Clint Eastwood: Ultimate Embalmer to the Stars?
CLINT EASTWOOD: ULTIMATE EMBALMER TO THE STARS?
Clint Eastwood’s credentials as a great director are unquestionable by this time… but ever since his early Eighties drama “Honkytonk Man,” a sign of his personal character has leaked out of his films that I find quite enlightening: Eastwood seems dedicated to providing aging performers with one really great role as they approach their exit from the movies and life. While I’m sure I’ve missed a few, let me give you the examples of which I am most aware.
One of the first I know of, and perhaps the most touching of all, is, as I’ve stated, in “Honkytonk Man,” and the performer in question is not best known for acting, but for singing. Marty Robbins, whose performance of “El Paso” is one of the most haunting audio documents of the 20th century, appears onscreen during the final scene of this severely neglected, if overly long, oddball drama. SPOILER ALERT: In the movie’s final scene, Eastwood’s character, a mostly failed country singer, gets to record his greatest song, only to die halfway through the recording session, and Robbins seamlessly picks up the vocals and completes the recording. If you don’t respond to this scene, and Robbins’ performance, you are a hopeless automaton. It is, quite simply, one of the most unforgettable movie conclusions I’ve ever seen, made all the more unforgettable by Robbins’ death a few weeks before the film was released. Did Eastwood know Robbins was close to the end, and that this would be the ultimate send-off? I have no way of knowing… but the performance is part of a very cool pattern.
Now fast-forward a few years to one of my favorite Eastwood films, “Pale Rider,”
essentially a supernatural re-make of “Shane,” featuring career-best performances from Michael Moriarity, Carrie Snodgrass, Sydney Penney, Richard Kiel, Richard Dysart, and Christopher Penn. John Russell, like Eastwood, was a star of a well-respected late Fifties western series, “Lawman,” and would only make one more screen appearance after this one. Eastwood gives him a GREAT villain role (basically a reprise of the Jack Palance character from “Shane,” aided, this time, by a posse) and a VERY memorable send-off. SPOILER ALERT: Russell plays a gun-for-hire, Stockburn, who has already killed Eastwood’s rider previously, and left a circle of bullet wounds in his chest. The look of terror on Russell’s formerly stolid face as he’s dispatched by his past victim is a classic, just the come-uppance an audience desires for all truly despicable villains. Russell died in 1988. “Pale Rider,” a supremely under-estimated Eastwood film, stands strong, due in no small part to the unbelieving look of horror on Russell’s face. (In case you can’t tell, I LOVE this performance, AND this movie.) I would argue that “Pale Rider” is Russell’s proudest legacy.
This next swan-song is perhaps my very favorite, because I happen to revere E.G. Marshall, an actor who excelled at playing both intellectual giants and utter whack-jobs. If you read William Goldman’s book, “Which Lie did I Tell?”, you’ll realize what a miracle it is that “Absolute Power” has any positive qualities at all, since it is a complete about-face from the book (in the novel, Eastwood’s character, Luther, dies less than halfway through the story.) Goldman describes the ordeal of writing the screenplay, sorting through too many characters and trying to find a core-story that would both serve Eastwood and somehow satisfy moviegoers who’d read the book. Having never bothered with the book, I’ll never know how well he succeeded, but I do know that the role Goldman wrote for the then-ancient pro Marshall, is one of the most heart-grabbing I’ve seen in a political thriller. Marshall plays a political power-broker whose MUCH younger wife has an affair with his best friend, President Gene Hackman. The dignity which Marshall bestows on a character that could have descended into the darkest soap-opera clichés literally has to be seen to be believed. It was this performance which first prodded me to consider the fact that one of Eastwood’s concerns as a director was to provide great exits for aging actors.
And now, we come to “Mystic River,” and one of my all-time favorite performances in an Eastwood film. Eli Wallach, Eastwood’s co-star as “the Ugly” in “The Good, the Bad, and…” appears as the appropriately named Mr. Loonie, the owner of Loonie’s Liquors, and there is no other performance I can name that is so obviously meant to be a meaningful swan-song. Wallach was born in 1915, but in “Mystic River,” released in 2003, he looks to be at least 137, and he is the only actor I’ve named in these paragraphs who went on to give many performances after working with Eastwood in 2003. Amazingly, he’s still alive at this writing, and has added at least 20 credits since “River.” Ah well, no pattern is perfect. I will note that “Mystic River” remains the late-period performance that Wallach will undoubtedly be remembered for. Interestingly, it’s uncredited.
Now, having set my tone for this piece, let me cite the appearance that I believe started this whole pattern: again, as with Robbins, the player isn’t an actor, but someone who meant a lot to Eastwood, who’s always mentioned two directors as his main influences as to how he runs a set: Sergio Leone, the director of the famous “Spaghetti Westerns,” and Don Siegel, the perpetually under-appreciated film-noir vet who directed Eastwood in “The Beguiled,” “Dirty Harry” and “Coogan’s Bluff” (which led to a perpetual week-to-week remake as TV’s “McCloud”). Siegel is also responsible for at least two other classic films, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” and John Wayne’s last film, “The Shootist.” Siegel appears as a weary character named Murphy in Eastwood’s very first directorial effort, “Play Misty for Me,” and you only have to see the scene to know that it’s a special moment between two friends. Eastwood dedicated “Unforgiven” to Don Siegel, and that fact seems to underline their appearance together.
If there are some Eastwood send-offs that I’ve missed… I hope someone will correct me. I await your responses.
