Review of The Gauntlet (1977) by Michael W — 14 Jun 2010

Clint Eastwood?s sixth directorial effort ?The Gauntlet? qualifies as an outlandish, audacious, unbelievable, but thoroughly entertaining contemporary crime melodrama about a lackluster Phoenix detective sent to Las Vegas to bring back a ?nothing witness for a nothing trial.? Clint Eastwood stars as Ben Shockley with the Phoenix Police Department. Shockley is far from being the model policeman. In fact, his superiors are hoping that his fair-to-middling record as a cop will make him the perfect choice. You see corrupt individuals in the Phoenix Police Department are banking that their hired killers can eliminate both Shockley and the witness before they leave Las Vegas. The first surprise for Shockley is that his prisoner isn?t a man called Gus Mally, but a woman called Augustina Mally (Sondra Locke of ?The Outlaw Josey Wales?). Mally is a prostitute and she doesn?t like Shockley the minute that he lays eyes on her. Repeatedly, Mally tells Shockley that they don?t have a chance. Shockley checks the betting line on the name of horse called Mally-No-Show as part of the tenth race with incredible odds against winning. The odds keep going up against them.

Eventually, our slow-witted protagonist figures out that everybody from the Las Vegas Police to his own men-in-blue as well as a gang of bikers are out to kill both Mally and himself. Shockley and Mally survive several ?North By Northwest? style attempts on their lives before our hero commandeers a bus, covers it in armor and runs it through a gauntlet of Phoenix cops to the courthouse where he takes Mally for the court date. The villains try to kill Shockley on the steps of the courthouse. Mally kills the cop that tries to ice Shockley. During their time together dodging killers of all kinds, Shockley falls in love with Mally and plans to marry her. Eastwood keeps the action moving along at a steady pace as his hero struggles to figure out who is trying to kill him and his prisoner. Incidentally, although he is armed with a revolver, Shockley never shoots anybody! The improbable Michael Butler and Dennis Shryack screenplay comes with plenty of reversals and gritty humor. One of the interesting peripheral visual humor bits is the recurring use of billboards to cap off a scene. Another running gag is Shockley recurring use of the phrase "Nag, nag, nag" whenever Mally bothers him about details. ?The Gauntlet? has one of those opposites-attract romances like the classic road picture ?It Happened One Night.?

?The Gauntlet? opens at dawn as Ben Shockley (Clint Eastwood) leaves a lounge and cruises across town to police headquarters. As he is climbing out of his car, the whiskey bottle in his lap hit the street and shatters. Inside police headquarters, Shockley?s former partner for fifteen years, Josephson (Pat Hingle of ?Hang?em Hang?), struggles to spruce Shockley up before he meets with police commissioner. Phoenix Police Commissioner Blakelock (William Prince of ?Objective, Burma?) assigns him to fly to Las Vegas and pick up a prisoner. Shockley observes that he belongs to Metro Squad, and Blakelock tells him that he has every confidence in our hero?s ability to carry out the mission. ?Your division commander says you?re a man who gets the job done.? Before Shockley leaves Blakelock?s office, Blakelock advises him to shave because he represents the Phoenix Police Department. Shockley describes the assignment to Josephson as ?a two-bit witness for a two-bit trial. It doesn?t take long for the irony of the situation (as well as the entire movie) to sink in. The witness turns out to be a bombshell both for Shockley and the Phoenix Police Department. Shockley takes off for Las Vegas on a Hughes Air West jetliner.

When Shockley arrives at the Las Vegas Police Department, he is surprised to learn that his prisoner is a woman, not a man! When Augustina Mally gets her first glimpse of Shockley, she isn?t impressed. ?Terrific! My life on the line and they send me an on-the-ropes bum.? Shockley isn?t impressed with Mally. ?See we?ve got a problem, you and me. We don?t like each other much, but we have to take a trip together. Now, you can be a pain in the ass. But I?m warning you, you mess around, I?ll put the cuffs on you. If you try to run, I?ll shoot you.? Eventually, Shockley has to transport her from the jail in an ambulance strapped down to a stretcher. They rendezvous with a car that the cops have left for them. One of the ambulance attendants cranks up the car and it explodes. A carload of killers pursue Shockley and Mally and they elude them and sneak off to Mally?s house. Shockley calls Blakelock and he alerts the Las Vegas Police, but somebody delivers the wrong message. The Las Vegas police arrive, but they have been told a different story about Shockley and literally blast Mally?s stucco house until it collapses. A tunnel enables Mally and Shockley to escape the barrage of gunfire.