Film Review: Every Which Way But Loose (dir by James Fargo)

Posted on May 31, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 1978’s Every Which Way But Loose, Clint Eastwood plays Philo Beddoe.

Philo’s an ordinary guy with beautiful hair and a way with throwing punches. He’s a truck driver. He enjoys a cold beer. He enjoys country music. He makes some extra money by taking part in bare-knuckle brawls. Everyone says that he could be the next Tank Murdock, a legendary fighter. Philo is just a simple, blue collar guy who lives in a small house, next door to his best friend Orville (Geoffrey Lewis) and Orville’s profanity-loving mother (Ruth Gordon). Philo also owns an orangutan named Clyde. He saved Clyde from being sent to live in a “desert zoo.”

(Actually, now that I think about it, most blue collar guys don’t own monkeys but whatever. Clyde’s cute and Eastwood’s Eastwood.)

When Philo meets a country singer named Lynn Halsey-Taylor (Sondra Locke), he is immediately smitten. When Lynn disappears and leaves Philo a cryptic note, Philo decides to go looking for her. Clyde, Orville, and Philo hit the road. Along the way, Orville meets and picks up a woman named Echo (Beverly D’Angelo). This is a road movie so, of course, Clyde, Orville, Philo, and Echo have their adventures on the way to Colorado. They end running afoul both a corrupt cop and a gang of buffoonish bikers. Philo enters a fight whenever they need money and one occasionally gets the feeling that Eastwood took this role to show off the fact that, for someone approaching 50, he still looked good without a shirt on. And good for him! Because, seriously, Clint does look good in this movie….

I have to admit that, for all of my attempts at sophistication, my roots are in the country and I’ve traveled down enough dirt roads that I find it hard to resist a good redneck story. And really, there aren’t many films that as proudly and unashamedly redneck than Every Which Way But Loose. It’s a film that has a laid back, take-it-as-it-comes vibe to it. Philo may be looking for Lynn but he seems to be okay with taking a few detour along the way. There’s no real sense of urgency to any part of the movie. Instead, Every Which Way But Loose was made for people who like a cold beer at the end of the day and who find Ruth Gordon to be hilarious when she curses. Myself, I don’t drink. That’s one part of the country lifestyle that passed me over. But I did enjoy seeing Ruth Gordon cuss out the Nazi biker gang.

Eastwood, Lewis, and D’Angelo have a likable chemistry and the monkey’s cute. Unfortunately, Sondra Locke isn’t particularly well-cast in the role of Lynn. (Considering that she was in a relationship with Eastwood, it’s amazing how little chemistry they have in this movie.) As I watched the film, it occurred to me that it probably would have worked better if Locke and D’Angelo had switched roles. Locke’s character is supposed to be a femme fatale type but she gives a boring performance and, as a result, the revelation that Philo has misjudged her doesn’t really carry any emotional weight.

That said, this film features some beautiful shots of the wilderness, a charming romance between Lewis and D’Angelo, and a shirtless Clint Eastwood beating folks up. That’s more than enough to please this secret country girl.

Retro Television Reviews: The Master 1.11 “Failure to Communicate”

Posted on July 21, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing The Master, which ran on NBC from January to August of 1984. The show can be found on Tubi!

This week, we meet Max Keller’s father!

Episode 1.11 “Failure to Communicate”

(Dir by Sidney Hayers, originally aired on May 4th, 1984)

This week’s episode of The Master opens with McAllister (Lee Van Cleef) teaching Max (Tim Van Patten) how to fight even while blindfolded. McAllister explains that, when one’s sight is taken away, the other senses become even stronger. Hmmm…. I wonder if this will prove to be relevant to their next adventure?

Having apparently given up on trying to find McAllister’s daughter (not that they ever seemed to be trying that hard to begin with), Max and McAllister head to Los Angeles so that Max can visit his father. Max’s father, Patrick (Doug McClure), has been estranged from Max ever since the death of Max’s mother and older brother. However, under McAllister’s guidance, Max has learned the importance of forgiveness.

However, before Max can drop in on his father, he and McAllister have to rescue Kathy Hunter (Ashley Ferrare), who is being chased by three men in a cemetery. McAllister is impressed when Kathy uses some martial arts skills of her own to fight off the men. (Kathy explains that she has been in training for six years.) McAllister takes Kathy home to her father, a wealthy bunker named Jason Hunter (J.D. Cannon). Max, meanwhile, goes to his father’s law office.

However, Patrick is not at his office. Instead, Max meets Patrick’s administrative assistant, Laura Crane (Rebecca Holden). Laura is blind but, as we saw at the start of the program, that just means that all of her other senses are now superhuman. As soon as she meets Max, she knows that he recently stopped off at a gas station and that he drives a van. All it takes is for her to touch his face for her to realize that she is Patrick’s son.

