I Played Misty For Me

I watched Play Misty For Me last night courtesy of Universal’s UK Blu-Ray, and am pleased that this is finally in the collection, reclaimed after too many truncated, indifferent TV screenings over the years. Seeing the film again in better circumstances, made it feel a lot fresher than I might have given it credit for in the past – the film has arguably been displaced within popular film culture by Fatal Attraction, but Misty remains a disarmingly visceral thriller and, notwithstanding the gothic shadings of The Beguiled and High Plains Drifter, the closest Eastwood has come to crafting a contemporary Horror film. I had actually forgotten that Misty was Eastwood’s directorial debut (Don Siegel’s bartender will do that) and the film is an impressive calling card, especially that spectacular helicopter shot that opens the picture. Some judicious editing would have improved the film, the picture is weighed down by an unnecessary amount of footage of Carmel, as if Eastwood was too much in love with Bruce Surtees’ landscape shots to cast them aside - I spotted one shot of waves battering the coastline that has a near imperceptible jump cut, suggesting some kind of 11th hour pruning. I’m tempted to imagine the contrasting locations were a metaphor for the two woman at the centre of the film – Donna Mills reflecting the safe, pastoral wilderness, and Jessica Walter, the tempestuous, relentless Pacific ocean, but perhaps in the end it’s all just pretty window dressing. On the other hand, the on-the-fly footage from the Monterey Jazz Festival, though rather superfluous to the plot is a real treat, and I was pleased to spot the great Joe Zawinul with the Cannonball Adderley band. My Blu-Ray edition is completely barebones (“not even a trailer” as they say!), and in the absence of Tim Lucas’ acclaimed 2020 commentary track on the Kino BR, and the contextual material that was available on previous DVD editions, I turned to Patrick McGilligan’s 1999 Eastwood biography earlier and I’m reminded of what an unpleasant read it is…