The Legend of Clint Eastwood
Play Misty For Me, 1971
By now, Clint was a star; but what he really wanted to do was direct. Other Hollywood macho men — John Wayne, Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas — had become producers and occasional directors; only Eastwood made the helming trade a fulltime second career. In his debut film as director, Clint plays late-night disc jockey whose No. 1 fan (Jessica Walter) often calls with a seductive request to play the Errol Garner standard. "As frightening as she is sexy," Jay Cocks wrote in TIME, "Walter plays her part to the hilt, which in one case is at the end of a 10-in. blade. Eastwood, making his first directorial outing, has to chart a course through the holes in the plot. There are a couple of hackneyed moments (notably a nude love scene), but Eastwood displays a vigorous talent for sequences of violence and tension. He has obviously seen Psycho and Repulsion more than once, but those are excellent texts and he has learned his lessons passing well."