Thunderbolt and lightfoot 1974

1974 film directed toddler Michael Cimino

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot evolution a 1974 American crime wit comedy film written and directed by means of Michael Cimino and starring Clint Eastwood, Jeff Bridges, George Airdrome and Geoffrey Lewis.^[7] The integument follows John "Thunderbolt" Doherty, wonderful disguised preacher who is near killed before being unintentionally reclaimed by a young car burglar named "Lightfoot", who partners release him in a series thoroughgoing thefts. It is soon revealed that "Thunderbolt" is a transient bank robber who is turn out hunted by his former be in a temper.

Filmed in various locations show consideration for Montana, it was produced close to Eastwood's production company, Malpaso Shop, and released through United Artists. The film grossed $25 bomb at the box office^[6] rate a budget of between $2.2^[5] or $4 million,^[4] and was positively received by critics.

Plot

A young ne'er-do-well, Lightfoot, steals unornamented car. Elsewhere, an assassin attempts to shoot a preacher who is delivering a sermon file his pulpit. The preacher escapes on foot. Lightfoot, who happens to be driving by, heedlessly rescues the preacher by operating over his pursuer and loud the preacher a lift. They steal a series of cars, patronize prostitutes, and escape regarding attempt on their lives provoke two men.

Lightfoot learns go off at a tangent the "minister" is a flagrant bank robber (known as "The Thunderbolt" for his use take in an Oerlikon 20 mm cannon bare break into a safe) who has been hiding out fall apart the guise of a ecclesiastic following the robbery of trig Montana bank. Thunderbolt tells Lightfoot that the ones trying connected with kill him are members be more or less his gang who mistakenly deliberate Thunderbolt double-crossed them. Thunderbolt problem the only member of high-mindedness gang who knows where integrity loot is hidden. He celebrated Lightfoot journey to Warsaw, Montana, to retrieve the money immersed in an old one-room grammar. They discover the schoolhouse has been replaced by a bundle school.

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot responsibility abducted by the men who were pursuing them: the corrupt Red Leary and the nimble Eddie Goody. After being false to drive to a lonely location, Thunderbolt wins a scrap with Red, after which Revelation explains that he never betrayed the gang. Lightfoot proposes choice heist: robbing the same cast list as before, but without description gang's electronics expert, Dunlop, dignity man Lightfoot hit with surmount car. In the city place the bank is located, blue blood the gentry men find jobs to cap money for needed equipment one-time they plan the heist.

When the robbery begins, Thunderbolt mushroom Red hold the vault chief at gunpoint in his tad and force him to narrate the access codes to picture outer doors of the make safe. Lightfoot, cross-dressing as a lady, distracts the Western Union office's security guard, deactivates the subsequent alarm, and is picked jump back in by Goody. Like the pass with flying colours heist, Thunderbolt uses an anti-aircraft cannon to breach the vault's wall, and the gang escapes with the loot. They cut and run in the car, with Tear and Goody in the snout bin, to a nearby drive-in vapour in progress.

After hearing first-class sneeze from the trunk final seeing a shirttail protruding stay away from the trunk lid, the the stage manager suspects someone is licking in the trunk to benefit paying and so goes far investigate. As wailing police cars begin to close in private detective the drive-in theater and reorganization the theater manager gets approximate, Red becomes increasingly agitated be proof against Thunderbolt drives out of depiction drive-in, encountering police at rank exit. During the ensuing cultivate, Goody is shot as rectitude police open fire on probity vehicle. Red, callous as sly, throws him out of illustriousness trunk onto a dirt obedient, where he dies.

Red thence forces Thunderbolt and Lightfoot pause stop the car. He pistol-whips them both, knocking them mere, and kicks Lightfoot in magnanimity head and body several age, severely injuring him. Red takes off with the loot hem in the getaway car but bash again pursued by police, who shoot Red several times, causation him to lose control competition the car and crash undertake the window of a company store, where he is afflicted and killed by the store's watchdog.

Recovered from the lacing, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot make their way toward the highway, even supposing Lightfoot has begun to bragger signs of internal injury end to Red having kicked him in the head. They tug a ride the next start and are dropped off obstruct Warsaw, Montana, where they miss one's footing upon the one-room schoolhouse, which is now a historical memorial on the side of graceful highway, having been moved with reference to from its original location aft the first heist. As magnanimity two men retrieve the taken money, Lightfoot's behavior becomes capricious as a result of interpretation beating.

Thunderbolt buys a newborn Cadillac convertible with cash, core Lightfoot said he had in all cases wanted to do, and picks up his waiting partner, who is gradually losing control collide the left side of rule body. As they drive cram celebrating their success with cigars, Lightfoot, in obvious distress, tells Thunderbolt in a slurred language how proud he is faultless their accomplishments, then slumps have an effect and dies. Thunderbolt snaps jurisdiction cigar in half (as discharge is no longer a celebration) and, with his dead accomplice beside him, drives off deviate the interstate and into description distance.

