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The Gauntlet (film)

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For other uses, see Gauntlet (disambiguation).
The Gauntlet
Official poster with Frank Frazetta illustration of Clint Eastwood with ripped off shirt and jeans, holding his gun and hugging Locke, behind them is a ruined bus. Below the duo are the film's title, credits, and release date, above them is the film's slogan.
Theatrical release poster by Frank Frazetta
Directed byClint Eastwood
Written by
Produced byRobert Daley
Starring
CinematographyRexford L. Metz
Edited by
Music byJerry Fielding
Production
company
Distributed byWarner Bros.
Release date
  • December 21, 1977 (1977-12-21)
Running time
109 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$5.5 million[1][2]
Box office$35.4 million[3]

The Gauntlet is a 1977 American action thriller film directed by Clint Eastwood, who stars alongside Sondra Locke. The film's supporting cast includes Pat Hingle, William Prince, Bill McKinney, and Mara Corday. Eastwood plays a down-and-out cop who falls in love with a prostitute (Locke), to whom he is assigned to escort from Las Vegas to Phoenix for her to testify against the mob.

Plot

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Ben Shockley, an alcoholic Phoenix traffic detective, is assigned to extradite witness Augustina "Gus" Mally from Las Vegas. His superior, Commissioner Edgar Blakelock, remarks that she is a "nothing witness" for a "nothing trial". Upon meeting Mally, he finds that she is belligerent prostitute with mob ties and convinced that she and Shockley are being set up. Shockley dismisses her concerns but changes his mind when he learns that local bookmakers are taking bets on whether Mally will live to testify.

The car he arranges to pick them up is bombed and Mally's house is subsequently fired on by the police after Shockley is framed for kidnapping and attempted murder. Shockley and Mally hijack a county constable at gunpoint and force him to drive them across the border to Arizona. When the constable attempts to alert local authorities, he is gunned down by mob hitmen. Forced to camp for the night, Shockley stumbles across a biker rally and bluffs them into leaving, while also obtaining a motorcycle.

Blakelock is revealed to be responsible for the set-up; he is secretly in the pocket of the mob and had engaged in sadomasochistic foreplay with Mally, who had memorized his face. Assistant District Attorney John Feyderspiel is also shown to be involved as part of a conspiracy to thwart Arizona's prosecution of Vegas mobster Angelo Deluca.

While stopping in town for a meal, the two are ambushed by a police chopper sent by Blakelock; Shockley lures it into an area filled with high-altitude power lines and the chopper eventually explodes after striking a pylon. The motorcycle is disabled by a stray bullet, so they hop on a train, on which, coincidentally, the same two bikers whose machine they had "borrowed" are riding. The bikers beat Shockley and attempt to rape Mally. Shockley is only barely able to retrieve his gun and force them off. Shockley and Mally both realize that going back to Phoenix will be suicide, but it is the only way to prove their innocence.

Following a night together where they decide to marry, Shockley has Mally hold up a bus while he throws out the luggage. After reinforcing the driver's seat with armored plating, they drive into Phoenix using a route Shockley had purposefully mailed to Blakelock. Maynard Josephson, Shockley's former partner, warns the two of a gauntlet of armed police officers that Blakelock has set up to "welcome" them. Josephson convinces Shockley to turn himself in to Feyderspiel, whom he mistakenly thinks will help them. As the pair follow Josephson outside, Josephson is shot dead by snipers from a nearby building, and Shockley is hit in the leg.

With no other option, the two return to the bus and enter the town. The bus is shot at as it runs the titular "gauntlet" of hundreds of armed officers lining both sides of the road, until it reaches the steps of City Hall, finally immobilized. Shockley emerges and begins to walk inside with Mally when Blakelock and Feyderspiel confront them. A panicking Blakelock grabs the nearest officer's gun and murders Feyderspiel but runs out of ammo before he can finish Shockley. Mally grabs Shockley's revolver and shoots the commissioner dead. Realizing Blakelock's crimes, the rest of the assembled officers watch as Shockley and Mally walk away safely from the gauntlet.

Cast

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Production

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Clint Eastwood as Ben Shockley and Sondra Locke as Augustina Mally

Written by Dennis Shryack and Michael Butler,[1] the film was originally set to star Marlon Brando and Barbra Streisand; Brando subsequently withdrew and was replaced by Steve McQueen.[4] However, differences between McQueen and Streisand ultimately led to their joint departure in favor of Eastwood and Locke.[N 1] Some preproduction discussion occurred regarding transforming the Ben Shockley role into a fourth Dirty Harry portrayal.[6] The Gauntlet was filmed in Phoenix, Arizona, and Las Vegas, Nevada, as well as in nearby deserts in both states.[1] The set for the house scene was built at a cost of $250,000 and included 7,000 drilled holes that would include explosive squibs for its demolition.[2] The helicopter chase scene included a helicopter that was built without an engine for the crash sequence.[2] To simulate the gunshots from the gauntlet of officers at the end of the film, the bus was blasted with 8,000 squibs.[2] From the total budget of $5.5 million, $1 million was spent on the various action sequences.[1]

Promotion

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Frank Frazetta painted the super-stylized promotional billboard poster for the film.[7] The poster features a "muscled colossus Eastwood, brandishing a pistol, and scantily clad Locke, her clothes teasingly shredded, clinging onto her hero".[8]

Reception

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Box office

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The Gauntlet grossed $35.4 million at the box office,[3] making it the 14th-highest grossing film of 1977.

