Any Which Way You Can (1980) review

ANY WHICH WAY YOU CAN 1980

Clint Eastwood (Philo Beddoe), Sondra Locke (Lynn Halsey-Taylor), Geoffrey Lewis (Orville Boggs), William Smith (Jack Wilson), Harry Guardino (James Beekman), Ruth Gordon (Zenobia "Ma" Boggs), Michael Cavanaugh (Patrick Scarfe), Barry Corbin (Fat Zack), John Quade (Cholla)

Directed by Buddy Van Horn

The Short Version: Clint's comedy knockout was another bare-knuckled hit at the box office containing twice the fights, twice the fun, twice the Clyde, and twice the machismo. The plot is still basically the same; meaning there is no plot. The main difference is this time it's less a road trip movie than it is an epic with Philo being pushed by the Mob into a big-ticket brawl with an East Coast mauler in the form of the toughest Tough Guy of them all -- onscreen and off -- William Smith. The serious streak plays fair with the funny business -- till the main event when the testosterone can't contain itself any longer as one of the Silver Screens best, and manliest trading of fists ever captured on film unfolds. This is one sequel you should see Any Which Way You Can.

Bare-knuckle brawler Philo Beddoe decides to retire from the underground fisticuff circuit (he's starting to like the pain). Meanwhile, some mobsters in the same field are having trouble setting up fights with Jack Wilson, a vicious fighter on the east coast who leaves his opponents a mangled mess. Hearing about Beddoe's track record, and sensing a huge payday, the mob pushes Philo into one last slug-fest destined to be the biggest macho melee of all time.

Beers To You, the makers of ANY WHICH WAY YOU CAN, for such a kick-ass second round of shenanigans from Philo and Clyde. It's a rare sequel that matches what came before, and manages to surpass its predecessor in the process. Clyde is again the show-stealer, although Ma is sidelined to a degree. The Black Widows gang gets humiliated twice as much, but redeem themselves during the no rules, last man standing bash-fest at the end. Everything ends on a happy note for everybody, wrapping things up nicely, although a third round of Clint and Clyde would have been welcome. Still, for a sequel, there's some tasty ingredients in this curious country stew that only gets better the more times you cook it up. 

William Smith is firing both barrels of his big guns during a painful, yet spectacular fist fight that begins in a barn, and extends in and out of various businesses, leaving collateral damage in its wake. Smith could play good guys and bad guys with the greatest of ease; villains were his specialty, and, like he says in the movie, he eats these roles like candy. Smith isn't technically a villain here, yet he's not really a good guy, either. There's a mutual admiration between Beddoe and Wilson. It's the boxer version of code of honor ethics seen in samurai films, westerns, and kung fu movies. It's the macho aesthetic wrapped around bars, beer, bikers, and brawls. John Durrill's song, 'The Good Guys and the Bad Guys' perfectly sums up the movie.

Buddy Van Horn had been Clint's stunt double since 1968s COOGAN'S BLUFF. ANY WHICH WAY YOU CAN was the first of three times Buddy directed his long-time friend; the other two times being THE DEAD POOL (1988) and PINK CADILLAC (1989). His direction improved on James Fargo's from the previous movie. The sequel is a slicker, more polished picture. It complements EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE with some noticeable additions and alterations that either work in the favor of the film, or against it.

 
Eastwood gets to show off his Tough Guy image even more in his second outing as Philo Beddoe. This means more fight scenes, not to mention his free-for-all at the end with William Smith is among the best hand-to-hand tussles ever captured onscreen. Eastwood's dry humor and relaxed demeanor encore as well. He even gets the girl back he lost prior. 

 
Sondra Locke reprises her role as Lynn Halsey-Taylor -- a part that depicts her as having grown and matured beyond her scheming hustler of the first movie.  Her singing voice sounds much better, too.

Ma (Zenobia Boggs, played by Ruth Gordon) has a lesser presence the second go round. She's still pissed over Clyde swiping her prized Oreo cookies, and still has a mouth like a sailor -- you just don't get to hear as much of it as before.