Patrick, unfortunately, is not doing too well. He is now an alcoholic and he’s more likely to be found in the local cocktail lounge than in court. He’s in danger of losing his license and he’s also struggling financially. In fact, at the cocktail bar, Patrick is meeting with Straker (Marc Alaimo), one of the men who previously tried to abduct Kathy in the cemetery. Straker is blackmailing Patrick into helping with Staker’s next attempt to kidnap Kathy. Of course, when Max arrives at the bar looking for his father, all Hell breaks loose when Max sees the men from the cemetery. Patrick can only watch as Max and a late-arriving McAllister chase the men out of the bar.

After the bar fight, Max and Patrick have a tense meeting at Patrick’s office. Max accuses his father of being a bitter drunk. Patrick says that Max is irresponsible. Patrick tells Max to get out of his life. Meanwhile, McAllister escorts Laura back to her apartment. Okassa (Sho Kosugi) shows up and we get yet another fight, this time between Sho Kosugi and Lee Van Cleef’s very busy stunt double.

The next day, Patrick, Laura, McAllister, and Max all end up at a reception for Kathy. Patrick spots the three kidnappers at the reception and, having had a change of heart, attempts to lead Kathy outside to safety. However, this just leads to both Patrick and Kathy being kidnapped. Straker calls Kathy’s father and demands a $3,000,000 ransom but, fortunately, Laura smelled cemetery dirt on the men who grabbed Kathy so Max and McAllister head back to the cemetery, break into a church, and manage to rescue both Kathy and Patrick!

Yay! I guess the episode’s over, right?

Nope, not even close.

While Max and McAllister are rescuing Patrick and Kathy, Straker is busy kidnapping Laura. Straker then calls Kathy’s father and announces that he still expects to get his 3 million or “your lawyer’s secretary gets it!” Kathy’s father is like, “Why would I pay 3 million dollars for someone who I don’t even know?,” which is kind of a fair question even if it’s not a popular one. McAllister, however, tells Kathy’s father that it’s important to take care of everyone, even the strangers.

Patrick finally breaks down and admits that he was a part of the plot to kidnap Kathy. He tells Max and McAllister that the man behind the plot is actually Paul Stillwell (Mark Goddard), who is Jason Hunter’s head of security. (This seems familiar….) Patrick also explains that Stillwell is holding Laura prisoner on the Princess Louise, a decommissioned cruise ship that has been turned into a floating restaurant.

Accompanied by Patrick, Max and McAllister go to the ship. Unfortunately, Okassa pops up out of nowhere and gets into another fight with Lee Van Cleef’s stunt double so it falls to Patrick and Max to rescue Laura. (Patrick suddenly turns out to have some martial arts skills as well, which is a bit odd considering that Patrick is a middle-aged, overweight, out-of-shape, alcoholic attorney.) The bad guys try to outsmart Max by turning out all the lights on the boat but Laura is able to use her supersenses to help Max beat up Straker’s men in the dark. Laura is rescued and the bad guys are sent to prison!

As for Patrick, the Hunter family decides not to press charges because they understand that Patrick was being blackmailed. Swearing that he’s going to live his life the right way from now on, Patrick pours out his last remaining liquor bottle. Hooray!

This was one of those episodes that was a bit too busy for its own good. Rather than have Max and McAllister fight against worthy opponents, this episode just had Max and McAllister continually defeat the same three idiots over and over again and you have to wonder why it never seemed to occur to the bad guys to change their strategy when it came to whole kidnapping thing as opposed to repeating the same thing over and over again. With all of those kidnappings and rescues, there really wasn’t much time left for the emotional heart of the story, which should have been Max mending his relationship with his father. Considering how much of this series has focused on Max and McAllister’s family issues, it was a bit anti-climatic that Max’s real father just turned out to be some drunk who was being blackmailed. At least some of the fight scenes were well-choreographed and Rebecca Holden did a good job as Laura Crane, even if the character herself was occasionally too flawless and perfect to be believed.

Next week, maybe McAllister will finally remember that he’s supposed to be looking for his daughter. We’ll see!

Even Ant-Man Had To Start Somewhere: Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995, directed by Joe Chappelle)

Posted on October 28, 2016 by Jedadiah Leland

halloween6cover Long before he was either Ant-Man or Judd Apatow’s favorite leading man, Paul Rudd was just another young actor looking for his first break. He got it in 1995 when he was cast in the latest entry in the Halloween franchise. Though Clueless was released first, the man who would be Brian Fantana got his introducing credit for Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers. (He’s credited as Paul Stephen Rudd.)

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers was Miramax’s attempt to reboot the franchise by ignoring everything that made the first Halloween such a success in the first place. John Carpenter’s Halloween was the epitome of simplicity, with Michael Myers portrayed as being an almost entirely motiveless killing machine. One reason why Michael was scary was because he didn’t have any reason for killing other than he was evil. (It was not until Halloween II that Laurie was discovered to be Michael’s sister and Samhain came into play.)

