originally intended for Burt Reynolds. To confound expectations. "Anytime anybody tells me the trend is such and such, I go in the opposite direction," he explains. "I saw it as some camp deal, there was something about the screenplay that was unusual. I mean it was about this fringe society where there is bare-knuckle fighting."
The film is an oddity certainly, yet as directed by James Fargo (another regular compatriot) it retains something of the laconic but morally sturdy Eastwood vibe - this offbeat corner of America where a tight knit community rubs up against the system. Even if it does centre on a touching relationship between a big heap of a boxer and a good-natured orang-utan.
"You have to be able to shoot really quickly because the ape has the same concentration as a seven year-old. One take and they are fine, two and their mind is running off somewhere. You have to be ready to roll."
And just to confound the nay-sayers the film, initially deposited in small-town cinemas to make room for Warner's big 1978 release Superman, was a smash hit precipitating a sequel (the rougher, sillier Any Which Way You Can) and defining Eastwood as a star capable of loosening the screws a little and, get this, appealing to kids. "It turned out to be this PG kind of movie," he says approvingly, "one that could reach down to an audience I hadn't been appealing to with the tougher pictures."
THE ALTERNATIVE
Clint Eastwood On... Paint Your Wagon
(1969, JOSHUA LOGAN) "I was crazy enough to try anything," says Eastwood of his one and only venture into the world of the musical (as of yet). "I've always been interested in music, my father was a singer and I had some knowledge of it. Although what I was doing in that picture was not singing."
It was more talking in a singsongy way as the tunes by Alan Jay Lerner glided through the air. Mind you, co-star Lee Marvin reduced the idea of singing to a basso rumble more akin to Whale song that the Broadway from whence the whole gold prospecting-love triangle nonsense came. Even though the filter of a western, and without the assistance of an orang-utan, it could be the craziest thing he has ever done. As the script went through innumerable rewrites away from the darker story - it originally featured an inter-ethnic romance - that had initially attracted him, Eastwood nearly bailed. "I was away shooting Where Eagles Dare, and they flew over (Alan Jay Lerner and director Joshua Logan) and talked me back," he sighs, nearly 40 years later the film is still not to his liking. "It was much lighter, it just didn't have the dynamics that the original script did. And that was another long shoot…"
Beset with production problems, the film took six months to finish and went wildly over budget. Kryptonite to Eastwood: "That was not as pleasant an experience as I was used to," he growls.
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