Well he does have a musical background of sorts. He is a reasonable piano player and a big jazz fan. A love he has passed on to his son Kyle who is currently one of the best known bass players in the Jazz world. A very talented lad.
Long time since I saw Two Mules for Sister Sara, but I think it was a fun and very SW-like American western, but with some romantic touches.
Shirley MacLaine is fun as the fake nun and the Morricone score is great 
RE other Eastwood movies:
The comedies with the orangutang would have been better suited to Burt Reynolds than Clint’s stone face
Eiger Sanction, Gauntlet, Firefox, Dirty Harry sequels, Heartbreak Ridge etc are all pretty mediocre films
It’s also always the same recurring themes of morally corrupt bosses in most of them, it gets tedious 
I haven’t seen many of his latest films actually, so I can’t comment on them
Funny thing is that the critics have liked him for the last 15-20 years, both as actor and director, whereas in the early years he was more or less looked down upon
Sort of like with the SW genre as a whole 
Pale Rider was shown at the prestigeous Cannes Film Festival (in '85) and booed by most French critics, many American critics were appalled by this conduct, and started to write positive reviews on the film, and Clint’s work in general
A colleague of mine, working for the same newspaper, was in Cannes at the time, and immediately wrote a positive review on Pale Rider (I still remeber how angry he was about the behaviour of the French critics)
I don’t know if this was the real turning point, but it sure was around this time that he started to get some critical acclaim, even Clint-hating critics became more positive. Clint wouldn’t have been the first who needed foreign scorn to get positive reactions back home.
Interesting, but on the other hand wasn’t it in France that he started to get critical acclaim, also in the 80s or early 90s?
EDIT: I remember something about a retrospective series of his films being shown in Paris or something
His spaghetti westerns were always appreciated I think, even in the magazine Cahiers du Cinema?
French Critics booing a film? Wow. Isn’t that rather unprofessional? I can’t even imagine them doing that to a really bad film. I mean, Pale Rider we’re talking about, not Freddy Got Fingered LOL.
Buster Keaton would deny something like that. 
That’s a bad thing about the critics. Pale Rider was nominated in Cannes but maybe it was too commercial for the french critics at that time. But I’ve seen people booing in operas and theatres so I don’t wonder at all . I think Unforgiven was his turning point. After Unforgiven the critics hailed him for everything.
I think his character in Heartbreak Ridge is an absolute classic, his best comical performance i’d say… I love the dialogue. Seems like he’s resurrecting a similar character in Gran Torino.
The Gauntlet has always been a favourite of mine as well, one of the best 70s action movies for me.
[quote=“Lindberg, post:44, topic:647”]A) Interesting, but on the other hand wasn’t it in France that he started to get critical acclaim, also in the 80s or early 90s?
EDIT: I remember something about a retrospective series of his films being shown in Paris or something
B) His spaghetti westerns were always appreciated I think, even in the magazine Cahiers du Cinema?[/quote]
A/ True - EDIT/ true - B/ true
I remember the retrospective too, I guess it was Paris and it might have been a reaction to 'Cannes’
The ‘audience’ in Paris is completely different from the audience in Cannes; Cannes is what the French call ‘chi chi’, an upper class, highbrow, glitter&glamour event, and press reactions to it usually are very different, positive and serious in intellectual magazines or specialized movie magazines, more sceptical or cynical in the popular press.
In Paris there are several audiences, and they visit different cinemas (in different city quarters); students, teachers, artists go to cinemas in the Latin quarter, where a lot of films are shown in VO (Version Originale), middle class Parisians go to cinemas in the City Centre, where films are shown in VF (Version Française), working class Parisians go to cinemas in the suburbs. Westerns have always been popular in France, spaghetti westerns too (especially the political ones); French critics usually have (had) a preference for unconventional, demystifying westerns like Johnny Guitar. Maybe Pale Rider was too ‘pedestrian’ for them.
The French have also developed the ‘auteur approach’ of criticism. Somewhere in the late eighties, Clint was recognized as an ‘auteur’ (by I don’t know who exactly). François Truffaut was one of the best known supporters of this approach, and has contributed a lot to the appreciation of directors like Ford, Hitchcock and Hawks, who were applauded for their first-rate crafsmanship back home, but hardly seen as ‘auteurs’.
