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| Overly cool Italian poster for Don Siegel's Coogan's Bluff |
QUICK REVIEW:
Coogan's Bluff is a decent 60's action crime drama flick in which Clint Eastwood (Where Eagles Dare (1968)) plays the man of the West, an Arizona small town deputy, who strays with a prisoner to New York, the big city, where hippies and drugs abound. As the conservative hero that he often played and certainly plays here, Eastwood will now have to clean up in some of the Manhattan mess!
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| A brown-suited Clint Eastwood involved in some heavy duty crime clean-up in Don Siegel's Coogan's Bluff |
The title refers to the plight, which starts it all, when deputy Coogan bluffs his way into a hospital to get his prisoner, but fails and instead must chase the fleeing bum around for the rest of the film. It is also the name of a New York site.
Through the chase we are lubricated brown suits, red rubber boots, ponchos, round glasses, flowers, psychedelic montages and the particular funk-jazz tunes that characterize many films from the time.
Coogan's Bluff is entertaining in places, but is told in a very loose structure that might also have been a product of its time, (or of the fact that the film had seven drafts before the filmed version came about, which was heavily influenced by Eastwood's ideas and preferences.)
Notably, Coogan's Bluff is the film that brought Eastwood and master director Don Siegel (Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)) together. It started a great collaboration that would also result in Eastwood's Siegel-directed starring films Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970), The Beguiled (1971), Dirty Harry (1971) and Escape From Alcatraz (1979), their finest film together.
Coogan's Bluff was also the film that later was made into the popular TV-series McCloud (1970-77) with Dennis Weaver.
Related review:
Don Siegel: The Beguiled (1971) - Intense, erotic Civil War kammerspiel thriller
Watch the original trailer here
Cost: 3 mil. $
Box office: 3.1 mil. $ (U.S. only)
= Uncertainty
What do you think of Coogan's Bluff?
What are Siegel's and Eastwood's best works apart and together, in your opinion?
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