Orville gets sidelined, too. He's still relegated to sidekick status, only his screentime is reduced. His girlfriend Echo (Beverly D'Angelo) is conspicuous in her absence, but she's replaced by a blonde nurse whom Orville connects with after taking a bullet for his buddy.

The characters of The Black Widows biker gang have a lesser presence this time. The running gag of their bikes being demolished one by one is abandoned, but replaced with a goofier one in which they lose all of their body hair after being doused from top to bottom in tar; from there they don wigs that do anything but improve their appearance. They get to redeem themselves at the end and finally get the upper hand on somebody -- that being the mob henchmen during the climactic no-holds-barred fist fight.

Stanford Sherman's script immortalized the famous line, "Right turn, Clyde", -- an order from Clint to Clyde to deliver a straight right to whomever is unlucky to receive the orangutan's power punch. Cholla is the first to feel the pain after inferring an "ape roast" is in Clyde's future. The hairy fist sends Cholla and his gang tumbling over like a line of dominoes.

One guy who doesn't get brushed by the wayside is Clyde, the orangutan. His character is greatly expanded upon. Clyde still enjoys his beer, but he's changed a lot from his more docile persona of before. Now, in addition to being an alcoholic ape, he's more hands-on with humans; he enjoys demolishing, and or shitting in cars, and is even more amorous than he was in the first movie. In fact, everybody gets some amour any which way they can. Going back to Clyde...

Manis from EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE had grown too large and aggressive to be used for this picture, so a new Clyde had to be hired. Bobby Berosini didn't supply the orangutans for the sequel. The production went with Gentle Jungle, Inc., an animal service company that has provided natures creatures great and small for scores of movies and television programs. Boone Narr was the trainer for ANY WHICH WAY YOU CAN.

Regarding the subject of the orangutan, there seems to be an inability to discuss this movie in recent years without bringing up rumored animal violence behind the scenes; this being due to a lot of confused, and often mixed up information from sources (including a 2008 LA Times piece) who seem to put a lot of faith in an old National Enquirer piece from March of 1985. If these sources aren't getting the names of the movies wrong, they're unaware that the 'Clyde' of the sequel is not the same one used for the second production. The alleged story is Any Which Way But Straight; depending on what you read, it goes that the ape trainer ANY WHICH WAY YOU CAN beat the animal so severely for supposedly stealing donuts on set, it died of a brain hemorrhage. This story, too, depending on where you read it, has conflicting information. In some, the ape died after the movie wrapped, and in others the ape died before the film finished, and another primate was brought on to finish the movie. The absurdity of this whole thing is that a National Enquirer story would be taken as fact. Even more perplexing is that the credited ape's trainer, Boone Narr worked as an animal trainer/coordinator for dozens of movies after this one. It begs the question that if this story was in fact true, exactly why in the hell would he be allowed to work with animals on so many movies afterward? Some of these include THE BEASTMASTER (1982), INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE (1989), WHITE FANG (1991), TOP DOG (1995), WILLARD (2003), and HACHIKO: A DOG'S STORY (2009).

In other news, Fats Domino brightens things up with a bit of 'Whiskey Heaven' in the Palamino Club. Country singer Glen Campbell follows suit.

Cult siren Julie Brown appears in one of her first roles as Candy, a bouncy member of a wealthy gambler's entourage. Horror fans will remember her from the 1981 killer kid slasher movie, BLOODY BIRTHDAY. Most 80s lovers will recall her MTV music video comedy series JUST SAY JULIE.

ANY WHICH WAY YOU CAN is famous for the first and only time Clint Eastwood ever battled the Swamp Thing. Stuntman Dick Durock, later to play the title creature in Wes Craven's SWAMP THING (1982) is the brawler Clint tangles with at the beginning of the movie.

This sequel is, apart from some of the things listed above, nearly identical to the previous movie. Both pictures were huge box office successes. The quirky, memorable formula of Fargo's film is repeated here, but done with a bit more panache. It's one of those rare occasions of a sequel besting its predecessor.