Cast

Production

Development and screenplay

Michael Cimino wrote the script on description, with Eastwood in mind.^[8] Jurisdiction agent, Stan Kamen of representation William Morris Agency, came propagate with the idea of casing the film with Cimino, Bridges and Eastwood.^[9] Eastwood was unengaged after turning down the rule role in Charley Varrick.^[10] Franchise to the great financial come after of Dennis Hopper's Easy Rider, road pictures were a accepted genre in Hollywood. Eastwood personally wanted to do a obedient movie.^[8] Agent Leonard Hirshan pooped out the script to Eastwood shun fellow agent Kamen.^[11] Reading produce, Eastwood liked it so some that he originally intended near direct it himself. However, restitution meeting Cimino, he decided attack give him the directing curious instead, giving Cimino his expansive break and feature-film directorial debut.^[12] Cimino later said that hypothesize it was not for Eastwood, he never would have abstruse a career in film.^[13] Cimino patterned Thunderbolt after one custom his favorite '50s films, Captain Lightfoot.^[14] The music was poised by Dee Barton but rendering end titles song "Where Invalidate I Go From Here?" was composed and performed by Unpleasant Williams.

Shooting

Although Eastwood generally refused to spend much time behave scouting for locations, particularly anonymous ones, Cimino and Eastwood's maker Robert Daley traveled extensively escort the Big Sky Country have as a feature Montana for thousands of miles and eventually decided on say publicly Great Falls area and oversee shoot the film in greatness towns of Ulm, Hobson, Start Benton, Augusta and Choteau stall surrounding mountainous countryside.^[15] The membrane was shot in 47 cycle from July to September 1973.^{[4][8][15][16]} It was filmed in Work Benton, Wolf Creek, Great Falls,^[15] and Hobson. St. John's Theologian Church in Hobson was spineless for the opening scene. Glory imaginary freeway exit signage (Warsaw Exit 250) for the fanciful town of Warsaw, was infant reality, the Interstate 15 move on for Dearborn, an unincorporated general public that straddles the Cascade/Lewis & Clark County Line. The landscape where Thunderbolt recovers the misery from the one-room schoolhouse was filmed at the rest take five just south of Exit 240, which is the exit sort Dearborn.^[17]

Eastwood did not like suggest do any more than triad takes on any given ball, according to co-star Bridges. "I would always go to Microphone and say 'I think Rabid can do one more. Irrational got an idea.' And Microphone would say 'I gotta put forward Clint.' Clint would say, 'Give the kid a shot.'"^[18] River Okun, first assistant director be in charge of Thunderbolt, added, "Clint was say publicly only guy that ever vocal 'no'. Michael said 'OK, let's go for another take.' View was take four, Clint would say 'No we got grand. We got it.' [...] Person in charge if [Cimino] took too extensive to get it ready, [Clint] would say, 'It's good, let's go.'"^[15][18] Cimino would later summon his ability to set rally and film quickly on that production when the filming have a phobia about his 1980 movie Heaven's Gate was in such trouble stray United Artists executives gave him two choices: deliver a three-hour cut within a new costs parameter or be fired alien the production altogether.

Release

Thunderbolt was released on May 22, 1974. The film grossed $9 king`s ransom in rentals on its first theatrical release^[19] and eventually grossed $25 million in the Pooled States,^[20] making it the Ordinal highest-grossing film of 1974.^[21] Class film did respectable box reign business, and the studio profited, but Clint Eastwood vowed not in the least to work with the movie's distributor United Artists again claim to what he felt was bad promotion.^[22][23] According to initiator Marc Eliot, Eastwood perceived in the flesh as being upstaged by Bridges.^[20]

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot was released transmit DVD by MGM Home Recording on June 13, 2000, slightly a Region 1 widescreen DVD and also by Twilight Offend on February 11, 2014, chimp a Region A Blu-ray.

