Clint Eastwood: 35 Films 35 Years at Warner Bros. ReviewsClint Eastwood: 35 Films 35 Years at Warner Bros.
Hollywood icon and legend Clint Eastwood has touched generations of filmgoers for over half a century. In honor of Eastwood’s longstanding 35-year relationship with Warner Bros through Malpaso Productions, WHV is releasing this definitive DVD collection containing 34 classic Clint Eastwood films from the Warner library and highlighting the breadth and depth of his work — from Where Eagles Dare through Gran Torino. Included are his “Dirty Harry” movies, Best Picture Oscar® dramas and nomine
Rating:  List Price: $ 179.98 Price: $ 124.72 |
(out of 35 reviews)
Review by Richardson for Clint Eastwood: 35 Films 35 Years at Warner Bros.
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First things first, I greatly admire Clint Eastwood as an actor and director ,and he’s been the major film star of my baby boomer lifetime.
I just picked this set up so I am reviewing as an OWNER , not someone who has read the contents and wants to prattle on about Clints career at Warners. I was sad to find that the discs are the notorious Flippers (a movie on each side) instead of the far more stable single sided discs. Given that many of these movies are already available for under 10 bucks each This is still a cheap way to buy all of his movies for anyone that is that big a fan but who doesn’t already own them.. I’m a bit confused as to who they are marketing to? I am a big fan and own many of these but thought it might be a great way to house films in a smaller package and looked forward to the documentary and the book etc..
Extras…. the documentary is only a 21 minute “teaser” for the real one due this summer and NOT 16×9 but letterboxed 4:3 wow..that’s lame. They DO give you a web address and a code to get the whole documentary mailed out in the summer of 2010…but when you go to it, it says that address either doesn’t yet exist or has other troubles and come back later. Who knows what that is about…have so many people bought this and tried to redeem that their server crashed…not likely, probably just more corporate stupidity and “I thought you had set that up” finger pointing.
Book…is really a big nothing..tease for the real book in stores, and the pouch with a few photos ,again nothing special.
The Films…As I said, being that these are unstable “flipper discs” I am hesitant to get rid of the DVDs of the films I have and unlike some other multi disc sets I’ve recently purchased these will be scratched in removing and replacing for play…in fact you can NOT remove them without putting your hands on the surfaces of the discs (never recommended).
Bottom line, This isn’t really something for a true fan who would be better off it seems only buying the Clint films one wants in either DVD or Blu-Ray. There is NOTHING here for true fans but for somebody who owns virtually none of his movies and suddenly wants to spend over a hundred bucks (that seems a mutually exclusive notion) its a good value.
Were this released on Blu-Ray….I would be very happy and they would need not deal with flippers due to the storage capacity of Blu-Ray….but we see no such release in the near future.
To summarize…I’d stay away if you are a big fan, own the movies of CLints you already like and think this is some sort of “Cadillac” version..its more of a Pinto.
Review by calvinnme for Clint Eastwood: 35 Films 35 Years at Warner Bros.
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Clint Eastwood has a long history with Warner Brothers that goes back forty years. You have to go back to 1975′s Eiger Sanction to find a film he did not direct at the studio, and he only directed a total of five films in his entire career that were not made at Warner Brothers. Since Clint Eastwood’s film career did not begin until long after the studio system died, this really is unique for a director and studio to have such a long relationship. As expensive as this set is, it is actually cheap per disc. That is because this is a repackaging of stock. Warner’s is simply taking existing transfers and placing them in this set, mainly on two-sided discs. This can be somewhat annoying for those of us who have bought multi-film packages of Eastwood’s Warner films.
I list all of the films below, whether Eastwood directed or starred or did both, and a short synopsis on the older films. If I do not mention him starring, that means he did not appear in the film as an actor at all.
Don’t let that popular internet film database fool you with its ratings. People often rate some of Eastwood’s lower key films poorly because they don’t get what he was trying to do. If you come to “Bronco Billy” expecting Harry Callahan you’ll be disappointed. If you come to it expecting a good film, then you won’t be. I’d say this is a definite buy if you don’t own any of Eastwood’s films. If you do, it just depends on how many you own as to whether this big package deal is worth it.
Do be aware that 16 of the 19 discs included are dual-sided.
WHERE EAGLES DARE(1968) – starring Clint Eastwood, second billed to Richard Burton.
A complex WWII film about soldiers on a mission to raid a castle and retrieve a captured officer.
KELLY’S HEROES (1970) – starring Clint Eastwood
A different WWII story. A group of soldiers are out to find a cache of German gold – for themselves.
DIRTY HARRY (1971) – Starring Clint Eastwood.
The original Dirty Harry film.
MAGNUM FORCE (1973) – starring Clint Eastwood and Hal Holbrook.
Dirty Harry is after a band of vigilante cops. Has the famous closing line “A man’s got to know his limitations.”
THE ENFORCER (1976) – starring Clint Eastwood and Tyne Daly.
Dirty Harry has a female partner as he hunts down a terr orist organization
THE OUTLAW JOSIE WALES (1976) – directed by and starring Clint Eastwood, costarring Sondra Locke. The violence of the Civil War turns a man into a renegade out for revenge.
THE GAUNTLET (1977) – directed by and costarring Clint Eastwood and costarring Sondra Locke.
Eastwood is a cop taking a prostitute to testify at a trial and there are powerful forces out to make sure that testimony never happens.
EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE (1978) – stars Clint Eastwood and Sondra Locke.
A box office smash when released, Clint Eastwood in a pseudo-comedy costarring Clyde the orangutan.
