The Legend of Clint Eastwood
Bronco Billy, 1980
As Bronco Billy, Eastwood plays handsomely against type, replacing his Dirty Harry figure with a good-as-gold rodeo star who refers to his fans as "little pards," prays for them not to "get tangled up with hard liquor and cigarettes" and hopes his wild West show will make enough money to pay for a ranch "where city kids can come out and see what the West was really like." Billy lavishes his kindness on everyone from runaway heiresses to Vietnam deserters, from one-handed cowboys to pregnant Indians. He is stirred to righteous anger only when a bad guy mauls his best gal or breaks a little boy's piggy bank. He is too good to be true — except in a sweet-souled dime-novel movie like this one. Eastwood, who turned 50 just before the film opened, now looked sun-burnished, granite-hard, seamed and serene like an outdoor sculpture. His achievement in Bronco Billy, as star and director, is to chisel some emotion and innocence into those features. It is as if one of the faces on Mount Rushmore suddenly cracked a crooked smile.