Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

The opening scene of Dir. Philip Kaufman's version of author Jack Finney's 1954 body snatchers story sets a weird tone. The subsequent move to San Francisco, to focus on the part of the world around us that many city folk take for granted and/or see but barely acknowledge is less trippy but it keeps the feeling of unease. One might expect the Noir-esque visuals, the disorientating camerawork and the eerie sound effects and music to clash, but they too function as one, supporting the feeling that things are working on a number of thematic levels, with the personal and political being the most obvious.
Kaufman captures well the foreboding notion that the central characters are being watched from off-screen by unknown eyes. There's an astonishingly creepy FX scene near the end, but the film loses momentum thereafter.

3½ cross pollinations out of 5

The Beguiled (1971)

Wounded in battle, Yankee Corporal John McBurney (Clint Eastwood) is taken to a Confederate girls' school in Mississippi to recuperate during the American Civil War. Headmistress Martha Farnsworth (Geraldine Page) plans to turn him over to the Confederate army once he's well enough, but McBurney has other ideas. Luckily for him, many of the female residents are more than happy to have a male visitor to turn their various attentions towards.
The disingenuous McBurney makes for interesting viewing from a storytelling point of view, but I don't feel that the necessary balancing and blurring of sympathy and disdain that the script was aiming for was as good as it could've been. Conversely, the more clear cut clash of experience and innocence of the headmistress and schoolteacher (Elizabeth Hartman) characters was for me a highlight, shouldering the film's strengths more effectively.

3 unlocked doors out of 5

Coogan's Bluff (1968)

Coogan is a deputy Sheriff in Arizona. At the beginning he's hunting a lone gunman in a picturesque desert locale. It has the feel of a Western but Coogan's in a jeep, not atop a horse. Unfortunately, even the implied similarities aren't enough to save it from being boring about 90% of the time.
When it moves to the big city it plummets ever further down the scale. It could be argued that much of the time there is given over to characterisation, but it achieves little beyond managing to (inadvertently?) make the brash but charismatic cowboy persona that Clint's well-known for seem more like a deft sleaze who's a few steps down from pushy sexual predator. Not good.
A few years later the pairing of Eastwood and Dir. Siegel gave us the first Dirty Harry (1971) movie. I wish I'd skipped Coogan in favour of it.

2 fancy remarks out of 5

The Shootist (1976)

John Wayne plays an ageing shootist whose life is winding down. It was his final film and served as a fitting tribute to the big man while simultaneously marking the end of an era in style.
Wayne gives an understated performance filled with empathy because the same disease that plagues his on-screen character was killing him slowly in real life. When he looks tired, it's probably because he was.
It was The Shootist that convinced me The Duke was the 'Giant' that folks said he was when I first saw it over twenty years ago, and of all the classic John Wayne films that I've watched since it's still my favourite.

4 streaks of kindness out of 5