When I first saw Pale Rider in a cinema I also didn’t liked it very much. It was only an average film for me. By rewatching it on TV years later I liked it more. I would call it now a good western, but no match for Clint’s best post-Leone westerns Josey Wales and Unforgiven.
Read the other day somewhere that Eastwood thinks very highly of Morricone, or something to this effect. I wonder why Morricone has never scored an Eastwood directed film. Of course the last film Morricone scored with Eastwood as star was In The Line Of Fire, but the film was not directed by Eastwood.
I’m not sure, but I think he once said that the music of Morricone fittted the Leone westerns perfectly well, but would not fit his movies. Must have been an extra on a DVD release of one of his movies. Maybe he changed his mind about Morricone recently. He seems to have changed his mind about Leone too; for years (and apparently due to differences during the filming of GBU) he has been quite critical towards Leone, often sustaining that he learned much more from Don Siegel.
Maybe one of his real fans knows more about this.
Thanks for the input, and yes Eastwood has mellowed in recent years re Leone.
I watched recently “Play Misty for Me” the first Movie directed by Clint Eastwood. Maybe the first Thriller with a female Stalker who terrorizes a Radio DJ. OK Hitchcok would have made it better but the Actors were all good and it had suspenseful moments. The Soundtrack was again more Jazz like. It’s obvious that Clint Eastwood is a Jazz Fan. Maybe that’s also one of the reasons why Morricone and Eastwood didn’t worked that much together.
BTW Morricone was also the Composer of the Don Siegel Western Two Mules of Sister Sara.
[quote=“Paco Roman, post:53, topic:647”]I watched recently “Play Misty for Me” the first Movie directed by Clint Eastwood. Maybe the first Thriller with a female Stalker who terrorizes a Radio DJ. OK Hitchcok would have made it better but the Actors were all good and it had suspenseful moments. The Soundtrack was again more Jazz like. It’s obvious that Clint Eastwood is a Jazz Fan. Maybe that’s also one of the reasons why Morricone and Eastwood didn’t worked that much together.
BTW Morricone was also the Composer of the Don Siegel Western Two Mules of Sister Sara.[/quote]
Play Misty for Me is a good thriller, rather assured for a directional debut, but Clint had good tutors as we all know …
Clint/Ennio - I still can’t remember where and when I heard Clint talking about Morricone; I thought it was the extras disc of GBU, but I already checked: he’s more hinting at his differences with Leone: him (Clint that is) not sharing Sergio’s preference with long scenes, etc.
But maybe this was one of the reasons for not asking Morricone for a score: Morricone’s scores seem (to me) more appropriate to Leone’s than Clint’s way of film making. And jazzy scores can be quite nice too, of course …
According to wikipedia, Eastwood has asked Morricone to score his movies, but Morricone turned down Eastwood a number of times but later regretted it.
Then I mixed a lot of things up …
I have to say, I’m rather glad Morricone didn’t score a lot of Eastwood’s movies. His love of jazz has certainly made them more interesting. Schifrin’s sdtk to Dirty Harry is incredible, as was the Enforcer. That said, 70’s jazz/funk is my absolute favorite kind of music anyways, so I’m a bit biased.
Eastwood actually received an award from the jazz community a few years back because of the contribution’s hes made to increasing awareness of jazz thru cinema. Don’t forget, he directed the Charlie Parker biopic “Bird” as well as the Thelonius Monk documentary, “Straight, No Chaser”.
The scores to alot of Eastwood films in the 70’s by the likes of Jerry Fielding and Lalo Schifrin are more to my preference, than his regular composer of recent years…Lennie Niehaus. Usually I find alot of Niehaus stuff bland sounding, and although he worked as orchestrator on alot of Jerry Fielding soundtracks, he is not in the same class as Fielding in my view. The Jazz themed score to Tightrope is my favourite Niehaus score. Dee Barton who scored three Eastwood starring films in the 70’s is also worthy of mention, and especially to his eerie music to High Plains Drifter.
I kear what you’re saying about Niehaus, although I do love the acoustic guitar theme to Unforgiven.
It is called ‘Claudia’s Theme’ and is actually composed by Eastwood himself, with the rest of the score composed by Niehaus.