Ep. 114: Clint Eastwood – Top 6 Movies
Intro
Hello and Welcome to this episode of the podcast, "The Mnemonic Tree", where we add a single mnemonic leaf to our Tree of Knowledge.
I’m Jans you Mnemonic Man and today's episode is on the man’s man Clint Eastwood. I’ve grown up with Clint Eastwood and my dad’s grown up with Clint Eastwood and to this day in movie history I don’t think there is anyone who’s done more or had a bigger influence on the industry than Clint Eastwood.
He started off with the television series Rawhide way back in 1959 and then rose to stardom with the Sergio Leone trilogy of Spaghetti Westerns, which were “A Fistful of Dollars”, “For a Few Dollars More, and “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”.
Then he played everyone’s favourite tough guy, the cop Harry Callahan who delivered some of the best one-liners in movie history. I encourage you to check it out on YouTube. Along the way, he seamlessly transitioned into directing where he picked up two Academy Awards for best director and another two for best picture. And also directed one of my favourite movies “American Sniper” which is based on a true-life story, to which the poignant ending will leave you numb.
Today’s mnemonic is on Clint Eastwood’s top six movies.
So, with no further ado, we will begin with a summary from Wikipedia.
Wikipedia Summary
Clinton Eastwood Jr. (born May 31, 1930) is an American actor and film director. After achieving success in the Western TV series Rawhide, Eastwood rose to international fame with his role as the "Man with No Name" in Sergio Leone's "Dollars Trilogy" of Spaghetti Westerns during the mid-1960s and as antihero cop Harry Callahan in the five Dirty Harry films throughout the 1970s and 1980s. These roles, among others, have made Eastwood an enduring cultural icon of masculinity.[6][7] Elected in 1986, Eastwood served for two years as the mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California.
His greatest commercial successes are the adventure comedy Every Which Way but Loose (1978) and its action comedy sequel Any Which Way You Can (1980).[8] Other popular Eastwood films include the Westerns Hang 'Em High (1968), The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) and Pale Rider (1985), the action-war film Where Eagles Dare (1968), the prison film Escape from Alcatraz (1979), the war film Heartbreak Ridge (1986), the action film In the Line of Fire (1993), and the romantic drama The Bridges of Madison County (1995). More recent works include Gran Torino (2008), The Mule (2018), and Cry Macho (2021). Since 1967, Eastwood's company Malpaso Productions has produced all but four of his American films.
An Academy Award nominee for Best Actor, Eastwood won Best Director and Best Picture for his Western film Unforgiven (1992) and his sports drama Million Dollar Baby (2004). In addition to directing many of his own star vehicles, Eastwood has also directed films in which he did not appear, such as the mystery drama Mystic River (2003) and the war film Letters from Iwo Jima (2006), for which he received Academy Award nominations. He also directed the biographical films Changeling (2008), Invictus (2009), American Sniper (2014), Sully (2016), and Richard Jewell (2019).
Eastwood's accolades include four Academy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, three César Awards, and an AFI Life Achievement Award. In 2000, he received the Italian Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion award, honoring his lifetime achievements. Bestowed two of France's highest civilian honors, he received the Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1994, and the Legion of Honour in 2007.
Extracted from: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clint_Eastwood]
Mnemonic
Clint Eastwood – Top 6 Movies Mnemonic – DAM TUF
(Picture Clint Eastwood in one of his most iconic roles as the damn tough cop Harry Callahan)
1. Dirty Harry Series
2. A Fistful of Dollars
3. Million Dollar Baby
4. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
5. Unforgiven
6. For a Few Dollars More
Five Fun Facts
1. In the early days Clint Eastwood was a jack of all trades. After graduating high school, he worked as a lumberjack, a forest firefighter, a steel worker, a swimming instructor, and a bouncer on weekends. In between this he was drafted during the Korean War and undertook basic training but was never deployed.
2. Clint Eastwood was a contract player at Universal Studios but was actually fired in 1959. The reasons given to him were that his Adam’s apple stuck out too far, he talked too slow and he had a chipped tooth that he would not fix. In the same year, Burt Reynolds was also fired. The reason he was given was simply “You can’t act!”
