Thunderbolt and Lightfoot [Blu-ray]

Director: Michael Cimino, Buddy Van Horn Michael Cimino

Overview

As much an eccentric character study as a road movie, Michael Cimino's directorial debut follows the adventures of a quartet of misfits in their life of crime. Retired thief Thunderbolt (Clint Eastwood) and sweet drifter Lightfoot (Jeff Bridges) meet cute when Thunderbolt jumps into Lightfoot's stolen car to escape a gunman. The pair embarks on an oddball journey to get Thunderbolt's loot from an old robbery before his former associates, the sadistic Red (George Kennedy) and cretinous Goody (Geoffrey Lewis), get to it first, but all four are too late; the one-room schoolhouse hiding place has apparently vanished. So instead, the four play house and work legit jobs while they plot to rob the same place Thunderbolt and Red hit before. Although the plan goes awry, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot discover that they may still have succeeded-or so they think. As the easy-going mediator between the two, Eastwood's Thunderbolt was a move away from his tough cop-westerner image; his audience accepted this then-atypical performance enough to turn Thunderbolt and Lightfoot into a moderate hit. Bridges received his second Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination, but Cimino turned down a subsequent deal with Eastwood, moving instead to his artistic peak with The Deer Hunter (1978) and career nadir with Heaven's Gate (1980).

Product Details

Release Date:	11/12/2019
UPC:	0738329240394
Original Release:	1974
Rating:	R
Source:	Kl Studio Classics
Region Code:	A
Presentation:	[Wide Screen]
Sound:	[DTS 5.1-Channel Surround Sound]
Language:	English
Time:	1:55:00
Sales rank:	528

Special Features

1920x1080p; Audio commentary by film critic Nick Pinkerton; For the Love of Characters - featurette with Michael Cimino; 60 second and 30 second TV spots; 60 second Radio spot; Theatrical trailer

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Clint Eastwood	Thunderbolt
Jeff Bridges	Lightfoot
George Kennedy	Red
Geoffrey Lewis	Goody
Catherine Bach	Melody
Jack Dodson	Vault Manager
Gary Busey	Curly
Burton Gilliam	Welder
Roy Jenson	Dunlop
Claudia Lennear	Secretary
Bill McKinney	Crazy Driver
Vic Tayback	Mario
Dub Taylor	Gas Station Attendant
Gregory Walcott	Used Car Salesman
Erica Hagen	Waitress
Alvin Childress	Janitor
Irene K. Cooper	Cashier
Cliff Emmich	Fat Man
June Fairchild	Gloria
Ted Foulkes	Little Boy
Karen Lamm	Girl on Motorcycle
Luanne Roberts	Suburban Housewife
Titos Vandis	Counterman
Gene Elman	Tourist at Schoolhouse,Tourist
Lila Teigh	la touriste
Stuart Nisbet	Arnold
Virginia Baker	Couple at Station
Leslie Oliver	Teenager
Mark Montgomery	Teenager
Beth Howland	Vault Manager's Wife
Frank Stanley	Actor
Dee Barton	Actor,Composer

Technical Credits

Michael Cimino

Michael Cimino	Director,Screenwriter
Sass Bedig	Special Effects
Robert Daley	Producer
Buddy Van Horn	Stunts,Director
Richard Portman	Sound Effects,Sound/Sound Designer
Jerry Whittington	Sound Effects
Paul Williams	Stunts
Bert Hallberg	Sound/Sound Designer

Editorial Reviews

An uneasy but ultimately quite rewarding mixture of dramatic and comedic elements, Michael Cimino's first film as a writer/director tempers its symbolic pretensions (it's the sort of film where the ordering of "American Fries" takes on a certain resonance) with a pleasing lightness. Borrowing heavily from other late-'60s/early-'70s songs of the open road (and explicitly referencing Easy Rider and Midnight Cowboy), its pairing of Eastwood's burned out veteran of the Korean War with Bridges' easygoing, hippie-inspired drifter might seem far more heavy handed had other actors played the parts. "Sometimes when there's nothing to do, it's best just to keep movin'," Eastwood says at one point, and it's a tribute to his gravity that the words don't sound tired. It's an interesting twist on his persona that the film forces his character to be uneasy with -- and then extremely fond of -- Bridges' countercultural free spirit. But while Thunderbolt and Lightfoot can only be counted a modest success as another early '70s portrait of a vanishing America, helped considerably by Frank Stanley's striking cinematography and the film's Montana locations, it works even better as an oddball comedy. A scene of George Kennedy and Geoffrey Lewis uncomfortably sharing an unaccommodating ice cream serves as a highlight, and Cimino packs the film with such gags -- in fact, in retrospect, it seems an alternate career path as a comedy director might have served him better. Viewers who enjoy combing films for gay subtext will find plenty to work with here as well.