Coogan's Bluff (film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
Coogan's Bluff
Directed by Don Siegel
Produced by Don Siegel
Written by Herman Miller
Starring Clint Eastwood
Lee J. Cobb
Susan Clark
Music by Lalo Schifrin
Cinematography Bud Thackery
Distributed by Universal Pictures
Release date(s) 1968
Running time 93 min.
IMDb profile
N6682D lands a top the Pan Am building in Coogan's Bluff.
N6682D lands a top the Pan Am building in Coogan's Bluff.

Coogan's Bluff is the title of a 1968 Universal film starring Clint Eastwood, Lee J. Cobb, Seymour Cassel and Susan Clark and directed by Don Siegel. Eastwood plays the part of a young veteran deputy sheriff from a rural county in Arizona who travels to New York City to extradite an apprehended fugitive named Ringerman, played by Don Stroud, who is wanted for murder.

The movie's most distinctive and elaborate scene takes place in a large, psychedelic-themed nightclub called The Pigeon-Toed Orange Peel. Also notable is a poolhall brawl with Coogan fighting off a dozen men, and a climatic motorcycle pursuit between Coogan and Ringerman through the Cloister's Park. Furthermore, there are two sequences in the movie, one at the beginning and the other at the end, the second echoing the first. This is the same device used in "Dirty Harry", when Harry gives the "Are you feeling lucky?" speech, first to a bank robber and then to the killer in the last scene. In this film Coogan, hunting a renegade Navajo, disappears in a cloud of dust caused by him spinning his jeep. He then sneaks up on his quarry. In the final scenes he performs the same trick on a motorcycle to capture Ringerman.

Herman Miller was responsible for the story and co-wrote the screenplay with Dean Riesner and Howard Rodman. Miller's work on this film is credited with inspiring the NBC / Universal television show McCloud. In addition, the film's soundtrack was composed by Lalo Schifrin, who also wrote the theme song of the popular 1960s television show Mission: Impossible.

The character of Coogan, a quiet but tough lawman who clashes with his superiors and short-cuts police procedure to get results, would be successfully revisited by Eastwood and Siegel in "Dirty Harry" and its sequels. This was also the first of five films over the next ten years involving the actor/director partnership of Eastwood and Siegel.

The name of the film itself is a playful reference to a New York City natural landmark, Coogan's Bluff, a promontory in upper Manhattan overlooking the site of the former long-time home of the New York Giants baseball club, the Polo Grounds. Coogan bluffs his way out of Ringerman's jail cell with Ringerman in tow, to take him back to Arizona without going through extradition.

Advanced Search
Included Web Search Engines


Safe Search

close

Top Matching Results

Occasionally Search.com will highlight specialized results that are based on the context of your query. Examples of specialized results include specific links to news, images, or video.

Top Matching Results may highlight information from other Search.com pages, content from the CNET Network of sites, or third party content. The listings are based purely on relevance. Search.com does not receive payment for listings in this section but our partners that provide this data may get paid for listing these products.

Sponsored Links

This section contains paid listings which have been purchased by companies that want to have their sites appear for specific search terms and related content. These listings are administered, sorted and maintained by a third party and are not endorsed by Search.com.

Search Results

Search.com sends your search query to several search engines at one time and integrates the results into one list which has been sorted by relevance using Search.com's proprietary algorithm. You can customize the list of search engines included in your metasearch from the preferences.

The search engines that are used in your metasearch may allow companies to pay to have their Web sites included within the results. To view the Paid Inclusion policy for a specific search engine, please visit their Web site. Search.com does not accept payment or share revenue with any search engine partner for listings in this section.