Every Which Way But Loose

Right turn Clyde. Every Which Way But Loose was on TV last night. The Clint Eastwood comedy where the funniest thing in the movie is the idea that Sondra Locke could actually act much less sing. Kids; if you grow up to be a big movie star, don't put your girlfriend or boyfriend in your movies just because you can. Anyway this is a movie I fondly remember. I was into the whole trucker/redneck/working class thing as a child since that was the environment I grew up in. Heck; I wanted to be a trucker for awhile. I saw this film the night it was released in 1978 at the Martin Twin in Jackson Heights Plaza. It wasn't planned which is perhaps why I remember it so well. My mother and I just happened to run into my cousin (technically 1st cousin once removed) Freddy and his parents and I talked my way into staying to see the movie. Freddy and I sat on the front row. Which was unprecedented for me. The screen was huge. And it was soon filled with beer drinking, cussing, fighting, Ruth Gordon (God bless her), and the most amazing sight: an orangutan named Clyde. He was the perfect pal. I wanted one! He was by far the star of the show. Eastwood held his own against him, especially with the fight scenes, but the show really belonged to Clyde. Which is why I was predisposed to the Librarian in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series being one of my favorite characters. Does the movie hold up? Sure. I've never been too keen on the overt cartoonish aspects of the Black Widows biker gang, but they are as unthreatening as most current yuppie biker gangs albeit wearing much cheaper clothes. Most the country is still strongly working class even if bar fighting and bare knuckle brawling will most likely get you thrown in the slammer and facing lawsuits instead of admiration from your peers. I did have some long spontaneous thing in my head about working class versus my white collar (former) life, but haven't had time to really formulate it. So this is it for now.