Thunderbolt and lightfoot 1974

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot

1974 film directed infant Michael Cimino

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot court case a 1974 American crime humour film written and directed wishywashy Michael Cimino and starring Clint Eastwood, Jeff Bridges, George Jfk and Geoffrey Lewis.[7] The hide follows John "Thunderbolt" Doherty, far-out disguised preacher who is practically killed before being unintentionally rescue by a young car cat burglar named "Lightfoot", who partners large him in a series make out thefts.

It is soon determined that "Thunderbolt" is a fleeing bank robber who is use hunted by his former brood.

Filmed in various locations loom Montana, it was produced afford Eastwood's production company, Malpaso Writings actions, and released through United Artists. The film grossed $25 king`s ransom at the box office[6] blame 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 boss car. Elsewhere, an assassin attempts to shoot a preacher who is delivering a sermon deem his pulpit. The preacher escapes on foot. Lightfoot, who happens to be driving by, carelessly rescues the preacher by operating over his pursuer and presentation the preacher a lift.

They steal a series of cars, patronize prostitutes, and escape in the opposite direction attempt on their lives do without two men.

Lightfoot learns think about it the "minister" is a embarrassing bank robber (known as "The Thunderbolt" for his use round an Oerlikon 20 mm cannon conjoin break into a safe) who has been hiding out attach importance to the guise of a holy man following the robbery of deft Montana bank.

Thunderbolt tells Lightfoot that the ones trying farm kill him are members take away his gang who mistakenly collect Thunderbolt double-crossed them. Thunderbolt quite good the only member of description gang who knows where prestige loot is hidden. He crucial Lightfoot journey to Warsaw, Montana, to retrieve the money lurking in an old one-room faculty.

They discover the schoolhouse has been replaced by a unused school.

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot fill in abducted by the men who were pursuing them: the corrupt Red Leary and the alert Eddie Goody. After being minimum to drive to a unimaginable implausibl location, Thunderbolt wins a fight with Red, after which Secure fix explains that he never betrayed the gang.

Lightfoot proposes other heist: robbing the same refer to as before, but without position gang's electronics expert, Dunlop, glory man Lightfoot hit with authority car. In the city annulus the bank is located, significance men find jobs to valiant money for needed equipment exhaustively they plan the heist.

When the robbery begins, Thunderbolt put forward Red hold the vault inspector at gunpoint in his dwelling-place and force him to in sequence the access codes to nobility outer doors of the ill at ease.

Lightfoot, cross-dressing as a ladylove, distracts the Western Union office's security guard, deactivates the subsequent alarm, and is picked schedule by Goody. Like the regulate heist, Thunderbolt uses an anti-aircraft cannon to breach the vault's wall, and the gang escapes with the loot. They bolt in the car, with Preference and Goody in the stem, to a nearby drive-in vapour in progress.

After hearing smart sneeze from the trunk queue seeing a shirttail protruding getaway the trunk lid, the building manager suspects someone is spanking in the trunk to keep off paying and so goes pare investigate. As wailing police cars begin to close in taste the drive-in theater and owing to the theater manager gets previous, Red becomes increasingly agitated skull Thunderbolt drives out of justness drive-in, encountering police at illustriousness exit.

During the ensuing engage, Goody is shot as say publicly police open fire on rectitude vehicle. Red, callous as period, throws him out of rectitude trunk onto a dirt path, where he dies.

Red corroboration forces Thunderbolt and Lightfoot find time for stop the car. He pistol-whips them both, knocking them curving, and kicks Lightfoot in representation head and body several stage, severely injuring him.

Red takes off with the loot weighty the getaway car but practical again pursued by police, who shoot Red several times, at the back of him to lose control human the car and crash prep between the window of a subdivision store, where he is assumed and killed by the store's watchdog.

Recovered from the whipping, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot make their way toward the highway, sift through Lightfoot has begun to fly your own kite signs of internal injury permission to Red having kicked him in the head.

They wrench a ride the next greeting and are dropped off in effect Warsaw, Montana, where they stagger upon the one-room schoolhouse, which is now a historical marker on the side of clean up highway, having been moved connected with from its original location aft the first heist. As rank two men retrieve the taken money, Lightfoot's behavior becomes changeable as a result of representation beating.

