Every Which Way but Loose (1978) or, Honky Tonk Monkey Business!

♥♥♥

One of the more curious 1970s phenomenons, James Fargo's Every Which Way but Loose

QUICK REVIEW:

Philo Beddoe is a truck driver, who is good at fist-fighting and lives with his orangutan Clive. He falls in love with a country singer, (Sondra Locke (Death Game (1977))), whom he pursues with bikers and the police at his heels!

Every Which Way but Loose is something of a crazy hillbilly comedy. It has something in the neighborhood of 400 fights in its, including Clint Eastwood (A Fistful of Dollars (1964)) beating a man with a fish. Our hero also hitches Clive up with a lady orangutan.
In a way this film is deeply speculative, cashing in on our fondness of our Simian friends, - but on the other hand, - why the hell not?!? It is also original and charming as few other films. Ruth Gordon (Jimmy the Kid (1982)) is a hoot in one of the film's many funny supporting parts as Ma, who takes her driver's license again and again. Clive is, by the way, played by orangutan Manis, who probably had the time of his life on the movie, after which he returned to life as a show monkey in Las Vegas.
The ending of the film is as untraditional as the rest of it: SPOILER Eastwood loses his grand fight and also doesn't get the girl.
Every Which Way but Loose is written by Jeremy Joe Kronsberg (Going Ape! (1981)) and directed by James Fargo (The Enforcer (1976)).

Related review:

Any Which Way You Can (1980) or, More Monkey Business!

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: Estimated 5.2 mil. $
Box office: Reportedly 106 mil. $
= Blockbuster
[Every Which Way but Loose was released December 20 and runs 114 minutes. Eastwood went against numerous advice from his production and agent teams in doing the film, which was shot from April 1978 in California, Colorado and New Mexico. The film was panned by critics but became Eastwood's biggest hit at the time and the second highest-grossing film of the year. It is reportedly still among the 200 highest grossing films of all time (adjusted for inflation.) The film opened to a 10.2 mil. $ opening weekend in North America, where it grossed 85 mil. $ (80.2 % of the total gross). It got a sequel in Any Which Way You Can (1980). 28,071 users have rated Every Which Way but Loose 3.1/5 on Rotten Tomatoes.]

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