EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE Clint Eastwood, Sandra Locke, Geoffery Lewis, Ruth Gordon. Dir. James Fargo, Warners, 1978 Clint Eastwood's slapstick-happy broad comedy smash from '78 can be understood one of two ways. In one, Clint's Philoe Beddoe, a working class bare knuckle brawler, serves as an almost Quixotic hero, or even a grail-quest knight, attracting followers & foes as he pursues his great loves, C&W hopeful Lynn Halsey Taylor, & defeating Tank Murdoch, the only brawler better than Philoe. If our grail knight ends up bereft of romantic love & his victory in combat, he knows in the end sometimes we take a beating to win our place in the world. The other way makes people who see comedic genius in Vicky Lawrence shriek & whoop with laughter, most of it centered on Ruth Gordon, an inept motorcycle gang, & an orangutan called Clyde. This way is a low, vulgar comedy leavened mainly by Eastwood's stock company, including the late William O
The sporadic utterances of Russ Wait, an unhinged mind who, lucky for us all, is only interested in movies. All content here is mine.