Clint Eastwood - new western???

I hear movie rumours all the time, but I sure hope this one turns out to be true. It is reported that Clint Eastwood is planning to return to the western for his next movie. It's unlikely the veteran actor will appear on screen, though but the fact that he is directing is enough. If anyone knows what makes a western tick it is Clint Eastwood.

Image from Trev Murphy

A FISTFUL OF PAGES

Now that's what we want.


The excellent Cinema Retro have just released a Sergio Leone/Eastwood tribute issue

• Full coverage of 'A Fistful of Dollars', 'For a Few Dollars More' and 'the Good, the Bad and the Ugly' - and why these films remain timeless cinematic classics.
• 80 full pages (16 pages more than the standard Cinema Retro issue)
• Packed with hundreds of rare production stills, collectibles and international movie poster art culled from archives from around the world.
• Many photos never before published - including rare behind the scenes production stills from people who acted as extras in 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly'
• Special foreword by Leone biographer Sir Christopher Frayling
• The legendary film locations - then and now
• Coverage of the rare, deleted sequences
• Cast and crew biographies

FIND IT HERE

THE MAN WITH NO VOICE

I placed this on pre-order from Amazon a few months ago, as soon as I learned it was being released on CD for the first time, and it turned up today. Now I didn't buy this for the quality of the music (thankfully) but because I'm a huge Eastwood fan.

It's a really cool looking CD - Excellently packaged with the original cover notes on the back and a new essay inside from James Ritz.

This music is okay but Clint's no singer, though there is a certain charm to the songs and he manages to pull off one or two with style - but it's quite bizarre to hear Dirty Harry crooning about a bouquet of roses and even more surreal to hear The Man with No Voice pleading not to be fenced in.

So how does Clint sound? Well imagine Kenny Rogers after having his throat ripped out by a big ol grizz, and you'll have some idea.

Track List:
Bouquet of Roses
Along the Santa Fe Trail
The Last Round up
Sierra Nevada
Mexicali Rose
Searching for Somewhere
I'll love you more
Tumbling Tumbleweeds
Twilight on the Trail
San Antonio Rose
Don't Fence me In
Rowdy
Cowboy Wedding Song

I guess the appeal of this CD is in the nostalgia rather than the quality of the music.

Clint Eastwood new movie

Clint Eastwood's next project looks to be a bio-pic of J. Edgar Hoover - Leonardo DeCaprio, one of Hollywood's most talented A-list actors, is set to star in a biopic of the F.B.I.'s first director (and notorious communist hunter), J. Edgar Hoover, to be directed by the legendary Clint Eastwood.

Clint Eastwood - Fantasy fan

I never knew this but Clint Eastwood recruited Frank Frazetta to paint the poster for "The Gauntlet," Eastwood's 1977 police thriller. Frazette of course is best known for his fantasy paintings many of which graced paperback covers, most notably many of the Conan books.

Checking on Wiki I found that the artist did a fair bit of work for Hollywood, including posters for What's new Pussycat and The Fearless Vampire Killers. So maybe Eastwood wasn't so much of a fantasy fan after all, - maybe he just wanted to look like Conan.

80/80 - May 31st 2010 Clint turns 80

80/80 - 80 Things you might not know about Clint Eastwood

As printed in The Independent Newspaper:

1. His middle name is Elias; he was born on 31 May 1930.

2. His nickname among nurses was Samson: at birth he weighed an eye-watering 12lb 6oz.

3. He should be called Clint Jnr, as he is named after his steelworker dad.

4. Drafted into the army aged 20, he managed to spend the Korean War poolside as an army swimming instructor.

5. Clint claims to have never sworn in front of a woman.

6. Despite spending half his career in the saddle, he is allergic to horses.

7. He has directed 32 films – more than Steven Spielberg or George Lucas.

8. A late bloomer, 10 of these were released in the past decade.

9. Clint met swimsuit model Maggie Johnson on a blind date in June 1953; they married six months later.

10. They divorced in 1984, nine years after separating.

11. Despite his Dirty Harry films, Clint has been very critical of violence in the movies.

12. He intended to study music before being drafted into the US army.

13. Eastwood has 109 film awards, including four Oscars, five Palme d'Ors and two Golden Globes.

14. Gran Torino is the only film in which Eastwood's character is shot dead. The Beguiled (by poison) and Honkytonk Man (tuberculosis) are the only other films in which Clint's character bites the dust.

