Blu Ray Review: Coogan’s Bluff (1969)

Kino Lorber has been releasing some of Clint Eastwood’s best work from his starring days with Universal Studios, including such classics as Two Mules for Sister Sara, High Plains Drifter, The Beguiled, and his directorial debut Play Misty For Me. This continues with their blu ray release of Coogan’s Bluff.

Clint Eastwood was wanting to expand his screen persona at about this time, so he was attracted to Herman Miller’s story about an Arizona lawman whose methods are of the old west, being sent to modern day New York City in pursuit of a criminal. Eastwood, as Coogan, seems like an outsider in the big city, but early in the film he proves to be nobody’s fool. When a taxi driver tries to overcharge him, he points out that they passed some of the same stores twice. We learn very quickly that while Coogan is a westerner, he is not a clueless rube.

Directed by Don Siegel, this film seems like something of a portent to his and Eastwood’s later classic Dirty Harry. Like Harry Callahan, Coogan is stoic and unflinching. He rebelliously defies the rules that he finds limiting. He steps over due process and cuts through red tape. Coogan is not mannered or “politically correct,” by any means, and when he is forced to accept technology in order to pursue the criminal by motorcycle rather than horse, he manages to adapt and triumph.

Coogan’s Bluff is also fascinating as to how a movie that was made for an adult demographic in 1969 presented areas of the counterculture. The blatant stereotyping of gays, hippies, and drug users make the film more of a cultural artifact that represents a filmmaking period in an interesting manner, rather than old and archaic. And while it is a dramatic action film, Eastwood keeps it amusing with his grumbling asides as Coogan struggles to figure out how to adapt to his new surroundings. At the time of its release, it was considered sometimes shockingly violent (it no longer has that impact over 50 years later), but its box office take managed to double the amount of its production costs.

The movie boasts a great supporting cast, including Don Stroud as the criminal, Lee J. Cobb as the harried city police captain who balks at Coogan's abject disregard for "the rules,", Susan Clark as a probation officer with whom Coogan flirts, and Tisha Sterling as the criminal's girl, whom Coogan strong-arm's into revealing his whereabouts.

Clint Eastwood had worked for Universal as a novice actor in the 1950s, playing bit parts in such films as Revenge of the Creature and Francis in the Navy before nabbing the Rawhide gig on TV. After the successful 1967 American release of the Dollars trilogy that Eastwood made in Italy for Sergio Leone from 1964-1966, Eastwood was groomed as a star in his own country. He had already filmed Hang ‘Em High for United Artists, when he was signed to return to Universal as a leading man for Coogan’s Bluff.

Coogan's Bluff is also the first time Eastwood is directed by Don Siegel, who would go on to helm some of the actor's strongest films, and be a real inspiration when Clint began directing his own projects.

Kino Lorber’s blu ray includes commentary by filmmakers Alex Cox and Alan Spencer and an interview with Don Stroud.

Coogan’s Bluff is one of the finest films during this period in Clint Eastwood’s career, and this blu ray is highly recommended. It is available at this link: COOGAN’S BLUFF