Five less known Clint Eastwood movies

Clint Eastwood is, of course, the living legend of the American cinema. And yes, his fans know all of his movies, love all of them and they will say, that no one of Clint's movies are less known. But when generally speaking of Mr. Eastwood's career, the always remembered movies are the Sergio Leone trilogy, Dirty Harry series, his awarded ones and some of the newer stuff. These five movies, that I particularly like, are kind of in shadow of the classics.

TWO MULES FOR SISTER SARA (1970)
When you want to name an Eastwood western, you'll probably name The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Unforgiven or The Outlaw Josey Wales. This one is probably my favorite of the rest, which is strange, sice I haven't seen it for ages. I must fix it. Anyway, it has the great leading duo of Eastwood and Shirley MacLaine, the always interesting setting of French intervention in Mexico, the music by Ennio Morricone himself and directing by the great Don Siegel, one of my favorite American directors. It's rather talky than action-packed, but the movie never drags and is entertaining. Hell, I need to watch it again.

PLAY MISTY FOR ME (1971)
Clint's directorial debut is not his most famous movie. But it's a good one. It of course stands on the performance of Jessica Walter, who plays the psychotic girl, that stalks the DJ played by Eastwood. Clint is always Clint, but here he is weaker than in his other movies. He's just a playboy, not the tough guy. Therefore I don't like the way it ends. But it's not that bad ending.

THE GAUNTLET (1977)
When I saw this one for the first time, I hated it. Second time I started to appreciate it. Everything can't be of Dirty Harry quality, right? I guess I saw it at the same time as Where Eagles Dare, which is, of course, brilliant. The Gauntlet is far from brilliant, but it's entertaining. Lots of it based on the chemistry between Eastwood and Sondra Locke. Actually, apart from Every Which Way But Loose and other movies, in The Gauntlet and Sudden Impact I like her performance. It is silly, it has quite non fitting score (but it is actually great), but if you want a comic book Clint Eastwood movie, take this one.

BRONCO BILLY (1980)
Nice drama, not an action packed western comedy, that maybe some of the audience expected. Little more feelings, very nostalgic, an unusually light movie for Eastwood. Plus there's everybody, who appeared in all of his movies through the 70's - Sondra Locke, Geoffrey Lewis, Sam Bottoms, Walter Barnes, Dan Vadis and many others. Really a good one, much better than the monkey comedies Clint made at the same time.

HEARTBREAK RIDGE (1986)
Partly an army comedy, partly a drama about middle age. The army parts are hilarious, lots of great lines from the beginning. Then the movie starts to drag a little and the battle ending isn't very good, but the dialogue from the first part saves it. I rate it maybe higher than it deserves, so I would give the prick the satisfaction.

Those were my five picks. There are a few more relatively less known movies, but some of them I haven't seen. The Beguiled by Don Siegel for example, that looks interesting. They remade it. Oh, God, why? It's just sequels and remakes. Nothing new... Eastwood is an exception.