Every Which Way but Loose (1978)

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Eastwood's two Hillbilly comedy movies - The 2nd one two years later - are still creditable, and fun to watch when you need to cheer up sometimes.I've read that this movie, due to inflation and many other points, still is the most money rewarding one during the whole Clint Eastwood career.I think that it struck some jackpot timing (back in '78) by transforming the hissing western cowboy into an everybody/anybody average American dude, who's interests besides his job as a truck driver are country clubs, women and beer. Bare-nuckle illegal boxing for cash another hobby...It may be grade as one of the smartest moves in movie history, to make Dirty Harry a fellow American dude.The audience bought it at once, critics both cheered and booed at Clint's sudden genre flip. (What about "Paint Your Wagon"....?)But of course both of the movies are nowadays dedicated to the orangutans. The screen time gave them much playful joy for sure.A "small" American classic still today.

Here's another surprise from Clint Eastwood. First he surprised me with The Bridges of Madison County (1995), then with Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997), and then I saw THIS on YouTube. Clint hangs out with his orangutan buddy, kicks some asses and falls in love. What more could you possibly want?

Clint Eastwood's career low-point...until the sequel.Not necessarily the worst movie Clint Eastwood ever made, but it must be close to to it. No, a career low-point because he chose to be in it. The script alone, and the fact that his co-star is an orangutan, should have tipped him off that this movie was not going to be anything more than mediocre. He should have listened to WC Fields: "Never work with animals or children".The money must have been good.Quite silly, lowest common denominator stuff. Pointless, random, hole- filled plot. The whole aim seems to be to get to the next fight scene.And then, two years later, Eastwood appeared in the sequel, Any Which Way You Can...

*Possible Spoilers!* This quasi-cute, off-beat comedy would be Clint Eastwood's first departure from Spaghetti-Westerns and Dirty Harry roles.When it comes to the likes of Every Which Way But Loose (EWWBL), Eastwood's financial backers strongly advised him to steer away from this production for the sake of preserving his well-established movie-image. The squinty-eyed Eastwood, being the rebel that he was, naturally refused to take their unsound (?) advice and went ahead and produced this so-so modern-day cowboy movie, with mixed results.Eastwood plays rugged character Philo Beddoe, a trucker and a brawler (with a definite soft-spot), searching, like an utter fool, for (of all things) lost love.The ever-stubborn Philo drags along his pal, Orville, and Orville's pet orangutan, Clyde (for comedy relief), as he roams somewhat aimlessly around the American West, from California to Colorado.As is typical in a comedy flick such as this - Philo, a brazen, bare-knuckle fighter, never-ever fails to cross everyone, everywhere he goes. Naturally, Philo manages to p-i-s-s the police right off, to the extreme. And he even ends up being angrily pursued by a biker gang called The Black Widows, who chase him in a ridiculous fit of tire-screeching revenge.EWWBL's biggest disappointment is Philo's lost love - now found, who goes by the name of Lynn Halsey-Taylor. Philo spent so much time searching for this broad and all she ended up being was nothing but a little, trailer-trash, Country'n'Western singer who warbles away to all of the "deaf-anyways" drunks in sleazy, low-life Honky-Tonks.It's too bad that Clyde, the orangutan, didn't get more camera-time in EWWBL. He was really about the only interesting character in the entire flick that was at all worth watching.If you're a true Clint Eastwood fan, then you're sure to enjoy this mildly amusing flick from 1978.