Every Which Way But Loose (1978) - By Matt Singer

Film Reviews: Every Which Way But Loose (1978) - By Matt Singer
Posted on Tuesday, February 01, 2005 @ 09:00:00 Mountain Standard Time by Duane

In the late 1970s Clint Eastwood went out on a limb.

Despite the protests of his managers and advisers who said the film would be a disaster his audience would not understand, he personally decided the best thing for his career was to make a buddy comedy about a guy and his pet monkey.

His advisers were totally right. Every Which Way But Loose looks more like something that would end a politician's career than a mainstream Hollywood film. But Eastwood was right too. Somehow, despite the film's lack of a compelling story, a roster of peculiar characters including a legion of gay Nazi bikers, and the pervasive stench of career-ending failure for everyone involved, the American audience loved -- loved!! -- this movie. According to IMDb, LOOSE grossed more than $80 million in 1978 dollars, and it even spawned a popular sequel (cleverly titled Any Which Way You Can). Even the decade's ramptant drug use doesn't excuse the sort of success which LOOSE undeservedly enjoyed.

Eastwood's character is Philo Beddoe, a redneck pit fighter who lives with his mother (Ruth Gordon) and his ape buddy Clyde. Now, if I was sitting in a bar, minding my own business and enjoying a fine domestic brew, I would be at least mildly surprised to see a tall dude in a cowboy hat sidle up to me with a large orangutan hanging from his back. I would at least say something like "Hey, where'd you get the monkey?" or maybe "Dude, you do realize you have an ape hanging off your back right?"

But no one in Every Which Way But Loose is surprised in the least that Philo has an ape. Even the movie isn't impressed by Clyde; one would expect that it would want to explore how a guy like Clint Eastwood wound up becoming the guardian to a waddling zoo animal. But when LOOSE begins, Philo already has Clyde. Finally, a half hour later, he casually explains to his new girlfriend where he happened to come across his hairy buddy (Turns out the zoo didn't want him so he took him off their hands). If you hadn't seen the opening credits (with a delightful theme song about how things end up coming every which way but loose, whatever that means), you would swear you'd joined this movie already in progress.

The girlfriend is named Lynn (played by Eastwood's lady at the time Sondra Locke). She is a country singer in one of the many bars Philo frequents and he takes a liking to her just before she up and disappears. Philo piles Clyde and his human chum Orville (Geoffrey Lewis) into his RV and heads off across the country afterwards. Along the way he earns his living exactly as you'd expect he would: by participating in underground pit fighting.

Wait, WHAT?!?

Yes it's another completely peculiar trait that is treated as completely rational by director James Fargo (who also made the schlock-rock classic VOYAGE OF THE ROCK ALIENS). As strange as things get, no one on screen or behind the camera so much as bats an eyelash. Instead, they fill EVERY WHICH WAY BUT Loose with a parade of useless timewasting scenes (the Philo-follows-Lynn plot isn't quite complex enough to carry the film). An hour and fifteen minutes in, LOOSE has an all-important target practice sequence. Eight minutes later, the crucial jogging scene. Three minutes later, it's kayaking. Is this a Clint Eastwood movie or a goddamn Eastern Mountain Sports commercial?

I say Every Which Way But Loose is an inexplicable joy ride of absurdity and stupidity ("stupurdity" if you will). 1978 said Every Which Way But Loose was a hilarious comedy. Who are you going to believe?