Review of Play Misty for Me (1971) by Cassandra M — 25 Apr 2009

In the early 70's Clint Eastwood was very anxious to direct a movie of his own and the producers gave him the opportunity to do so with one simple condition: he wouldn't be receiving a paycheck from his work. Eastwood accepted this offer eagerly, directed "Play Misty for me" and the rest is, as we all know, movie history. "Play Misty for me" is a modest little thriller but it's more effective than a thousand electric shocks. Plot is rather simple but quite spectacular and Clint had the talent to tell it in a real exciting, stylish, strong, gripping and entertaining way. If someone's claiming that the story could never happen in reality I can only answer that it's impossible for me to agree. I actually used to date a girl who was annoyingly lot like Jessica Walter's Evelyn. More realistic the movie feels like, more powerful the experience obviously is and to me this film was almost frightfully realistic. Acting is superb. Eastwood's delivers a fantastic performance as Dave Garver and Jessica Walter is insanely great. One of the most sympathetic details of "Play Misty for me" is the fact that Clint gave a small supporting role of Murphy the bartender to his dearest friend and mentor Don Siegel.

Siegel himself directed Clint in five movie classics: "Coogan's bluff", "Two mules for sister Sara", "The Beguiled", "Dirty Harry" and "Escape from Alcatraz". In the famous scene Dave Garver and Murphy are playing an absurd game called "Cry Bastion". Clint admitted in the DVD documentary that there's no such game at all - they were just fooling around and improvising the game while playing it and that makes the scene twice as amusing. I adore almost every moment of "Play Misty for me" but unfortunately somewhere in the middle of the film there's couple of totally unnecessary sequences. Other one is like an overromantic music video of a song "First time ever I saw your face" and afterwards there's a scene that makes the movie look more like a jazz festival documentary than a serious thriller and it needlessly breaks the excitement. Without those two scenes I would give "Play Misty for me" 10 out of 10. But now I'll have to settle with "only" 4 and a half. "Play Misty for me" started Eastwood's directorial career and it still remains to be one of the most powerful motion picture debuts acting director has ever made. It is such a terrific and marvelous suspense film it's almost touching to watch. This movie is an adorable classic and after 21 movies Clint has directed since, "Play Misty for me" has definitely place in the better half.