But during the late 1960s through mid-‘70s, Eastwood also had a sometimes fruitful, sometimes stormy association with Universal, where he made eight films concurrent with Warners and a few other companies. Some, like High Plains Drifter (1973), are still quite popular today and in some respects indistinguishable from the kinds of movies Eastwood was making for Warner Bros. at the same time.* However, Eastwood's starring films at Universal are generally more interesting and risk-taking. The Warner Bros. ones, pictures like Magnum Force (1973), The Gauntlet (1977), Every Which Way But Loose (1978), etc., may have been bigger hits at the time, but today even Eastwood seems mildly embarrassed by their success, wanting in interviews to put a little distance between himself and those movies. Truth be told, all of the Dirty Harry sequels are pretty terrible, and for every Bronco Billy (1980) or Bird (1988), Eastwood made at least an equal number of Rookies and Pink Cadillacs.

Conversely, all seven films in this Universal set have at least some merit, the titles being Coogan' Bluff (1968), Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970), The Beguiled (1971), Play Misty for Me (1971), Joe Kidd (1972), High Plains Drifter (1973), and The Eiger Sanction (1975). An eighth Universal-Malpaso production directed by but not starring Eastwood, Breezy (1973), was included as part of a Clint Eastwood Blu-ray boxed set released by Universal in the United Kingdom last year, but it's conspicuously and mysteriously absent from this U.S. set.

Of course, Fistful of Dollars and its two follow-ups, also starring Eastwood - For a Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966) - were all spectacularly successful in Europe and Asia. But it wasn't until 1967 that the "Dollars" trilogy made it to America; when they finally did Eastwood was instantly if belatedly catapulted into the top rank of movie stars.

But Hollywood really didn't quite know what to do with Eastwood, this former TV actor who'd hit pay dirt starring in Spaghetti Westerns. His first starring role in an American film was the United Artists release Hang ‘Em High (1968), a bad imitation Spaghetti that, ironically won rave reviews against the mostly terrible reviews Leone's Dollars trilogy initially received. Unimaginatively directed by Ted Post, a good TV Westerns director-turned-journeyman feature filmmaker with no visual sense, Hang ‘Em High was, clearly, not the kind of film to secure Eastwood a long-term future headlining American movies.

His next film was the far shrewder Coogan's Bluff (1968), his first Universal, and the first of five (and-a-half; see below) collaborations between Eastwood and director Don Siegel. Though far from perfect, the picture cleverly casts Eastwood as a traditional if modern Western lawman from Arizona hunting down a fugitive in a completely alien environment: modern-day New York City. Universal recycled the same basic premise for its long-running series McCloud (1970-77), starring Gunsmoke veteran Dennis Weaver.

Today, Coogan's Bluff is interesting primarily as a progenitor of Dirty Harry and Eastwood's later usual screen persona. Like Harry Callahan, Eastwood's Deputy Sheriff Walt Coogan refuses to sit idly by, surrendering to a labyrinthine bureaucracy that, in his view, favors the rights of criminals to their victims. Defiantly, he works the case alone, despite orders to the contrary from a hotheaded superior (Lee J. Cobb in this case). And, as in Dirty Harry, the urban landscape is awash with petty criminals, seedy prostitutes, obnoxious hippies, and a psychotic wanted man (Don Stroud) with no sense of morality. Except for an awkward subplot concerning Coogan's romance with a local probation officer (Susan Clark, then under long-term contract to Universal) Eastwood, Siegel, and the writer they brought to the picture, Dean Riesner, lay all the groundwork for Dirty Harry here. (*** 1/2 out of *****)

Where Hang ‘Em High had been a bad imitation Spaghetti Western, Eastwood's next Universal film, Two Mules for Sister Sara, adapted from a Budd Boetticher story, was a pretty good one. The iconography is all there: Eastwood's character lighting sticks of dynamite (anachronistic in the film's c. 1865 setting) with his lit cigar; Ennio Morricone's musical score; playing a morally-ambiguous, mysterious stranger caught in the middle of a larger conflict purely for the gold; a black, sardonic sense of humor, etc. Being filmed with less polish on location in Mexico than had it been made in Hollywood, plus its lack of familiar Hollywood genre actors (there are no "names" in the film other than its two stars) add to its Spaghetti-like feel.

Here Eastwood is Hogan, an American drifter in Mexico during the French Intervention. He stumbles upon a nearly naked woman (Shirley MacLaine, top-billed over Eastwood in the credits but not in the posters) about to be raped by bandits. Only after gunning down the bad guys does Hogan realize that the woman is a nun, she wanted by the French for aiding Mexican revolutionaries planning an attack on a French garrison.

