Play Misty for Me (1971)
Directed by Clint Eastwood
A brief fling between a late-night radio disc jockey and an obsessed female fan takes a frightening turn when another woman enters the picture.
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What critics compared Play Misty for Me to
It’s the kind of film people talk about after they watch it, and its themes have been infamously copied in numerous cinematic interpretations since, including, Mr. Vincent , A Thin Line Between Love and Hate, The Crush and even Scream , while the story actually stems from Clint Eastwood ’s Play Misty For Me and co-writer James Dearden’s original British short film.
The throaty voice calling nightly to make the titular request takes the form of Jessica Walter, who begins as the latest in a string of one-nighters but quickly and ferociously comes to embody the memorable title of J. Hoberman's Fatal Attraction review ("The Other, Woman").
Eastwood totally convinces as DJ Dave Garver, rejecting a fan (Jessica Walter) after a one-night stand only to discover that she's determined to keep him whatever the cost - and all this 16 years before Fatal Attraction.
You can probably imagine the general direction of Knock Knock’s story going in, particularly if you’ve ever seen Play Misty for Me or the aforementioned Fatal Attraction (or Polanski’s Death and the Maiden, for that matter).
I was also reminded that Eastwood's directorial debut, Play Misty for Me, was greeted with cries of "drive-in movie" when it was shown at Cannes, and indeed, Million Dollar Baby comes off as something like a pretentious drive-in movie.
The 74-year-old Clint Eastwood ("Play Misty For Me"-1971, the first film he directed) directs, stars, produces, and writes the score for this brilliant drama about boxing, unlikely friendships, and redemption.
And, following his directing debut, "Play Misty for Me," he began to grow as a filmmaker.
There are elements of Seven, Phone Booth, Cube, Play Misty for Me, and Kiss the Girls (which, incidentally, starred Elwes) in Saw.
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Sully fits nicely alongside Eastwood’s recent run of films showing the process whereby images and narratives of heroism and romantic longing are manufactured and marketed, something which runs through such otherwise disparate works as Flags, Invictus, J. Edgar, and Jersey Boys—though the same preoccupation can be found functioning much further back in Eastwood’s corpus, in titles like White Hunter Black Heart, Bronco Billy, or even directorial debut Play Misty for Me, a thriller set into motion by a woman’s inability to separate a nighttime DJ’s smooth line of on-air bullshit from the flesh-and-blood man.
Those stories, known as Mystic River, Unforgiven, Play Misty for Me, Bird, and Million Dollar Baby are when Eastwood is most memorable as a filmmaker.
The first film he directed was Play Misty for Me (1971), and you can sense psychological stress on his characters through his many films.
Clint Eastwood has spent much of his forty-plus-year directing career grappling with issues of violence, "Play Misty for Me" to "Unforgiven" to "Million Dollar Baby."
They are the arguments in a filmography that represents a decadeslong inquisition into the attractions and consequences of bloodletting and brutality, on levels that range from the intimate and personal (“Play Misty for Me”) to the public and political and global (“Letters from Iwo Jima”).
Since “Unforgiven” — and arguably even as early as the first film he directed, the proto-“Fatal Attraction” shocker “Play Misty for Me” — Clint Eastwood has been deconstructing his onscreen persona and all the questionable vigilante business it represents.
Since his directorial debut in 1971 with Play Misty for Me , Clint Eastwood has managed to convince a lot of otherwise discerning people that his plodding, juiceless movies—which manage to be simultaneously laid-back and heavy-handed—are the work of a daring auteur with a strong moral vision.
From the victim of the sexual revolution in "Play Misty for Me" to the superannuated gunfighters and obsolete values of "Unforgiven," his movies always seem to be about Men with a capital M. With "Mystic River," Eastwood considers, not for the first time, the cardinal values of loyalty and guilt and shame and strength as they play out against the male tribal culture of violence and emotional repression; the results are explosive, heartbreaking, tragic on a Shakespearean scale.
Apparently having taken plenty of notes while making movies for directors Sergio Leone and Don Siegel, Clint Eastwood made his own directorial debut with 1971's Play Misty for Me and followed that by helming his first Western behind the camera.
Clint Eastwood ("Play Misty for Me"-1971), in his second directorial attempt, offers a loving farewell to the Sergio Leone western (Leone made him a star) in this ghostly revenge tale involving a mysterious vengeful nameless gunslinging drifter, who is forcefully played by Eastwood.