Eastwood's two EVERY/ANY WHICH WAY movies became regular staples on television beginning in 1981. Much like the actors other movies, the popularity of these two comedies helped cement his status as a Hollywood icon, outlasting other macho men specializing in action cinema. Adding real life Tough Guy William Smith to the mix was an ingenious casting choice, and key to making this double feature one-two punch among the manliest movies of all time.

This review is representative of the Warner Brothers DVD.

Every Which Way But Loose (1978) review

 
EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE 1978

Clint Eastwood (Philo Beddoe), Sondra Locke (Lynn Halsey-Taylor), Geoffrey Lewis (Orville Boggs), Ruth Gordon (Ma), Beverly D'Angelo (Echo), Walter Barnes (Tank Murdock), John Quade (Cholla), Dan Vadis (Frank), Bill McKinney (Dallas), William O'Connell (Elmo), Gregory Walcott (Putnam)

Directed by James Fargo

The Short Version: Armed with fully loaded fists, a lovable orangutan, a filthy-mouthed old lady, and all the beer you can drink, Clint Eastwood stars in this box office knock-out. He's a bare-knuckled brawler chasing after the love of his life in between bar fights and being trailed by a vengeful cop, and an incompetent motorcycle gang. Virtually plotless, this 2 hours of consistent hilarity and fun became an unexpected smash success, and was Clint's biggest hit at that time. Get a BIG bucket of popcorn and a pitcher of cold beer for this one, but hide the Oreos!

Philo Beddoe makes a living as a local trucker driver and bare-fisted brawler on the underground circuit. One day he falls head over heels for a singer at the Palamino Club. When she unexpectedly up and leaves town allegedly over a jealous beau, Philo heads off after her, encountering trouble along the way. While he chases her, he's chased by a bumbling motorcycle gang and an off-duty cop who met Philo's fists in a barroom skirmish. It all ends with a fateful meeting of the knuckles when Beddoe tangles with Tank Murdock, a legend around those parts.

Nobody was expecting this wild and wooly Clint comedy actioner to bring home the box office bacon the way it did. The script was originally intended for Burt Reynolds's hands, but Eastwood was charmed by the unique scenario. Critics still saw the finished product as a train-wreck, but paying customers were having none of it while sending EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE to a 100 million haul.

It's doubtful Reynolds would have brought the same level of deadpan humor that Eastwood does. Still, Reynolds was a logical fit for the material given his string of southern fried action and race car hits that began earlier in the decade, and continued into the 1980s. If anyone ever wanted to see two of the 70s biggest stars team up, they got their chance in 1984 with CITY HEAT. 

Clint Eastwood had been a living, breathing goldmine for years from his various westerns at home and abroad; this includes the popular DIRTY HARRY series, and an occasional experimental movie thrown in from time to time. Nothing he'd done before was quite as different as this. The actor hadn't starred in a full-on comedy before, so this was a gamble, and one that paid off in a big way. One of the keys to that success was the inclusion of Manis, a member of Bobby Berosini's orangutan act. 

Manis played Clyde, an ape Philo won in a bet taking on four guys in a fight. A strong bond is presented between Philo and Clyde that reportedly extended to their offscreen companionship as well. Clint was said to occasionally visit Manis when he was performing at Vegas shows as part of Berosini's act. Sadly, Manis wasn't able to return for the sequel as he had grown too large (sources state the ape was 11 years old at the time), and was believed to have become too aggressive.

When Clyde isn't accompanying Philo to bars, he's making a nuisance of himself at home with Ma, Orville's foul-mouthed mother. Ruth Gordon and Clyde battle it out onscreen to see who can steal the most scenes. Speaking of thievery, Clyde loves stealing Ma's Oreos; and that's one thing Ma doesn't like to share is her Oreos.

To say Ruth Gordon is a scene-stealin', show-stoppin', shotgun blastin' granny grumpus is an understatement. The personification of the cranky old lady, Gordon plays the cliches to the hilt and then some. She gets many of the best lines, and her delivery is comedy gold. She also has a grand old potty mouth that begs the question if Gordon had ever spent time on a sailor's ship. 

