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Clint Eastwood soared to fame during the 1960s, when his role as the Man With No Name in Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy turned him into the new face of the Western genre. In the years since, the actor-director has tackled almost every genre in film, from comedy and adventure to thriller and drama. Along the way, he's built a reputation as one of Hollywood's quintessential tough guys, which has been reflected through various iconic quotes in his various roles.

Clint Eastwood has been given more one-liners and tough-guy quotes than even the best action heroes, with some of his movies producing dozens of memorable quips and jabs. Ranging from insults to warnings, the character is at his best when playing a gun-toting lawman or Western antihero, and those roles have been responsible for his most enduring lines. As Hollywood's resident badass, few people have delivered as many great lines...

The comedian and former The Daily Show correspondent talks about his favorite Blaxploitation movies with hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Casablanca (1942) – John Landis’s trailer commentary

The Castle (1997)

The Spook Who Sat By The Door (1973) – Bill Duke’s trailer commentary

Pressure (1976)

Robinson Crusoe On Mars (1964) – Mick Garris’s trailer commentary

Boss (1975)

Django Unchained (2012) – Brian Trenchard-Smith’s trailer commentary

The Thing With Two Heads (1972) – Stuart Gordon’s trailer commentary

The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant (1971)

The Liberation of L.B. Jones (1970)

Last of the Mobile Hot Shots (1970)

Black Samurai (1977)

Truck Turner (1974)

Schindler’s List (1993)

Black Caesar (1973) – Larry Cohen’s trailer commentary

Hell Up In Harlem (1973) – Larry Cohen’s trailer commentary

Judas And The Black Messiah (2021)

Friday Foster (1975)

That Man Bolt (1973)

Blacula (1972)

Foxy Brown (1974) – Jack Hill’s trailer commentary

Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde (1976)

Willie Dynamite (1973) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Billy Jack (1971)

John Wick (2014)

The Matrix (1999)

Cleopatra Jones...

It’s the loose-censored early 1970s, and screen bandits shootin’ up the American movie landscape are no longer suffering the once-mandated automatic moral retribution. Walter Matthau launched himself into the genre with this excellent Don Siegel on-the-run epic, about an old-fashioned independent bandit who accidentally rips off the mob for a million. It’s great, wicked fun.

Charley Varrick

Region B Blu-ray

Indicator

1973 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 111 min. / Charley Varrick the Last of the Independents; Kill Charley Varrick / Street Date January 22, 2018 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £14.99

Starring: Walter Matthau, Joe Don Baker, Andrew Robinson, John Vernon, Felicia Farr, Sheree North, Jacqueline Scott, William Schallert, Norman Fell, Benson Fong, Woodrow Parfrey, Rudy Diaz, Charles Matthau, Tom Tully, Albert Popwell

Cinematography: Michael Butler

Film Editor: Frank Morriss

Original Music: Lalo Schifrin

Written by Dean Riesner, Howard Rodman from the novel The Looters by John Reese

Produced by Jennings Lang, Don Siegel

Directed by...

Ray Morton wrote the two-part article about the making of the 1976 version of "King Kong" that appeared in Cinema Retro issues #'s 32 and 33. Here is his report on a recent screening of the film in Santa Monica.

By Ray Morton

On Saturday, December 10, 2016 the American Cinematheque presented a special fortieth anniversary screening of the 1976 version of King Kong at the Aero Theater in Santa Monica, California.

King Kong was produced by Dino De Laurentiis, written by Lorenzo Semple, Jr., and directed by John Guillermin. It stars Jeff Bridges, Charles Grodin, and (in her screen debut) Jessica Lange. The film features Oscar-nominated cinematography by Richard H. Kline and a marvelous score by John Barry. King Kong’s innovative creature effects were created by Carlo Rambaldi and seven-time Academy Award-winning make-up artist and creature creator Rick Baker, who also played the title role (alongside a full-sized mechanical Kong created by Rambaldi and...

Clint Eastwood revisited Harry Callahan three more times, usually whenever his career was in the dumps. If Dirty Harry was a cultural phenomenon and Magnum Force a respectable follow-up, the rest are uninspired cash-ins. The main law Harry enforces in these sequels is the Law of Diminishing Returns.

Given Dirty Harry‘s San Francisco setting, something like The Enforcer (1976) was inevitable. After all, San Fran hosted Haight-Ashbury, hippie capital of the world; was a favored site for Black Panther and Sds protests; headquarters of the nascent gay rights movement; victim of Weathermen bombings and the racially-charged Zebra murders. Writers Gail Morgan Hickman and S.W. Schurr based their script, originally titled “Moving Target,” on the Symbionese Liberation Army which kidnapped Patty Hearst. Dean Riesner (who cowrote the original Harry) and Stirling Silliphant (In the Heat of the Night) polished the film.

Harry battles the People’s Revolutionary Strike Froce, led by...

Part I.

1971 was an incredibly violent year for movies. That year saw, among others, Tom Laughlin’s Billy Jack, with its half-Indian hero karate-chopping rednecks; William Friedkin’s The French Connection, its dogged cops stymied by well-heeled drug runners; Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, banned for the copycat crimes it reportedly inspired; and Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs, featuring the most controversial rape in cinema history. Every bloody shooting, sexual assault and death by penis statue reflected a world gone mad.

It seemed a reaction to America’s skyrocketing crime. Between 1963 and 1975, violent crimes tripled; riots, robberies and assassinations racked major cities. The antiwar and Civil Rights movements generated violent offshoots like the Weathermen and Black Panthers. Citizens blamed politicians like New York Mayor John Lindsay (the original “limousine liberal”), who proclaimed “Peace cannot be imposed on our cities by force of arms,” and Earl Warren’s Supreme Court,...

In his 50-plus career, Clint Eastwood has never played a more iconic role than Dirty Harry. Eastwood played San Francisco Police Department Inspector "Dirty" Harry Callahan in five movies, starting with 1973's Dirty Harry and ending with 1988's The Dead Pool, which is tonight's primetime movie.

In The Dead Pool, fame catches up to Dirty Harry, who discovers he's on the list of a local celebrities who have been mysteriously dying. The movie has quite the supporting cast, including Patricia Clarkson (The Green Mile, Shutter Island), Jim Carrey, and Liam Neeson. The movie also features cameos by the band members of Guns N' Roses. Yes, Slash, Axl Rose, and Co. appear in the funeral scene. Here are some other tidbits from The Dead Pool:

— The movie's body count is 14.

— The only Dirty Harry movie that did not feature the Albert Popwell. The actor played a robber in Dirty Harry,...