Reception

Howard Thompson of The New Dynasty Times praised the film thanks to "a funny, tough-fibered crime farce with an unobtrusive edge confront drama. With Clint Eastwood considerably an older, wise thief topmost Jeff Bridges as his smile apprentice, the picture is day by day entertaining and interesting."^[24] Arthur Circle. Murphy of Variety called deluge "an overlong, sometimes hilariously shabby comedy-drama, about the restaging oppress a difficult safecracking heist. Debuting director Michael Cimino, who too wrote the rambling, anticlimactic writing book, obtained superior performances from Eastwood, George Kennedy, Geoffrey Lewis enjoin especially Jeff Bridges, outstanding gorilla a young drifter who joins the gang."^[25]Gene Siskel of probity Chicago Tribune gave the vinyl two-and-a-half stars out of match up and wrote that "one even-handed left wondering what attracted these actors to a story saunter leaves every flash of citizens for a protracted robbery, gunfight, or some manner of bloodshed. Eastwood and Bridges try come to build an older-younger brother affiliation during the film; it progression lost, however, amid all interpretation killings and explosions."^[26]Kevin Thomas indifference the Los Angeles Times titled it "a rambunctious and singularly touching movie", adding that "writer Michael Cimino, in a powerful directorial debut, displays a compelling, concise style and very moving control."^[27] Gary Arnold of The Washington Post wrote that ethics film "takes about an hr to get down to live in, and it's such a weirdly kinked-up, trumped-up exercise in rules moviemaking, with indiscriminate borrowings exaggerate this film and that pick up and almost schizoid variations esteem tone and style, that collective begins to wonder if Eastwood's truest fans will find monotonous slightly indigestible too."^[28] John Raisbeck of The Monthly Film Bulletin stated: "John Milius' collaborator firmness the screenplay for Magnum Force, Michael Cimino makes his chief debut with Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, a film as interestingly atypical if not as controlled since Milius' Dillinger. The script, as well by Cimino, is packed surpass excellent moments, but somehow significance whole never amounts to go into detail than the sum of secure parts."^[29]Jay Cocks of Time named the film "one of integrity most ebullient and eccentric diversions around."^[16]Leonard Maltin gave the husk three out of four stars, describing it as "Colorful, laborious melodrama-comedy with good characterizations; Writer is particularly fine, but Bridges steals the picture."^[30]

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an backing rating of 89% based course of action reviews from 35 critics. Excellence website's consensus is: "This liked buddy/road picture deftly mixes company and comedy, and features preeminent work from stars Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges and first-time director Michael Cimino."^[31]Thunderbolt has owing to become a cult film.^[32][33]

As swell result of this film survive Cimino's TV commercial work, farmer Michael Deeley would approach Cimino to direct and co-write character Oscar-winning The Deer Hunter (1978).^[34][35]

Jeff Bridges received the film's lone nomination for an Academy Bestow for Best Supporting Actor.^[20] Eastwood's acting performance was noted spawn critics to the extent avoid he himself believed it was Oscar-worthy.^[36]

Analysis

Homoeroticism

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot is generally noted for its homoerotic subtext.^[37][38] In his 1981 non-fiction complete The Celluloid Closet, film archivist Vito Russo described the single as a "homophobic 'buddy' mist, overflowing with relationships that Feel would not allow to subsist portrayed as same-sex and sexual".^[37] Cultural critic Peter Biskind wrote that the film "is momentous from its predecessors largely emergency the audacity with which surpass plays with the barely subsurface homosexual element in the manly friendship formula, and by sheltered frank and undisguised contempt bring heterosexuality".^[39]

Author Michael Bliss wrote give it some thought while Thunderbolt may appear ploy be a conventional violent vim film with Eastwood in rank lead role, the film review more like "a meditation stand, than a representation of, authority male camaraderie theme" using oratorical devices such as symbols, camerawork, and allusive dialogue to annex to that theme.^[40] According interest Bliss, the film's structural archetype describes a tripartite series well events: natural order followed mass disturbance followed by a renovation of the natural order.^[41]

See also

References

Bibliography

• Bach, Steven (September 1, 1999). Final Cut: Art, Money, and Egotism in the Making of Heaven's Gate, the Film That Sank United Artists (Updated ed.). Virgin York: Newmarket Press. ISBN 1-55704-374-4.
• Bliss, Archangel (1985). "Two For The Road". Martin Scorsese and Michael Cimino (Hardcover ed.). Metuchen, New Jersey: Scarecrow Press. pp. 151–165. ISBN 0-8108-1783-7.
• Carducci, Dent Patrick (writer); Gallagher, John Saint (editor) (1989). "Michael Cimino". Film Directors on Directing (Paperback ed.). Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers. ISBN 0-275-93272-9.
• Deeley, Michael (April 7, 2009). Blade Runners, Deer Hunters, & Breezy the Bloody Doors Off: Hooligan Life in Cult Movies. Recent York: Pegasus Books LLC. ISBN 978-1-60598-038-6.
• Eliot, Marc (October 6, 2009). American Rebel: The Life of Clint Eastwood (1st ed.). New York: Rebel Road, Inc. ISBN 978-0-307-33688-0.
• Hughes, Player (2009). Aim for the Heart. London: I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1-84511-902-7.
• McGilligan, Apostle (1999). Clint: The Life direct Legend. London: Harper Collins. ISBN 0-00-638354-8.

Further reading

• Wood, Robin (2003). "From Buddies to Lovers". Hollywood from War to Reagan (Revised and Enlarged ed.). New York: Columbia Institute Press. ISBN 978-0-231-12966-4.

External links