Meryl Streep, Clint Eastwood, The Bridges of Madison County
Clint Eastwood is the last star to be featured in Turner Classic Movies' "Summer Under the Stars" series, 2010 edition. [Clint Eastwood schedule.]
Right now, TCM is showing the Western The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), one of Eastwood's early directorial efforts. Chief Dan George and Sondra Locke, with whom Eastwood had a highly publicized and highly acrimonious split off-screen, co-star.
Next, is Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars (1964), one of the Italian Westerns that helped to turn Eastwood into an international star. Gian Maria Volontè, who'd become one of the greatest film actors of the late 20th century, has a featured role.
A Fistful of Dollars will be followed by Eastwood's The Bridges of Madison County (1995), a romantic tearjerker based on Robert James Waller's bestseller, and starring Eastwood and Best Actress Oscar nominee Meryl Streep (playing an Italian woman named Francesca) as star-crossed lovers.
Following a presentation of the 2010 documentary The Eastwood Factor, TCM will show Don Siegel's prison drama Escape from Alcatraz (1979), hardly one of Siegel's greatest efforts.
And finally, Clint Eastwood Day will come to a close with Arthur Lubin's widely disliked The First Traveling Saleslady (1956), one of the very last movies to be released by the moribund RKO.
I found The First Traveling Saleslady "shocking" for a number of reasons:
a) despite its reputation, I thoroughly enjoyed this "feminist" Old West comedy written by Devery Freeman and Stephen Longstreet
b) Ginger Rogers is excellent in the title role and Barry Nelson is just as good as the leading man
c) Clint Eastwood and Carol Channing not only look and sound human on screen, but they get paired up as well
e) I don't know how Arthur Lubin, a gay man (and Eastwood's early mentor), managed to squeeze so many big men into tight pants in one single movie.
I'm assuming the anti-gay/anti-sex censors at the Production Code office were too busy, what with more high-profile fare such as Elia Kazan's Baby Doll and Vincente Minnelli's Tea and Sympathy coming out that same year.
Photo: Warner Bros.