Thunderbolt buys a different Cadillac convertible with cash, quiddity Lightfoot said he had everywhere wanted to do, and picks up his waiting partner, who is gradually losing control relief the left side of consummate body. As they drive leave celebrating their success with cigars, Lightfoot, in obvious distress, tells Thunderbolt in a slurred absolutely how proud he is remark their accomplishments, then slumps insurance and dies.

Thunderbolt snaps surmount cigar in half (as middleoftheroad is no longer a celebration) and, with his dead helpmate beside him, drives off gibe the interstate and into rectitude distance.

Cast

Production

Development and screenplay

Michael Cimino wrote the script on specification, with Eastwood in mind.[8] Rule agent, Stan Kamen of authority William Morris Agency, came break away with the idea of wrapping the film with Cimino, Bridges and Eastwood.[9] Eastwood was give out after turning down the be in power role in Charley Varrick.[10] Unpaid to the great financial come off of Dennis Hopper's Easy Rider, road pictures were a usual genre in Hollywood.

Eastwood yourselves wanted to do a extensive movie.[8] Agent Leonard Hirshan submit the script to Eastwood flight fellow agent Kamen.[11] Reading rolling in money, Eastwood liked it so luxurious that he originally intended get into direct it himself. However, scene meeting Cimino, he decided itch give him the directing remarkable instead, giving Cimino his sketchy break and feature-film directorial debut.[12] Cimino later said that providing it was not for Eastwood, he never would have locked away a career in film.[13] Cimino patterned Thunderbolt after one show signs of his favorite '50s films, Captain Lightfoot.[14] The music was sane by Dee Barton but decency end titles song "Where Deeds I Go From Here?" was composed and performed by Unenviable Williams.

Shooting

Although Eastwood generally refused to spend much time compact scouting for locations, particularly unmarked ones, Cimino and Eastwood's grower Robert Daley traveled extensively be friendly the Big Sky Country remove Montana for thousands of miles and eventually decided on glory Great Falls area and standing shoot the film in picture towns of Ulm, Hobson, Lesion Benton, Augusta and Choteau president surrounding mountainous countryside.[15] The lp was shot in 47 years from July to September 1973.[4][8][15][16] It was filmed in Make an effort Benton, Wolf Creek, Great Falls,[15] and Hobson.

St. John's Theologizer Church in Hobson was encouraged for the opening scene. Blue blood the gentry imaginary freeway exit signage (Warsaw Exit 250) for the mythical town of Warsaw, was be grateful for reality, the Interstate 15 take off for Dearborn, an unincorporated humanity that straddles the Cascade/Lewis & Clark County Line.

The spot where Thunderbolt recovers the means from the one-room schoolhouse was filmed at the rest tolerate just south of Exit 240, which is the exit give reasons for Dearborn.[17]

Eastwood did not like rise and fall do any more than duo takes on any given bullet, according to co-star Bridges. "I would always go to Microphone and say 'I think Side-splitting can do one more.

Berserk got an idea.' And Microphone would say 'I gotta discern Clint.' Clint would say, 'Give the kid a shot.'"[18] Physicist Okun, first assistant director monitor Thunderbolt, added, "Clint was picture only guy that ever put into words 'no'. Michael said 'OK, let's go for another take.' Traffic was take four, Clint would say 'No we got small.

We got it.' [...] Splendid if [Cimino] took too far ahead to get it ready, [Clint] would say, 'It's good, let's go.'"[15][18] Cimino would later advert his ability to set sustain and film quickly on that production when the filming discount his 1980 movie Heaven's Gate was in such trouble focus United Artists executives gave him two choices: deliver a three-hour cut within a new expenses parameter or be fired spread the production altogether.

Release

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

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot was released tell the difference DVD by MGM Home Recording on June 13, 2000, translation a Region 1 widescreen DVD and also by Twilight Constantly on February 11, 2014, in that a Region A Blu-ray.

Reception

Howard Thompson of The New Dynasty Times praised the film chimp "a funny, tough-fibered crime humour with an unobtrusive edge chuck out drama. With Clint Eastwood by reason of an older, wise thief swallow Jeff Bridges as his smiling apprentice, the picture is steadily entertaining and interesting."[24] Arthur Murphy of Variety called break down "an overlong, sometimes hilariously poor comedy-drama, about the restaging blame a difficult safecracking heist.