In Halloween 6, Michael (played by stuntman George P. Wilbur) is suddenly revealed to be afflicted with the Curse of the Thorn. Because of the curse, he is required to serve as some sort of indestructible hit man for a cult of Druids (!) who are operating out of the basement of Smith Grove’s Sanitarium (!!), the same mental hospital that Michael escaped from at the start of the first film. The head of the cult is Dr. Wynn (Mitchell Ryan), who was Sam Loomis’s boss in the first movie.

963589_032 Donald Pleasence is back as Dr. Sam Loomis but it is not a happy return. This was Pleasence’s final film and, in his few scenes, it is obvious that he was not in good health and his famous voice had been reduced to a hoarse rasp. Pleasence died shortly after filming his scenes, which meant that he wasn’t available for the reshoots that Miramax demanded after the first cut of the film tested badly. Add that to the fact that director Joe Chapelle reportedly had not seen any of the previous Halloweens, did not find the Loomis character to be interesting, and cut him out of several scenes and Dr. Loomis is barely in The Curse of Michael Myers.

Instead, most of the film is centered around Tommy Doyle (Rudd). Yes, the same Tommy Doyle for whom Laurie babysat in the first Halloween. Tommy has figured out that, because of the curse, Michael has to kill his next of kin every Halloween. How did Tommy figure that out? I don’t know and the film doesn’t know. It’s like trying to figure out how Sean Connery knew where the Holy Grail was in Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade.

Michael’s next of kin was Jamie Lloyd but, at the end of Halloween 5, she was kidnapped by the Cult of Thorn and held prisoner for six years. For some reason, Michael did not kill her while she was being held captive. Instead, Jamie was impregnated, gave birth to a baby boy named Stephen, and then escaped. Though she was eventually killed by Michael, Tommy found the baby and has to protect the baby from Michael and the Cult.

list12 Why does the Cult want the baby? Why do birds suddenly appear whenever you are near? There is no explanation, it’s just something that happens.

Michael comes back to Haddonfield to track down his grandnephew. He also finds time to kill more members of the dysfunctional Strode family. Luckily, Kara Stroe (Marianne Hagan) and her son, Danny, survive. Danny is having dreams about killing people which would seem to suggest that he has inherited the Curse of the Thorn, except that the Strodes are not actually related to the Myers family so it doesn’t make any damn sense.

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After six films, it not always easy to keep track of how everyone is related. Let’s see if I can do it:

Laurie Myers is the younger sister of Michael Myers and Judith Myers. In 1963, when Michael is 6 and Laurie is 2, Michael murders Judith. Michael goes to Smith’s Grove Sanitarium, where he is treated by Dr. Loomis and secretly raised by the Cult of the Thorn. Mr. and Mrs. Myers die in 1965 and Laurie is adopted by the Strodes. Laurie has no memory of being a Myers.

jamie-lee-curtis-mar-5-2011-2-600 In 1978, Michael “escapes” from Smith’s Grove and tries to kill Laurie. Both he and Dr. Loomis get blown up at the hospital.

Between 1978 and 1988, Laurie marries someone named Lloyd and they have a daughter named Jamie. But then Laurie and her husband die in a traffic accident and Jamie is raised by her foster family, the Carruthers. Except Laurie didn’t really die but instead faked her death and abandoned her daughter which seems like a shitty thing to do.

In 1988, it turns out that both Michael and Dr. Loomis survived being blown up and consumed by a raging inferno. Michael again escapes from custody and goes to Haddonfield. He tries to kill Jamie but instead ends up falling down a mine shaft. Jamie goes home and tries to kill her foster mother.

In 1989, Michael turns out to be alive again and tries to kill Jamie for a second time. The Man In Black, who is somehow connected to the the Cult of Thorn, shows up and breaks Michael out of jail and kidnaps Jamie.

Then, six years later, Jamie has a son named Stephen and is finally killed by Michael. Meanwhile, Laurie’s uncle, John Strode (Bradford English), has moved into the old Myers house because why not live in the house formerly inhabited by a serial killer who tried to murder your family? Living with them is Laurie’s cousins, Kara and Tim (Kieth Bogart) and Kara’s son, Danny.

Meanwhile, Laurie is in the witness protection program and teaching school but you don’t have to worry about that until Halloween: H20.

Got all that?

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I haven’t even gotten to the sleazy radio DJ who wants to do a live Halloween broadcast from inside the old Myers House. There’s not much to say about him beyond noting that the role was originally offered to Howard Stern.

There are two versions of The Curse of Michael Myers floating around. There’s the producer’s cut, which goes into more detail about the druids and attempts to fill some of the continuity gaps in the franchise. Then there’s the theatrical edition, which was what Miramax released into theaters. I have only seen the theatrical cut, which is a confusing mess.

While the producer’s cut features Michael being defeated by Celtic magic (which sounds stupid but would actually go with what’s already been established in the movie), the theatrical cut ends with Michael, who has previously survived being shot six times by Dr. Loomis, falling down a mine shaft, and literally blowing up, somehow being beaten into submission by Paul Rudd and a lead pipe. Is there nothing that Paul Rudd cannot do?

Mr. Rudd, the town of Haddonfield owes you a debt of gratitude.