John Quade is perfectly cast as Cholla, the leader of The Black Widows, a dopey, clumsy-footed biker gang that are about as threatening as a car-load of circus clowns. They have their own theme music, and function as little more than cartoon characters. They have a few run-ins with Philo, and every time the result is the same -- bruised, battered, and beaten. There's a running gag that for every scuffle the Black Widows get into, they not only lose the fight and a little more dignity, but lose a bike or two in the process.

Former Italian muscleman and western star, American Dan Vadis has a role as one of the BWs. He's slimmed down considerably from his busier movie acting days in the 1960s. Still very toned, Vadis appeared in numerous supporting roles in a variety of Eastwood movies. 

Geoffrey Lewis is an extraordinary character actor. The man has played virtually every kind of role in domestic and foreign productions. His part as Orville Boggs is possibly his best remembered, and it's one he reprised for the sequel. He runs a tow service and acts as Philo's fight manager. He plays perfectly off of Eastwood. It's never revealed in the film, but if you didn't look at the end credits, or recall a line from Eastwood, you'd swear the two men were playing brothers.

If there's any real negative in this movie, it's the inclusion of Putnam, an off-duty cop who starts trouble with Philo in a bar after opening his mouth to which Beddoe promptly closes it. His pride hurt, the officer takes vacation time to chase Beddoe down in the hopes of returning the favor. The inclusion of Putnam does nothing except add another character chasing Beddoe while he chases Lynn. Which brings us to....

Sondra Locke had co-starred in Clint's movies since the late 70s and her role here isn't the most wholesome -- playing a hustler that moves from one town, and one man to the next. Locke's portrayal of bar band singer Lynn Halsey-Taylor is eerily foreshadowing of public opinion in lieu of how the couple ended up by the end of the decade, and again in the mid 90s. The two had both a romantic, and working relationship that melted down in 1989 during some ugly mud-slinging and a lawsuit. A second round of legalities came in 1995 when Locke was awarded an undisclosed amount. She told reporters, "I don't have to worry about working -- let's put it that way", and "I'm very happy with the settlement, but it wasn't about money; it was about closure". Her first appearance in a Clint flick was in THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES (1976) and the last being SUDDEN IMPACT (1983).

The sequence near the end where Beddoe realizes his action-oriented journey has been all for nothing other than the viewing audiences enjoyment is the one time the film gets serious. There's also a bit of irony in that this is one film where the hero doesn't get the girl in the end; instead, Orville gets a girl in the form of the sexy Beverly D'Angelo, a young lady running a fruit and vegetable stand with the freshest melons for miles. a few years later she was taking a VACATION of another sort with Chevy Chase in the 1983 National Lampoon classic.

The bittersweet finale doesn't stop with Philo learning the woman he'd been pursuing wasn't much of a lady; he sets up a bare-knuckle brawl with the legendary Tank Murdock (western star Walter Barnes), a fighter we hear a lot about, but never see till the end. Philo, enraged and smarting from the emotional beating he took from Lynn, pummels the aging bruiser; and as the crowd begins to boo their hero, Beddoe's next move is one you don't quite expect.

Much of the success of Fargo's film goes to the country music soundtrack spearheaded by Eddie Rabbitt's hit song of the same name. The song, 'Every Which Way But Loose', climbed to #1 for three weeks in 1979 on Billboard's Country chart, and #30 on the Hot 100. Mel Tillis and Charlie Rich feature on a few songs a piece, and Sondra Locke sings a tune or two.

So what if critics trashed it? EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE may be missing a plot, but it makes up for it in sheer quirkiness; and combining elements that don't appear to be a good match, but in the end, go great together. Both films have been on television countless times, so it's doubtful if most viewers haven't seen it at some point. If not, get ready for one of the manliest movies of all time, good times, good tunes, and a movie that will turn you Every Which Way But Loose.  

This review is representative of the Warner Brothers DVD.