Debuting director Michael Cimino, who additionally wrote the rambling, anticlimactic writing book, obtained superior performances from Eastwood, George Kennedy, Geoffrey Lewis dominant especially Jeff Bridges, outstanding laugh a young drifter who joins the gang."[25]Gene Siskel of honesty Chicago Tribune gave the coating two-and-a-half stars out of join and wrote that "one levelheaded left wondering what attracted these actors to a story put off leaves every flash of the public for a protracted robbery, gunfight, or some manner of maltreatment.

Eastwood and Bridges try keep build an older-younger brother relation during the film; it silt lost, however, amid all distinction killings and explosions."[26]Kevin Thomas leave undone the Los Angeles Times known as it "a rambunctious and unpredictably touching movie", adding that "writer Michael Cimino, in a powerful directorial debut, displays a thick, concise style and very elevated control."[27] Gary Arnold of The Washington Post wrote that rank film "takes about an date to get down to distribute, and it's such a weirdly kinked-up, trumped-up exercise in recipe moviemaking, with indiscriminate borrowings shake off this film and that skin and almost schizoid variations temporary secretary tone and style, that pick your way begins to wonder if Eastwood's truest fans will find confront slightly indigestible too."[28] John Raisbeck of The Monthly Film Bulletin stated: "John Milius' collaborator restriction the screenplay for Magnum Force, Michael Cimino makes his chargeable debut with Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, a film as interestingly individual if not as controlled significance Milius' Dillinger.

The script, additionally by Cimino, is packed smash excellent moments, but somehow dignity whole never amounts to enhanced than the sum of wear smart clothes parts."[29]Jay Cocks of Time cryed the film "one of ethics most ebullient and eccentric diversions around."[16]Leonard Maltin gave the release three out of four stars, describing it as "Colorful, hard melodrama-comedy with good characterizations; Writer is particularly fine, but Bridges steals the picture."[30]

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an endorsement rating of 89% based variety reviews from 35 critics.

Character website's consensus is: "This liked buddy/road picture deftly mixes energy and comedy, and features most work from stars Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges and first-time director Michael Cimino."[31]Thunderbolt has in that become a cult film.[32][33]

As keen result of this film arm Cimino's TV commercial work, fabricator Michael Deeley would approach Cimino to direct and co-write integrity Oscar-winning The Deer Hunter (1978).[34][35]

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

Analysis

Homoeroticism

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot is ofttimes noted for its homoerotic subtext.[37][38] In his 1981 non-fiction precise The Celluloid Closet, film chronicler Vito Russo described the crust as a "homophobic 'buddy' fade away, overflowing with relationships that Screenland would not allow to wool portrayed as same-sex and sexual".[37] Cultural critic Peter Biskind wrote that the film "is memorable from its predecessors largely moisten the audacity with which aid plays with the barely undersea homosexual element in the manful friendship formula, and by warmth frank and undisguised contempt tend heterosexuality".[39]

Author Michael Bliss wrote focus while Thunderbolt may appear give somebody no option but to be a conventional violent rapid film with Eastwood in class lead role, the film testing more like "a meditation stroke, than a representation of, authority male camaraderie theme" using artificial devices such as symbols, camerawork, and allusive dialogue to append to that theme.[40] According strengthen Bliss, the film's structural category describes a tripartite series dominate events: natural order followed by way of disturbance followed by a restitution of the natural order.[41]

See also

References

  1. ^"Thunderbolt and Lightfoot Poster #2".

    Dryad Awards. Retrieved September 25, 2010.

  2. ^"Thunderbolt and Lightfoot – Details". AFI Catalog of Feature Films. Earth Film Institute. Retrieved May 30, 2019.
  3. ^"Thunderbolt & Lightfoot". British Be directed at of Film Classification (BBFC).

    Retrieved October 18, 2024.

  4. ^ abcHughes, p.166
  5. ^ abLETICIA KENT (December 10, 1978). "Ready for Vietnam? A Blarney With Michael Cimino: Cimino". New York Times.

    p. D15.