3. Clint Eastwood’s big break came with the Spaghetti Westerns Trilogy in the 1960’s. Fortuitously for Eastwood, James Coburn from The Great Escape wanted too much money for the role which was more than the producers could afford and Charles Bronson thought the script was terrible and thus rejected the role.
4. Along with receiving a few breaks Clint Eastwood was also on the other side of the table, turning down parts to play some of the most iconic roles in movie history. Some of these were James Bond after Sean Connery, Superman, John McClane in Die Hard, and Martin Sheen’s character Captain Benjamin L. Willard in Apocalypse Now.
5. Clint Eastwood’s traits in many movies may have been transferred to his directorial style. He only likes to take one shoot, there is no storyboard, no rehearsal, or change of script. He never says “action” as he believes even the horses get nervous, and at the end of each take, he says “Let’s move on” instead of cut. Matt Damon once asked Eastwood for a second take and Eastwood replied “Why, so you can waste everybody’s time?”. Another time Kevin Costner was a little slow to come out of his trailer so Eastwood just used an extra pretending to be Costner’s character walking through a field and just blurred the vision.
6. Clint Eastwood has a softer and deeper side and has practiced transcendental meditation for over 40 years. He practices twice per day and continues to receive many benefits along with stress reduction.
Apparently, Clint Eastwood is also very religious and has a manifestation mantra he says to God every morning which is “Go ahead, make my day!”
Three Question Quiz
Q.1. Was Clint Eastwood once the mayor of Los Angeles? Is that True or False
Q.2. Did Clint Eastwood win the role of Harry Callahan because Frank Sinatra couldn’t hold a gun? Is that True or False
Q.3. What was Clint Eastwood’s directorial debut? Options are Pale Rider, Play Misty For Me, or The Outlaw Josey Wales
Bonus Q. In which movie does Clint Eastwood’s character die? Options are Hand ‘Em High, For a Few Dollars More, or The Beguiled
Bonus Q. What is Clint Eastwoods production company called?
Bonus Q. How many Oscars has Clint Eastwood won for Best Actor?
Mnemonic Recap
Clint Eastwood – Top 6 Movies Mnemonic – DAM TUF
(Picture Clint Eastwood in one of his most iconic roles as the damn tough cop Harry Callahan)
1. Dirty Harry Series
2. A Fistful of Dollars
3. Million Dollar Baby
4. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
5. Unforgiven
6. For a Few Dollars More
Three Question Quiz Answers
Q.1. Was Clint Eastwood once the mayor of Los Angeles? Is that True or False
A. False. He was the mayor of Carmel-By-The-Sea in California from 1986 to 1988
Q.2. Did Clint Eastwood win the role of Harry Callahan because Frank Sinatra couldn’t hold a gun? Is that True or False
A. True. Sinatra had a broken wrist which also wasn’t helped by the size of the gun
Q.3. What was Clint Eastwood’s directorial debut? Options are Pale Rider, Play Misty For Me, or The Outlaw Josey Wales
A. Play Misty For Me
Bonus Q. In which movie does Clint Eastwood’s character die? Options are Hand ‘Em High, For a Few Dollars More, or The Beguiled
A. The Beguiled
Bonus Q. What is Clint Eastwoods production company called?
A. Malpaso Productions which was the name for a couple of reasons. Firstly, after a creek where he lives and secondly, because Malpaso means “Bad Step” in Spanish, which his agent said it would be for his career if he took the part in Sergio Leone’s spaghetti trilogy.
Bonus Q. How many Oscars has Clint Eastwood won for Best Actor?
A. Zero. He was nominated for Best Actor for “Unforgiven” but did not win
Word of the Week
Brobdingnagian
[ brob-ding-nag-ee-uhn ]
adjective
of huge size; gigantic; tremendous.
Example
In the world of Hollywood Clint Eastwood’s achievements on and off the screen have been Brobdingnagian.
Extracted from: [https://www.dictionary.com/]
https://www.themnemonictreepodcast.com/
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-mnemonic-tree-podcast/id1591795132
https://open.spotify.com/show/3T0LdIJ9PBQMXM3cdKd42Q?si=fqmaN2TNS8qqc7jOEVa-Cw
References
https://collider.com/best-clint-eastwood-movies-ranked/#39-a-fistful-of-dollars-39
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/80551/15-facts-about-clint-eastwood-make-your-day