The 1968 cop drama “Coogan’s Bluff” doesn’t stand among Clint Eastwood’s best films.
It served a more important service to the acting legend.
“Bluff” introduced him to the director with whom he’d shoot the iconic “Dirty Harry,” Don Siegel.
And “Bluff’s” box office receipts confirmed Eastwood’s star status at a time when some could have dubbed him a Spaghetti Western hero … and nothing more.
Eastwood plays The Man with One Name – Coogan – an Arizona lawman sent to New York to extradite a murder suspect named Jimmy Ringerman (Don Stroud).
He immediately runs afoul of the man in charge of the case, a by-the-book sheriff named McElroy (the great Lee J. Cobb) who says Coogan will have to cool his heels.
Seems Ringerman tripped out on some LSD and is in no condition to travel.
But Coogan doesn’t take orders from anyone. So he bluffs his way to Ringerman’s bed side, hell bent on bringing him to justice ASAP.
But this small-city lawman doesn’t realize how the game works in the Big Apple.
“Coogan’s Bluff” operates on the standard “fish out of water” template, a setup which pays swift dividends. The sight of Coogan, so tall and lean he looks like a mini skyscraper in his western garb and pointy boots, smartly contrasts our hero with the unfamiliar urban setting.
The cultural differences aren’t played for laughs. It’s simply texture to the story, that of a stubborn lawmen unwilling to bend to the rules of his new neighborhood.
Local officers keep referring to him as a Texan, a riff on arrogant New Yorkers lumping people together not clever enough to call one of the five boroughs home.
An even better contrast takes shape between Coogan and McElroy. The actors are so tonally different they might as well be appearing in two different films.
And it works beautifully.
Just watch the two stare down each other after McElroy tells him the fugitive won’t be ready to transport for the forseeable future. Coogan won’t leave. McElroy can’t understand why.
“Coogan’s Bluff” doesn’t take sides in the culture war on display. Coogan looks a bit silly sticking to his principles every step of the way, while the cops working the New York beat could learn a thing or two watching Coogan in action.
The Eastwood character mold hasn’t solidified yet, the clay still wet to the touch. But it’s well on its way to completion.
No nonsense. Steely eyed. Penetrating.
Coogan is positively Bond-like with the ladies. They swoon for him without question, and he uses them to satisfy his urges or help solve the case at hand. Consider poor Julie, a probation officer played by Susan Clark (yes, “Webster’s” mother). She suffers the most indignities at the hands of Coogan, but she’s hardly turned off by his womanizing.
What’s wonderful about “Coogan’s Bluff” is its simplicity. Compare it to “Edge of Darkness,” a recent big budget thriller and the differences are glaring. The former is all business, starting with a mega-star turn and finishing with a spare and powerful chase sequence.’
“Darkness” piles on subplot after subplot, each one getting audiences lost in a maze of dangling story threads. Unnecessarily so.
New York magazine dubbed “Coogan’s Bluff” “the worst happening of the year,” according to “American Rebel: The Life of Clint Eastwood.”
It’s nothing of the kind. Rather, it marks the dawn of a movie star’s ascendancy in the kind of sturdy projects that would serve him well for the next four decades.
Note: “Coogan’s Bluff” inspired the long-running TV series “McCloud,” starring Dennis Weaver.
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My first Eastwood movie. Clint is definitely in full “Clint” mode, as the bad good guy, the anti-John Wayne of sorts. The film was an important step to getting Eastwood out of the West and to other settings.