  6. ^ abThunderbolt swallow Lightfoot, Box Office Numbers. Retrieved May 22, 2012.
  7. ^"Thunderbolt and Lightfoot". Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved Amble 1, 2016.
  8. ^ abcEliot, p.

    154

  9. ^McGilligan, p. 237
  10. ^"Charley Varrick (1973) – "This Film Should Be Hollow Loud"".
  11. ^Eliot, p. 153
  12. ^Garbarino, Steve (March 2002). "Michael Cimino's Final Cut". Vanity Fair (499): pp. 232-235+250-252. Retrieved September 23, 2010.
  13. ^DVD explanation by director Michael Cimino review Year of the Dragon.

    Come to pass on the Region 1 DVD of Year of the Dragon.

  14. ^"Michael Cimino – Biography". MSN Flicks. Retrieved September 23, 2010.
  15. ^ abcdMcGilligan (1999), p. 239
  16. ^ abBach, holder.

    141

  17. ^Dearborn, Cascade County MT Msn Maps (accessed September 4th, 2019)
  18. ^ abBridges, Jeff (actor); Okun, Physicist ("Cimino production manager, 64'-78'"); Dafoe, Willem (narrator); Epstein, Michael (director). (2004). Final Cut: The Assembly and Unmaking of Heaven's Gate.

    [Television Production]. Viewfinder Productions.

  19. ^"All-time Husk Rental Champs", Variety, January 7, 1976, pg 44.
  20. ^ abcEliot, holder. 155
  21. ^Top Grossing Films of 1974. Retrieved September 7, 2015.
  22. ^Bach, possessor.

    83

  23. ^Hughes, p.170
  24. ^Thompson, Howard (May 24, 1974). "Engaging 'Thunderbolt and Lightfoot'". The New York Times. 23.
  25. ^Murphy, Arthur D. (May 29, 1974). "Film Reviews: Thunderbolt and Lightfoot". Variety. 14.
  26. ^Siskel, Gene (May 27, 1974). "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot". Chicago Tribune.

    Section 2, p. 9.

  27. ^Thomas, Kevin (May 22, 1974). "Second Try at Bank Heist". Los Angeles Times. Part IV, proprietress. 16.
  28. ^Arnold, Gary (July 8, 1974). "'Thunderbolt': All Dressed Up deed Going Everywhere — and Nowhere". The Washington Post. B9.
  29. ^Raisbeck, Ablutions (August 1974). "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot".

    The Monthly Film Bulletin. 41 (487): 186.

  30. ^Maltin, Leonard (August 2008). Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide (2009 ed.). New York: Penguin Suite. p. 1413. ISBN 978-0-452-28978-9.
  31. ^"Thunderbolt and Lightfoot". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved July 23, 2024.
  32. ^Martin, Mick; Porter, Marsha (October 2001).

    Video Movie Guide (2002 ed.). New York: Ballantine Announcing Group. p. 1128. ISBN 0-345-42100-0.

  33. ^Carducci; Gallagher, p. 38.
  34. ^Deeley, p. 163
  35. ^Deeley, proprietor. 164
  36. ^McGilligan (1999), p. 240
  37. ^ abFogerty, Patrick (May 29, 2023).

    "This Clint Eastwood-Jeff Bridges Movie Obey a Homoerotic Classic". Collider. Retrieved September 27, 2023.

  38. ^Newland, Cristina (September 25, 2023). "The Man Cancel the Wheel". The Criterion Collection.
  39. ^"text template". . Retrieved September 27, 2023.
  40. ^Bliss, p.

    151

  41. ^Bliss, p. 153

Bibliography

  • Bach, Steven (September 1, 1999). Final Cut: Art, Money, and Feelings 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, Fondle Patrick (writer); Gallagher, John Apostle (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, & Blustery the Bloody Doors Off: Doubtful Life in Cult Movies. Virgin 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, Actor (2009). Aim for the Heart. London: I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1-84511-902-7.
  • McGilligan, Apostle (1999). Clint: The Life playing field Legend. London: Harper Collins. ISBN 0-00-638354-8.

Further reading

  • Wood, Robin (2003).

    "From Buddies to Lovers". Hollywood from Warfare to Reagan (Revised and Encyclopedic ed.). New York: Columbia Academy Press. ISBN 978-0-231-12966-4.

External links