1980: "Bronco Billy"
Bronco Billy follows Clint Eastwood as the eponymous protagonist and his traveling circus troupe as they encounters joys and hardships on the road. Along the way, they meet a stuck-up heiress (played by Sondra Locke) who becomes Billy's assistant after being ditched by her husband (played by Geoffrey Lewis).
When it comes to his directorial career, Eastwood has always been hit and miss with me. I can safely say this is one of my personal favorite Eastwood movies. I didn't think much of it looking at the poster, expecting a low-brow hick comedy, and what I got instead was a gentle, humanistic movie about down-and-out circus performers. Eastwood lovingly portrays these characters with an affable humility and never tries to trump up the circus act with big crowds or amazing stunts (they are only amateurs who only get a smattering of people attending) but it's the spirit of performing that keeps them going. The tone is not flashy or wacky but down-to-earth and modest.
Clint Eastwood, in my estimation, gives one of the best performances of his career. He is pitch-perfect as Bronco Billy, playing him with both stoicism and an aw-shucks corny earnestness in the vein of a Gene Autry (telling his "little pardners" to say their prayers and eat their vegetables). The movie also does a good job of slowly revealing Billy's layers (like when he's revealed to be a former convict or that he's not the genuine article but a shoe salesman from New Jersey).
Sondra Locke, some may argue, is the least subtle performance (she was nominated for a Worst Supporting Actress Razzie), which I agree with and I can understand some people finding her a bit shrill and unlikable, but I thoroughly enjoyed her over-the-top brattiness.
The movie is not perfect (not that I expect it to be). There's some convoluted writing in a B-plot involving Sondra Locke's stepmother and her trying to pass Sondra Locke's disappearance as a result of being murdered at the hands of her husband so she can gain her inheritance (which makes no sense because there's no actual attempt at murder by both parties and they just assume that because Sondra Locke is not around, she must be dead and she'll never show up out of the blue....I guess?). It suffers a bit from a lackluster third act at the insane asylum, just so they can conveniently wrap up the B-plot, with the husband and the stepmother.
There's also a weird scene where Billy tries to bribe the sheriff into releasing his wrangler (accused of desertion from the army) from jail, so the sheriff starts bullying and taunting him (calling Billy a coward and whatnot). I can't really say it's a bad scene but I was left somewhat confused. I don't know if it's the execution or the ambiguous way the scene ends (it ends abruptly with Billy's 'don't-make-me-angry' Hulk face when he's insulted, which is a running gag throughout the movie). I mean, I get what the scene is about (it's a low point for Billy because he's desperately trying to save his friend from jail and the sheriff is emasculating him) but it just seemed unrealistic. It was laying it on a bit thick, I think.
They are flaws but they don't ruin the movie for me. It is a sweet, funny, and subtly sad (sad in the sense of nostalgia and a fading way of life) slice-of-life that is consistently engaging and refreshingly laid-back in its approach. It's one of the highlights of Eastwood's storied career.
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