Sam D Having grown up near the settings of this film, and during its year, 1973, I always like to see LA, as it was, not the way it is today. Many of you have commented on both the silliness of the plot,and that it did not look genuine, and that is true. Miss.Lenz plays an uncanny and absolutely flawless portrayal of young women of LA, particularly of the Canyon. So genuine is her portrayal of this, that it does add to the film's authentic side.Mr Holden's overall acting, is great,and the footage of LA, in the early 70s,is fantastic, and relevant. I would not exactly call Breezy a hippie girl, due to the fact that 1973, was the absolute last shred of that culture, and the concept of Angelinos as actual hippies, is debatable. She is sweet, yet entirely deceptive, and quick to judge people. We were horrified at the nude scenes, not knowing this in advance, and fast forwarded them, plus it did not make for anything accurate. I did not care for the characterization of all the middle aged women. Disturbing, in that there is no love shown; way too much age difference, and a bizarre personality of Breezy's character. But good acting by both, and a real period piece.

secondtake Breezy (1973)Never mind the Clint Eastwood penchant for having old men sleep with young women. This is a fairly nuanced story about exactly that problem—and it's a problem on one level or another when two people fall in love who are very different in age.It also helps that veteran, 54 year old actor William Holden pulls off a delicate, charming, perfectly grumpy performance as the older guy—someone with a beautiful house in the hills near Hollywood, but where he won't be found floating dead in the pool at the end, or the beginning. Yes, this is the Holden of "Sunset Blvd." It feels odd to remind people (some of you) about an actor who was once, briefly, both a screen idol and an box office success. His rocky career never quite reached its intended peak, but there are some really fine roles he took on with surprising ease and sincerity. This is one of them.The young woman in this case is Kay Lenz, a little known actress (19 at the time) with some television and a tiny part in "American Graffiti" under her belt before the director pulled her in for this role, which fits her like a glove. The very naive purity of the character is exactly what this actress seems to actually have in excess. When she meets Holden early in the film, they are exactly opposites—except that they are both deep down very kind. And so the differences become ways to learn and grow— especially for the old man, who doesn't quite get the hippie mentality for its better sides.The plot actually fits into a few clichés a little too easily, and overall it's a bit simple. The details around the couple—her friends and his—are tossed in like peanuts on the ice cream, and the movie is worse for it. Holden is meant to struggle with being, on the surface, a kind of child molester, but it is carried only in his face, not in the external conversations. (Luckily this is enough.) The utter naiveté of Lenz's girl, named Breezy, leaves us with less to do inside her head, which is too bad because she seems smart and street smart, both. There was more here by far than gets plumbed.Another aspect that makes this worth watching is the feeling of 1970 or so in the overall scenario. (The movie was filmed in 1972 but the hippies, and the clash of cultures, feels a couple years earlier.) Unlike some movies where the mis-en-scene feels timeless from this New Hollywood period ("Five Easy Pieces" perhaps), this movie is particularly dated, and that might be a good thing. It's so much about the era, and a product of it, that is drips with symbols from the time. It also drips with sappy folk-rock music for a soundtrack, which is a product of the time and of Eastwood's lifelong attempt to make music in his movies pull from "real music" including his own compositions. It's a distraction here.Despite all the gaffes and shortcomings, "Breezy" is really worth watching for all that works, especially the shimmering, contrasting main characters.

Baron Ronan Doyle Ever the Eastwood fan, I came to Breezy as a lover of the director's modern work, not very familiar with his earliest efforts. With his career as a major star still in relatively early days, it was interesting that he should opt not to cross in front of the camera as with his first two helmed films.A free spirited counter-cultural youth, Breezy is a girl who cruises through life with whatever resources she can manage to encounter. Fleeing the car of a man attempting to take sexual advantage of her, she finds herself at the home of middle-aged real-estate agent Frank Harmon, and each gradually comes to be attracted to the other.A man becoming ever more known for his roles as tough western heroes, Eastwood's decision to direct a film that he not only would not star in, but would be a romance, must have come as a surprise to many. His debut, Play Misty for Me, was of course a romance film of a sort in itself, and one which Eastwood safely captained, cementing his position as a top emerging director as well as a star capable of taking on more than just one set type of role. Nevertheless, the concept of something like Breezy coming from someone like Clint can't help but encourage one to raise an eyebrow. First things first: the leads. A well-known star in the autumn of his career, William Holden was at this time no stranger to roles as romantic lead, though his age had seen few of these roles come his way in recent years. Her first significant role, Kay Lenz was almost entirely unknown, a young girl faced with the monumental task of sharing the stage with one of Old Hollywood's biggest stars. Both rise to the task expertly, the respective cynicism of age and vibrancy of youth combining to create a wonderful chemistry wherein you completely buy the slow romance of these wholly different people. Frank is a functional member of society—albeit a divorced, lonely, and embittered one—while Breezy seems to stand entirely against it. Her clothing is colourful and lively, his gray and drab. She is a sociable, friendly, and cheery character, he a loner who seems content to recede into his hilltop home (incidentally, Eastwood places Holden with the sea in the background and Lenz with crowds behind her to emphasise this, a wonderfully subtle touch). It is the differences between these characters which draw them to each other, and indeed to us. Their relationship, despite its unlikeliness, is entirely believable and endearing, encouraging us to root for them and will them together. Naturally difficulties are encountered, the film teases us and never quite allows the characters to connect as completely as we'd like, and the emotions we invest are played with.An unconventional love story which examines other issues such as counter-culturalism and becoming old, Breezy is a surprising film from a surprising director. Demonstrating himself to be as skilled behind the camera as he is before, Eastwood gives us an engaging and interesting romance that draws us in with the charisma of its leads.

bkoganbing When William Holden took the part of Frank Harmon in Breezy it was a dress rehearsal for the same kind of role in Network where he was the older man who had fallen out of love with his wife and looking for something new and different. Of course his taste in women is a whole lot different. In Network Holden falls for the chic Network news executive Faye Dunaway and in Breezy he's entranced by the free spirited young hippie chick in the title role which Kay Lenz got her breakout role. These two women are about as different as they come.One thing that the story and director Clint Eastwood failed to do is give us all that much information about Breezy and how her character developed as it did. She's a type that was quite common in 1973 and it's assumed by the audience that the Vietnam War and the counterculture of free love makes her typical of young people. So when she drops into Holden's life by kind of forcing him to give her a lift in his car after a night of sex with Dennis Olivieri who picked her up.Holden's gone through a bitter and nasty divorce and we also are not quite sure about the whys and wherefores there. But Eastwood kind of takes care of it from his end when Holden and Lenz at a fancy restaurant encounter his ex-wife Joan Hotchkiss who's there with a date. Her one scene with Holden and Lenz is Breezy's most unforgettable point. This is one bitter and drunken women and while we don't really know what went wrong, it's clear why Holden wanted out of the marriage and why he's soured on the female of the species. There was a 33 year age difference between Holden and Lenz and most wouldn't give odds for this lasting, but you never know.Both Holden and Lenz give a good account of themselves making up for some plot deficiencies in Breezy.