Eastwood’s subsequent career can be seen as a distillation of techniques and themes he internalized under Siegel’s tutelage, before developing them further on his own.Įscape From Alcatraz’s most harrowing scene doesn't even feature Eastwood. Even more important, the project served as a capstone to Eastwood’s directorial apprenticeship under Siegel. theaters, it also received critical accolades, being named one of the best films of 1979 and Eastwood’s finest film to date. Not only did the Escape From Alcatraz, shot on location at the shuttered island prison, earn $43,000,000 in U.S. Given the respect and simpatico outlook shared between the two men, the project offered the director and star a chance to hit the reset button and restore needed gravitas to Eastwood's image. Campbell Bruce’s nonfiction account of a prison break from the maximum security penitentiary in 1962, reunited Eastwood with Don Siegel, the director who exerted the most influence on the star’s onscreen persona and who had served as a valuable mentor for Eastwood's tenure in the director’s chair. Not only was Eastwood aping Burt Reynolds, he was playing second banana to an orangutan named Clyde.Įscape From Alcatraz, based on J. Although Every Which Way but Loose spawned a lucrative sequel in 1980, it was a derivative riff on popular '70s redneck adventure comedies like Smokey and the Bandit. The Gauntlet presaged comic book adventures like Arnold Schwarzenegger's output throughout the '80s, but many fans and critics expected more depth from director Eastwood, particularly after viewing his 1976 rumination on Western mythology, The Outlaw Josey Wales. Eastwood was clearly willing to experiment and subvert his Man with No Name and Dirty Harry personas, but there were signs that his recent projects were creative dead ends. Even The Gauntlet, his directorial effort from 1977 which garnered lukewarm-to-hostile critical reception, had grossed a respectable $35,400,000 in America. His foray into offbeat blue-collar comedy, Every Which Way but Loose, had defied industry expectations to become the second highest grossing film of the year. In 1978, Clint Eastwood was riding a commercial high.
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