Coogans Bluff

Coogans Bluff

This fish-out-of-water film was the beginning of a long association between Don Siegel and Clint Eastwood, who stars as the eponymous deputy sheriff from Arizona. The cowboy-cop is sent to New York City to extradite escaped murderer James Ringerman (Don Stroud), only to be told by police lieutenant McElroy (Lee J. Cobb) that the killer is recovering from an acid trip at Bellevue Hospital and can be released only with his doctors' approval. After some low-key flirtation with probation officer Julie Roth (Susan Clark), Coogan decides to take the bull by the horns and tricks Ringerman's Bellevue attendants into releasing him. However, on the way to the airport, the Arizona-bound cop is waylaid by Ringerman's amusingly wacked-out girlfriend, Linny (Tisha Sterling), and beaten senseless by a goon, allowing his prisoner to escape. Later, while in Julie's apartment, he surreptitiously extracts Linny's file to get her address and tracks her to an Electric Circus-like club whose habitues he regards with utter disdain. An amusing action film, COOGAN'S BLUFF makes much of the irony of the laconic Old West, with Eastwood being equally put off by both the bureaucratically hamstrung cops and the acid-fueled hippies.