TheRedDeath30 Clint Eastwood's career as a director has always been a little hit or miss. When at its' peak, though, in movies like UNFORGIVEN or GRAN TORINO, Eastwood is capable of delivering cinematic power. It all started here, though, with a tense thriller that sparked off a string of imitators in films like FATAL ATTRACTION. The movie, mostly, works well due, in large part, to the strength of its' two main actors, but the viewer will see the weaknesses of a director learning the ropes.The movie starts off a little slow. Eastwood is a womanizing DJ who meets a young woman at a bar. He charms her, naturally, and they settle in for a night of nookie, with the caveat that there are to be no strings attached, though. As in real life, this sounds better than it actually works and the woman turns out to be more clingy than Eastwood would like. That's a big problem because the girl of his dreams is back in town and Eastwood is ready to settle down with her and be a one-woman man.As the movie progresses, the stalker keeps showing up. It's uncomfortable and awkward, at first, but we begin to see signs that she's angry and capable of violence. We start to learn that she's more than a little mentally unhinged. The more that Eastwood tries to drive her out of his life, the more that she insinuates herself into it, leading to bloodshed and an ultimate showdown.Jessica Walter is fantastic as the psycho stalker. She is as equally capable of playing sweet and vulnerable as she is playing violent and demanding. She is excellent in the role. Eastwood mostly stays away from his steely hero demeanor. He is cool and suave, but also willing to show that he has a sensitive side, as well. He shows great moments as a man that legitimately has no idea how to deal with this situation at times. Donna Mills, also, shows up, though mostly as the good girl who is eye candy.Eastwood shows flourishes where we see a brilliant director developing. He uses some great camera angles, knows exactly how long to track a shot, or a scene, and maintains an atmosphere throughout this movie of danger on the edges. In every scene, even the most mundane, the viewer sits on the edge of their seat, waiting for the psycho to be watching just out of frame, or to pop up when least wanted.The movie, almost, derails just before the final act. We get an entire music video mid-movie, as Eastwood and Mills cavort in the woods, taking slow walks and making slow love to the tune of Roberta Flack's THE FIRST TIME EVER I SAW YOUR FACE. We get the entire song with nothing happening but an extended love montage. Within a few scenes, we get a mostly useless scene at the Monterey Jazz Festival. Three bands perform, most of three songs are heard and nothing happens except to introduce that his girl now has a new roommate. While that revelation will have repercussions to come, the scene lasts far too long, bringing nothing more to the film that to allow Eastwood to showcase an apparent love of jazz.This movie first came on my radar years ago in Bravo's much loved SCARIEST MOVIE MOMENTS series. It was well deserved as this movie definitely has it's tense and scary moments, but is not able to carry that tension for the entire run time.

sol- Along similar lines to 'Fatal Attraction', Clint Eastwood plays a late night disc jockey here who finds himself stalked by an obsessive female fan who thought that their one night stand was something more. This was the first feature film that Eastwood ever directed and his enthusiasm with taking the reigns behind the camera for the first time frequently shows. The opening aerial shots are breathtaking, there is a great subtle moment in which the stalker's arm ever so slowly creeps into the foreground of the frame as Eastwood and his actual girlfriend wander off into the distance, and the rapid cross-cut editing as Eastwood takes a frenzied drive near the end is great. Eastwood struggles a bit with pacing the material though, and for a thriller, the film noticeably lacks tension; there is enough time for Eastwood to leisurely make love to his girlfriend in the woods amid fearing what his stalker might do next! The casting of Jessica Walters as the stalker is also a mixed blessing. Considering that she is best known as a comedy actress nowadays, Walters demonstrates an impressive acting range, from casual and fun-loving to utterly obsessive, however, she stays in obsessive mode for most of the film and she often comes off as histrionic with her constant crying fits and rages. It is hard not to wonder what Lee Remick (who the studio originally wanted) would have done with the role. Never to mind, 'Play Misty for Me' has enough scattered effective moments that it never once bores even if it does not always live up to its reputation as a pivotal 'Fatal Attraction' precursor.

lasttimeisaw Mr. Eastwood's director debut, a nocturnal thriller, viewed in retrospect, is approximate to an amalgam of FATAL ATTRACTION (1987) and MISERY (1990), a radio jockey Dave Garver (Eastwood) in Carmel, California, hooks up with a girl claims to be his groupie, Evelyn Draper (Walter), it is a no-strings-attached fling, at least, in Dave's perspective, but she turns out to be his worst nightmare with her maniac obsession towards him, especially when Dave starts to patch up his romance with his ex-girlfriend Tobie (Mills), she will never let that happen as long as she is in the land of the living.As a slasher with a twisted female psycho as the antagonist, the drawing power is predominantly contingent to Jessica Walter's performance, Evelyn is an out-and-out lunatic on the loose, it takes time and someone's shed blood for Dave to realise that, and obviously, Tobie is on the top of the list as her next victim, Dave has to confront his incubus face-to-face, and ends his peril once for all. Thankfully Walter is a fiery enforcer of chills and derangement, heightens the clinical symptoms of Evelyn's mental disorder - self-absorbing in her own delusional frame, denying the real world with her passive-aggressive fixation, occasionally exploding with polarised mood swings, self- destructive and extremely bloodthirsty - to flesh out an utterly unsympathetic character, still, she is less scarier than Bates in MISERY and less vitriolic than Close in FATAL ATTRACTION.Apart from that, there is really nothing special to cull from this low-budget work aiming for cheap thrill, it is a moderately engaging thriller, the diegesis is awfully predictable and the film itself is not pulpy enough to be worshiped as a cult classic. There are notable adjuncts, like the usage of live footages at the Monterey Jazz Festival and a music video treatment with Dave and Tobie's romantic getaway in the picturesque landscape accompanied by Roberta Flack's soulful THE FIRST TIME EVER I SAW YOUR FACE, which are wholly inconsistent with the film's tenor and plot-wise, they are so irrelevant.We know how Clint Eastwood loves jazz music, and the Erroll Garner's jazz standard "Misty" plays a key role in the story, if only deducing from this movie, one might never guess what a major cinema virtuoso Mr. Eastwood would mature into along with time, alas, it is always helpful to have some trial run to get familiar with a new line of work.

SnoopyStyle Dave Garver (Clint Eastwood) is an overnight radio DJ in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. Evelyn Draper (Jessica Walter) calls in to ask "Play Misty for me". She tracks him down at a bar and they have a sexual encounter. He's a serial casual dater but she won't take a hint. His casual dating turns into a hard break-up. She takes it badly by trying suicide in his home. He is forced to care for her and she threatens his reputation.This is Clint Eastwood's directorial debut and it's competent work. A lot of it is Jessica Walter doing a stellar job as the woman who slowly reveals herself to be crazy. There are no likable characters and that's the same problem I have with Fatal Attraction. I don't particularly care for anybody in this movie. There's also nothing quite as memorable as a boiled bunny but Jessica Walter is great.