MacLaine and Siegel didn't get along, while Eastwood found her too "masculine," but she's fine as the pious Sister whose occasional flashes of decidedly un-Godlike behavior leave Hogan nonplussed. Their African Queen-like relationship is interesting, and only during the film's conventional climatic battle, compensated by an amusing if not entirely unexpected epilogue (during which the film's riddle-like title is made clear) does it disappoint. (****)

After headlining MGM's goofy, wildly anachronistic war comedy Kelly's Heroes (1970), Eastwood's next Universal-Siegel collaboration was an ambitious creative stretch. The Beguiled casts Eastwood as a completely unsympathetic, eventually emasculated character, Yankee Corporal John McBurney, wounded and on the verge of death behind enemy lines in Louisiana. Rescued by a quickly-infatuated 12-year-old girl (Pamelyn Ferdin) he recuperates in an all-girls boarding school where many of the sexually-repressed women there, including headmistress Martha Farnsworth (Geraldine Page), lonely, overly-sheltered teacher Edwina Dabney (Elizabeth Hartman), amorous 17-year-old Carol (Jo Ann Harris), and black slave Hallie (blues artist Mae Mercer) fall under his spell.

Flashbacks make clear he's not the gentle Quaker soul he pretends to be, that he's ruthlessly manipulating all to his own ends, while the women and girls become jealous and increasingly desperate for his attentions. The movie becomes intensely dark during its final third (more than earning its "R" rating), McBurney's behavior is repellent, and the picture overall is not what you'd call a crowd-pleaser, but it's a fascinating story told with much skill and intelligence.

Though highly acclaimed in France, in America Universal unwisely sold it almost like a Dirty Harry film (posters prominently show him holding a pistol, striking a very Harry Callahan-like pose) and the film flopped commercially. (****)

Another unconventional but rewarding project, Play Misty for Me marked Eastwood's directorial debut. A psychological thriller marketed as a horror movie (aptly so, in this instance), the picture served as the template for myriad inferior, imitative female stalker films, including the popular but awful Fatal Attraction (1987). Eastwood is Dave Garver, an ambitious, popular disc jockey for a Carmel-by-the-Sea radio station. On the rebound, having broken up with prior girlfriend Tobie (Donna Mills), Dave is sowing wild oats that include a one-night stand with attractive Evelyn Draper (Jessica Walter), a psychologically needy and unbalanced woman who reads far too much into their brief flirtation.

Not having seen Play Misty for Me in many years, I feared watching it again I might find it offensively chauvinist, but came away impressed by (female writer) Jo Heims's and Dean Riesner's screenplay, which is solidly rooted in the lopsided emotional responses that sometimes play out in burgeoning relationships. Unlike many of the female stalker movies that followed, Evelyn's gender really plays no role; she's just squirmily believable as someone with that dangerous combination of determination and an inability to accept relationship realities. Eastwood is good as Dave but his direction is even better, establishing from the start his great skill at getting emotionally real, risk-taking performances from his actors, with Walter's Evelyn one of the most memorable.

Eastwood also wisely sought the support of director Siegel, who guided Eastwood through his maiden effort (thus that "half") and appears in the small, supporting role of Murphy the bartender. Still quite hair-raising, all these decades later. (****1/2)

For years I regarded Joe Kidd (1972) as the weakest of Eastwood's starring Westerns but, for reasons I can't quite explain, this time found it quite enjoyable, if minor.

Written and directed by genre heavyweights Elmore Leonard and John Sturges, respectively, the Eastwood Western hero once again finds himself caught in the middle of two warring factions, a wanted Mexican revolutionary (John Saxon) and a greedy landowner (Robert Duvall) determined to kill him.

Eastwood's title character, serving time on a minor offense (hunting on Indian land), initially comes off as anything but heroic. He'd just as soon serve his time sweeping up storefronts, community service-style under grouchy County Sheriff Bob Mitchell (Gregory Walcott in an amusing performance). But wealthy landowner Frank Harlan (Duvall) is determined to hire the famously skilled Kidd for his private "hunting party," actually, of course, a posse looking for troublemaker Chama (Saxon).

Joe Kidd is not an exceptional Western but it's interesting for the interaction between Eastwood and the other characters, Duvall's especially. The screenplay allows Eastwood's character to watch, observe, and weigh situations and circumstances more than usual, and Joe Kidd's almost instant dislike of the untrustworthy Harlan plays out in intriguing ways. (***)

Eastwood followed it with another Western, this time as both star and director. High Plains Drifter is a boldly experimental film, with most viewers (correctly, I'd say) reading into it something Eastwood has always vehemently denied.

