Breezy / Honkytonk Man

BREEZY, 1973, Universal, 108 min., Clint Eastwood the director helms his first film that does not feature Clint Eastwood the star in this visually elegant romance. William Holden plays a disillusioned businessman who rediscovers his vitality when he falls in love with flower child Kay Lenz in the first of Eastwood's many unusual romances (THE GAUNTLET, BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY, and others would eventually follow). Eastwood's typically subtle and restrained direction keeps the story from tipping over into sugary melodrama, and Holden gives one of his great late-career performances.

HONKYTONK MAN, 1982, Warner Bros., 122 min. Dir. Clint Eastwood. Eastwood plays Red Stovall, a struggling country-and-western singer hoping to make it to the Grand Ole Opry before he dies; his nephew Whit (Kyle Eastwood) accompanies him on the road, and their journey allows Eastwood to craft some indelible images of Depression-era America.