BRONCO BILLY (1980) – directed by and starring Clint Eastwood. Costarring Sondra Locke.
A good film, but underrated because Eastwood was showing his serious side.
ANY WHICH WAY YOU CAN (1980) – starring Clint Eastwood and Sondra Locke.
Sequel to Every Which Way But Loose
HONKEYTONK MAN – (1982) – directed by and starring Clint Eastwood.
Very much underrated and shows Eastwood’s passion for music early in his directing career.
FIREFOX (1982) – directed by and starring Clint Eastwood.
Good performance by Eastwood, but the Cold War plot and crude graphics have really aged this one.
SUDDEN IMPACT (1983) – directed and starring Clint Eastwood and Sondra Locke.
Locke stars as a crime victim after revenge in this Dirty Harry film.
CITY HEAT (1984) – starring Clint Eastwood
Burt Reynolds was nominated for a Raz zie for acting in this one.
TIGHTROPE (1984) – starring Clint Eastwood and Genevieve Bujold
PALE RIDER (1985) – directed by and starring Clint Eastwood
HEARTBREAK RIDGE (1986) – directed by and starring Clint Eastwood
BIRD (1988) – directed by Clint Eastwood
The oldest of these films to not actually star Eastwood. Story of Jazz musician Charlie Parker.
THE DEAD POOL (1988) – starring Clint Eastwood and Patricia Clarkson
The last Dirty Harry film.
PINK CADILLAC (1989) – starring Clint Eastwood and Bernadette Peters
The most recent film in the bunch in which Eastwood does not direct. Not very good, but it was made to be light summer fare.
WHITE HUNTER BLACK HEART (1990) – directed by and starring Clint Eastwood
THE ROOKIE (1990) – directed by and starring Clint Eastwood
UNFORGIVEN (1992) – directed by and starring Clint Eastwood – Best Picture Winner
A PERFECT WORLD (1993) – directed by and starring Clint Eastwood
THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY (1995) – directed by and starring Clint Eastwood
ABSOLUTE POWER (1997) – directed by and starring Clint Eastwood
MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL (1997) – directed by Clint Eastwood
TRUE CRIME (1999) – directed by and starring Clint Eastwood
SPACE COWBOYS (2000) – directed by and starring Clint Eastwood
BLOOD WORK (2002) – directed by and starring Clint Eastwood
MYSTIC RIVER (2003) – directed by Clint Eastwood – Best Picture Nominee
MILLION DOLLAR BABY (2004) – directed by and starring Clint Eastwood – Best Picture Winner
LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA (2006) directed by Clint Eastwood – Best Picture Nominee
GRAN TORINO(2008) directed by and starring Clint Eastwood
Review by R. Rockwell for Clint Eastwood: 35 Films 35 Years at Warner Bros.
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As a fan of the older Clint Eastwood, I bought this collection to explore some of his earlier works. This collection is packed into a large book so big it will not fit on a shelf so that it was impossible not to place the films in a container. The films are unlabelled so you have to use a large guide to figure out which film it is, I am not reviewing any of the films because the presentation of this major contributor to cinema because to hard to figure out. Shame on the studio for releasing this bargain release.. I would much prefer paying twice as much for well presented 35 disk set NOT Recommended
Review by Mark B. Hodsdon for Clint Eastwood: 35 Films 35 Years at Warner Bros.
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That describes this box set perfectly (and for what it’s worth, that title is not included in this set).
The Good…
I want to point out first of all that this is not a review of any of the films in this collection. What more can
be said about these movies that has not been said many times already? While some may not regard all of the movies included this box in the same esteem and some personal favorites may have been excluded, I think that most people would consider this to be a fine collection of Clint’s work at a reasonable price.
The Bad…
The problem is with the packaging of this box set. It is a case where a great idea in concept has gone horribly wrong in the execution. It appears that the designers were more interested in the artistic design (and it does look very nice) with no regard for the functionality of the package.
As other reviewers have noted, the collection is packaged in the form of a book, with pages that are constructed from very stiff paperboard. The pockets that hold the individual DVDs are formed between two sheets of paparboard that have been adhered together. However, the pockets are so tight, it is difficult to remove the discs without grasping them firmly between your thumb and index finger and pulling with some force, resulting in scratches and fingerprints on the disc surfaces. Yet, for me this is not the major issue, since most discs with superficial scratches, while undesirable, will still play with little degradation in picture quality.
The Ugly…
The biggest problem is that the surfaces of about a third of the discs in my set were contaminated with streaks and lumps from the glue that was used to assemble the package, rendering parts of the discs unplayable. I am appalled by the apparent total disregard for quality control. Didn’t anyone at the manufacturing facility bother to check out the final product before they began shipping?
It is a shame that an otherwise fine collection has been marred by such shoddy packaging. If I had been aware of this issue, I would not have purchaased this set. I do not recommend that anyone buy this set until it has been reissued in a better package.
Review by Mr. Chris for Clint Eastwood: 35 Films 35 Years at Warner Bros.
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WARNING WARNING WARNING!!!
Most of the discs are 2 sided which is unstable to begin with.
Upon arrival and initial inspection I noticed that almost all
of the discs were scratched on both sides. They are simply
inserted into the packaging without anything to protect them.
You have no choice but to actually touch the playing surface
of the discs just to get them out and once out they don’t
play. I would not suggest buying this box set. Spend a little
more and get the films individually or do without. It doesn’t
matter how good a deal this seems to be when the damn discs
are not playable.
All 35 discs were scratched.
17 are not playable at all.
17 freeze at various points.
1 actually plays all the way through.