A man with no name billed only as "The Stranger" (Eastwood) rides into the Western town of Lago and immediately guns down three men in a saloon, then befriends a dwarf barber, Mordecai (Billy Curtis). He rapes a woman, Callie (Marianna Hill), and later when she shoots him while he's taking a bath, the Stranger inexplicably is uninjured. The townspeople decide to hire the Stranger to protect them from a trio of fearsome gunfighters. He refuses until they agree he can have anything he wants.

What follows might be described as the Stranger's purification of the town by hellfire, to the point of, in a startling sequence, literally painting the entire town blood red and rechristening it "HELL" ahead of the bad men's arrival.

Early scripts explicitly had Eastwood playing the brother of a murdered marshal, hence the revenge plot. But the movie clearly implies that Eastwood's Stranger is the dead marshal, a vengeful ghost back from the grave, though in flashback scenes in at least some shots of the marshal he's played by Buddy Van Horn, Eastwood's stuntman coordinator and occasional collaborator.

High Plains Drifter is at 105 minutes way too long for its thin story, but it's a visually striking film (if not entirely original; a few earlier Westerns, European in origin, used the same premise) and a real treat for first-time viewers. (****)

Eastwood's last Universal film for many years, The Eiger Sanction was another offbeat, challenging project for Eastwood, quite a contrast to the safer, more conventional films he was making for Warner Bros. at the same time. Bad video transfers have for years hindered a fair assessment of the film, which now on Blu-ray really impresses.

The picture is essentially a spy thriller, based on the spy spoof of the same name by Trevanian. Eastwood stars as Hemlock, an ex-spy coerced out of happy retirement and living as art history professional, secret art collector, and mountain climber, to avenge the murder of a colleague.

After a long build-up, including a romance with a black agent (Vonetta McGee), and a couple of visits with "Mr. Dragon" (Thayer David), C2's albino and ex-Nazi head, The Eiger Sanction gets to the heart of the matter. He joins a perilous team climb up the Eiger, the biggest and most treacherous north face in the Swiss Alps, during which Hemlock hopes to expose his colleague's killer.

If most of the wit was sucked out of Trevanian's source material, the picture to its credit plays more like a John le Carré story, albeit one slicked-up and Hollywoodized. It's still far removed from the trifling Roger Moore Bond movies then in vogue and the locations are really captivating, especially on big projector screens.

Even more impressive, Eastwood not only pulls double-duty again as director and star, he does nearly all of his own stunts. He makes a point of emphasizing that it's really him hanging on a mountain face by his fingernails or, as in the climax, almost literally hanging by a thread thousands of feet up without a parachute.

A troubled production during which at least one climber died and another seriously injured, The Eiger Sanction was not nearly as successful as it should have been for which Eastwood, as he did on several of his Universal releases, blamed the studio and poor publicity. (*** 1/2)

Video & Audio

Two Mules for Sister Sara, Joe Kidd, High Plains Drifter, and The Eiger Sanction are all 2.35:1 ‘scope while the other three are 1.85:1 widescreen. Several of the scope titles were long available either panned-and-scanned or in unenhanced, non-anamorphic transfers, so those titles especially are a treat in 1080p high-def. I found all of the transfers excepting The Beguiled to be very good-to-excellent, with notably sharp images, strong color and good contrast. The Beguiled appeared to my eyes to be notably softer and dirtier, though acceptable. All have DTS-HD 2.0 Master Audio excepting High Plains Drifter, which is 5.1 though, oddly, the packaging lists all of the French audio as 2.0 surround. Optional English subtitles are included.

Extra Features

All seven films are accompanied by trailers, all in standard-def, and most on the shoddy side, some even 4:3 full-frame. The only title with anything in the way of substantial supplements is Play Misty for Me, which ports over material apparently created for an earlier laserdisc or DVD release. It includes an excellent 50-minute Making-Of documentary and three shorter featurettes: "The Beguiled, Misty, Don and Clint," "Photography Montage," and "Clint Eastwood Directs and Acts."

Parting Thoughts

Two Mules, Joe Kidd, and High Plains Drifter were all previously released to Blu-ray while the others make their debut here. So, if you don't have the others.... Highly Recommended.

* For years I assumed Eastwood's frequent producer during this period, Robert Daley, was the same man who later was Chairman of the Board at Warner Bros. But the producer Robert Daley and the executive Robert Daly, as the spelling of their names suggest, are not one and the same.

Stuart Galbraith IV is a Kyoto-based film historian whose work includes film history books, DVD and Blu-ray audio commentaries and special features. Visit Stuart's Cine Blogarama here.