15. He lost his virginity at 14 and has been called a "serial womaniser".

16. Spike Lee accused him of not casting enough black actors in Flags of Our Fathers. A spat ensued, Clint pleaded historical accuracy.

17. American feminist magazine Bust praised him, however, for casting female actresses in traditionally male roles.

18. In 1954, he auditioned for the lead in The Seven Year Itch but lost out to Tom Ewell who went on to star opposite Marilyn Monroe.

19. His first (uncredited) movie appearance came a year later, in Revenge of the Creature.

20. His only line was: "I've lost my white mouse."

21. In the 1950s, he was the face of Maxim Coffee.

22. He was first choice to play Charles Bronson's part as Harmonica in Sergio Leone's 1968 epic Once Upon a Time in the West, but turned it down.

23. Clint was, at one time, believed to be a vegan.

24. But he denied this, saying: "That's why I don't look at the internet."

25. Customers can tuck into hog's baby back ribs at his Hog's Breath restaurant in the seaside town of Carmel, California, where he lives.

26. He has been known to spend Friday nights manning the restaurant's barbecue.

27. In a 1959 issue of TV Guide, Clint advised readers to "always eat plenty of fruit, vegetables and vitamins and always avoid drinking excess alcohol".

28. Before he hit the big time, he made his living digging swimming pools.

29. Eastwood was also a paper carrier, forest fire-fighter, golf caddy, gas station attendant and bar room piano player.

30. He recites the Greek alphabet to calm his nerves.

31. Harry Callahan's line, "Go ahead, make my day" from Sudden Impact (1983), is the sixth most memorable movie quote ever.

32. Clint successfully ran for mayor of Carmel to overturn a law banning public ice-cream eating.

33. He stood down after one term.

34. An attempt at pop stardom bombed after his 1961 debut single "Unknown Girl" failed to enter the charts.

35. He was so appalled at his performance in Ambush at Cimarron Pass in 1958 that he almost quit acting.

36. In 1976, he called Richard Nixon's handling of the Vietnam War "immoral".

37. That didn't stop him being a card-carrying Republican who supported both presidential campaigns for Richard Nixon.

38. Clint has also supported the Democrats.

39. Director Arthur Lubin first spotted him in 1954, recalling him as "a soft, awkward, hayseed type".

40. His character in the Fistful of Dollars trilogy constantly smokes a cheroot – an unpleasant experience for the militant non-smoker.

41. He has practised Transcendental Meditation every morning for more than two decades.

42. He was the owner of the US's largest bluegum eucalyptus. A taller tree was discovered in 2002.

43. Meryl Streep claimed his Bridges of Madison County filmset was the quietest she'd ever worked on.

44. In 1958, executives at Universal Studios fired Eastwood for having a distractingly large Adam's apple.

45. Eastwood swam three miles to safety after he was in a military air crash in the Pacific Ocean in 1951.

46. His most famous singing role is in 1969's Paint Your Wagon.

47. Since 2002, Eastwood has campaigned against hunting.

48. In 2007, France honoured Eastwood with the Légion d'Honneur.

49. His heritage is English, Irish, Scottish and Dutch.

50. Clint's big break came in 1959 when he was cast as Rowdy Yates in the TV western series Rawhide.

51. He even recorded an album – Rawhide's Clint Eastwood Sings Cowboy Favourites, in 1962.

52. Eastwood married anchorwoman Dina Ruiz – 35 years his junior – in 1996.

53. They met when the 28-year-old Dina interviewed the 63-year-old Clint.

54. Clint and the cast were so cash-strapped on the 1964 movie A Fistful of Dollars that they made their own costumes.

55. Eastwood was fifth choice for the role of The Man With No Name, after Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Ty Hardin, James Coburn and Richard Harrison.

56. He's not been out of work since.

57. It was Harrison who recommended Clint as a cheap actor who could play a cowboy.

58. Harrison later said that turning down the role and recommending Eastwood was his greatest contribution to cinema.

59. Clint still describes himself as a shy kid.

60. Clint retired from acting after 2008's Gran Torino.

61. He learned to play the piano by imitating records.

62. He wrote the love theme, "Doe Eyes", from The Bridges of Madison County for his wife Dina.

63. Chopin is one of his biggest musical influences.

64. In 2005, Clint agreed to supply the voice for a Dirty Harry video game.

65. His favourite food is sushi.

66. He used to play the flugelhorn.

67. His favourite exercise is on a less-than-manly cross-trainer.

68. As a child, his family moved around a lot because his father had to look for work during the Great Depression.

69. All that house-moving left him so lonely that he invented imaginary friends.

70. He loved Freddy the Pig stories about talking barnyard animals.

71. During the Rawhide years Clint cashed in by performing with other cast members at rodeos for as much as $15,000 a time.

72. He is a stolid admirer of Winston Churchill.

73. His passion for jazz led to the 1988 film Bird, about saxophonist Charlie Parker.

74. He had a tempestuous 14-year relationship with Sondra Locke, with whom he co-starred in six films.

75. The actor, famous for wielding a 44 Magnum, supports gun control.

76. He has seven children with five different women.

77. His oldest son, Kyle, was born in 1968. Morgan, his youngest, in 1996.

78. He co-wrote a hit single, "Why Should I Care", for Diana Krall.

79. He sings the closing song in Gran Torino.

80. He has 164 movie credits as a writer, director, actor, producer and composer.

80/80-Dirty Harry 6

80/80 -1974 two part interview

80/80- Million Dollar Baby

Interesting interview regarding Million Dollar Baby

Clint Eastwood meets Mr Ed

The early days of a jobbing actor.

80/80 -Eastwood tired of Eastwood

Courtesy Contact Music

Veteran actor-and-director Clint Eastwood prefers being behind the camera as he is ''tired'' of seeing himself on screen.

Clint Eastwood has "become tired" of seeing himself on the big screen.

The actor-and-director - who will turn 80 on May 31st - prefers to stay behind the camera and allow younger stars to take centre stage, but insists he has no plans to quit acting altogether.

He said: "I leave that to younger actors now. I'm not a prize fighter who has to capture another victory. Since I worked as a director for the first time on 'Play Misty for Me' in 1970 I've become tired of seeing myself on the big screen.

"That doesn't mean I'm going to stop acting, though"

The 'Million Dollar Baby' star is still determined to try new things, and believes directing films gives him more opportunities to push himself.

He told Germany's Tele 5 TV station: "If you've done as many films as I have you stop looking back, you're only going forwards.

"As a director it's important to me to try new things once in a while. And as an actor, if a film is finished you can't change it and you have to leave it to other people to judge your work."

80/80- Dirty Harry cultural icon

Remember the scene where Dirty Harry on his way to Boston watches the in-flight movie - Superman II - and wishes he could swoop down out of the sky and take out the punks! Don't worry if you don't remember - it wasn't a deleted scene from any of the Harry movies but rather comes from book 5 in the Dirty Harry novel series by Dane Hartman, Family Skeletons.

"San Francisco homicide detective Harry Callahan saw Superman II on the cross country plane trip. He smiled all the way through it. Not because he liked it but because he wished his own job was that easy. For a few seconds he thought about throwing away his Magnum .44, ripping off his shirt, and leaping out of the 747 to fight for truth, justice and the American way."

I wrote about the history of these novels Here

There were 12 of these novels published, though only six saw print in the UK.

The books are as you'd imagine forgettable but they do highlight the extent to which the Dirty Harry character as become a pop cultire icon:

• Gorillaz songs "Dirty Harry" and "Clint Eastwood" are both cultural references to this movie.
• One "detective" character in the Warhammer Fantasy novel Beasts in Velvet written by Kim Newman is called "Harald Kleindienst", nickname "Filthy Harald", an obvious pun on "Dirty Harry". A contemporary drawing of this character in White Dwarf (UK) 140 also closely resembles Eastwood.
• In the film Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen picks up a handgun in a weapon shop in Texas, and states "I am like movie star Dirty Harold, Make a'my day, Jew", making an obvious reference to Eastwood's character the popular catchphrase of Sudden Impact, the fourth film in the Dirty Harry series.
• In the 2007 film Zodiac, Dirty Harry can be seen being played at a movie theatre in the midst of the Zodiac murders.
• In the 2004 crime thriller film A History of Violence the main villain says to the hero "We should leave before he goes all dirty-harry on us."
• The 1988 buddy cop film Red Heat main character Art Ridžić played by James Belushi says to his partner "Come on everybody knows the magnum 44 is the big boy in the black. Why do you think Dirty Harry uses it?"
• The 1993 comedy film National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1 Emilio Estevez parodies at the opening scene in the convenience store moments after shooting the robbers saying "I know what you're thinking, punk. You're thinking 'did he fire 173 times or 174? Well, do you feel lucky punk.
  

80/80-A new kind of hero

80/80-Enviromental concerns

80/80 - That ain't no way to treat a legend

An actual bookstore display in California. Thanks to Jake for sending the Archive this snap.

80/80- The comeback kid

By the middle of the 1980's Clint Eastwood's films had begun to wobble - The Dead Pool had finally turned fans off Dirty Harry, Pink Cadillac and The Rookie were simply dreadful. And to add insult Clint's brilliant, White Hunter, Black Heart had failed at the box-office. The Unforgiven would regenerate a career that many thought was over. Indeed in many ways his latter career has surpassed that of his early years.

The Oscar success came during a troubled period for Clint - younger stars were topping the box office and his image had been tarnished by his highly publicised split with Sondra Locke. But Clint, true artist that he is, threw himself into his work.

He followed Unforgiven with the equally successful In the Line of Fire and that was followed by the remarkable A Perfect World. It was clear that Clint had developed into a top knotch director and in recent years he hasn't put a foot wrong.

80/80- Ying and Yang

Compare High Plains Drifter and Pale Rider - it's as if Clint is portraying varying sides of the same character. Compare the first shots of Eastwood we see in each movie - in High Plains Drifter we see him riding out of a sun hazed, devilish looking landscape, whilst in Pale Rider he comes out of a much more heavenly landscape, seemingly in answer to a young girl's prayers. In High Plains Drifter Eastwood may be Satan personified whilst in Pale Rider is he very much a force of good.

In High Plains Drifter Eastwood kills several men, rapes a women and tries to get a shave in the first reel, in Pale Rider he beats several hoods with a piece of hickory thus saving a put upon prospector. Both westerns were directed by Eastwood and both owe much to lessons learned at the hands of Leone - for it was Leone who showed Eastwood how to use allegory in a western.

In High Plain Drifter Clint paint the town red (literally), renames it Hell, deputises a dwarf and basically wreck havoc in his quest for revenge, while in Pale Rider he goes up against a big conglomerate thus allow the smaller miners to make their stakes. There is a truly effective moment in Pale Rider where a young girl is reading a passage from the Bible aloud at the dinner table and as she mentions the fourth horseman, Eastwood's Preacher rides past the window.

Both films are fine westerns, with perhaps High Plain Drifter just taking the edge. It would though, be interesting to see what Archive readers think.

80/80-Even the stars are starstruck

80/80 - Clint on CD for the first time

Rawhide's Clint Eastwood Sings Cowboy Favorites" was recorded on May 13th and May 14th in 1963 in New York. The last two tracks on the CD are from a single that Clint Eastwood recorded in November of 1962. None of this music has been available on CD before.

Clint Eastwood As Rowdy Yates In Rawhide

Clint Eastwood had been appearing in films and television shows since the mid-1950s, but his breakthrough role was as Rowdy Yates on the television series Rawhide. So when it came time for Clint to record an album, it was only natural that he should turn to western music rather than rock 'n' roll.

The album opens with "Bouquet Of Roses." Clint's voice is smoother than one might imagine it being. While there is nothing particularly intriguing or compelling about his voice, Clint is a completely competent singer. And his voice totally fits the feel of this record. Most of the tunes, like "Bouquet Of Roses," are mellow and sweet.

In songs like "Along The Sante Fe Trail," Clint is going for an authentic old western feel, complete with sad-sounding harmonica. "The Last Round Up" was written by Billy Hill, and had been a hit for Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby in 1933. Clint Eastwood does a very nice version of it.

Read more at Suite101: Clint Eastwood: "Sings Cowboy Favorites" (2010) CD http://countrymusic.suite101.com/article.cfm/clint-eastwood-sings-cowboy-favorites-2010-cd#ixzz0pAGWW0bG