Critical response

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Although a hit with the public, the critics were mixed about the film.

Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four and called it "classic Clint Eastwood: fast, furious, and funny. It tells a cheerfully preposterous story with great energy and a lot of style, and nobody seems more at home in this sort of action movie than Eastwood."[9] Vincent Canby of The New York Times called it "a movie without a single thought in its head, but its action sequences are so ferociously staged that it's impossible not to pay attention most of the time."[10] Arthur D. Murphy of Variety wrote, "At the very least, Eastwood periodically tries something different, and if the price of that is a run of formula programmers, let it be."[11] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film one-and-a-half stars out of four and stated, "This is a very stupid movie. Supposedly, it's all meant to be in good fun. And true, the script does have the dialog of a comic book. But there is not one bit of wit in the film."[12] Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times declared, "Until it overreaches in its final minutes, Clint Eastwood's 'The Gauntlet' succeeds in making the fantastic credible. Indeed, the getting there is so outrageous and witty that those who admire Eastwood's laconic style behind the camera as well as in front of it are likely to overlook that flawed finale. At any rate, there's plenty going on at all times to please action fans."[13] Gary Arnold of The Washington Post wrote, "If 'The Gauntlet' improves on Eastwood's customary box-office success, I hope it will be ascribed to the glimmers of old-fashioned romantic devotion and the expressions of support for middle-class stability and respectability that have been allowed to mitigate the usual nihilistic mayhem."[14] Judith Crist of the New York Post thought that the film was "a mindless compendium of stale plot and stereotyped characters varnished with foul language and garnished with violence."[8] David Ansen of Newsweek wrote, "You don't believe a minute of it, but at the end of the quest, it's hard not to chuckle and cheer."[15]

The film has a score of 75% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 28 reviews.[16]

Soundtrack

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The Gauntlet
Soundtrack album by
Jerry Fielding
Released
  • 1978 (1978)
RecordedSeptember 13 & 15, 1977
The Burbank Studios Hollywood, California
GenreFilm score
Length31:07
LabelWarner Bros.
BSK 3144

The film score was composed and conducted by Jerry Fielding featuring soloists Art Pepper and Jon Faddis and the soundtrack album was released on the Warner Bros. label in 1978.[17]

Reception

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Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic[18]

The AllMusic review by Donald A. Guarisco states: "All in all, The Gauntlet is a strong, consistently engaging album that is well worth a listen for any soundtrack buff whose tastes lean toward the 'crime jazz' sound".[18]

Musicians

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Remake

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Eastwood is producing a remake of the film, which is slated to be released in late 2025 or early 2026. Christopher McQuarrie will direct, with Tom Cruise and Scarlett Johansson attached to star as Detective Ben Shockley and Gus Mally, respectively.

See also

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References

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Informational notes

  1. ^ Eastwood would eventually date Streisand for a brief period in 1989 immediately after breaking up with Locke.[5]

Citations

  1. ^ a b c d Hughes, p.63
  2. ^ a b c d Munn, p. 161
  3. ^ a b "The Gauntlet, Box Office Information". The Numbers. Retrieved January 26, 2012.
  4. ^ Eliot (2011), p. 298
  5. ^ Adams Sloan, Robin (June 1, 1989). "Clint, Barbra on rebound, now bound to each other". The Patriot-News. C14.
  6. ^ McGilligan (1999), p.279
  7. ^ Fenner, Arnie (September 2, 2022). "Frazetta & The Gauntlet". Frazetta Girls.
  8. ^ a b Hughes, p.65
  9. ^ Ebert, Roger. "The Gauntlet". RogerEbert.com. Retrieved May 14, 2019.
  10. ^ Canby, Vincent (December 22, 1977). "Screen: Eastwood 'Gauntlet'". The New York Times. 51.
  11. ^ Murphy, Arthur D. (December 21, 1977). "Film Reviews: The Gauntlet". Variety. 20.
  12. ^ Siskel, Gene (December 22, 1977). "Lots of bullets fly, but 'Gauntlet' is full of blanks". Chicago Tribune. Section 2, p. 5.
  13. ^ Thomas, Kevin (December 21, 1977). "'The Gauntlet' Lives Up to Its Title". Los Angeles Times. Part IV, p. 15.
  14. ^ Arnold, Gary (December 21, 1977). "A Mellowed Eastwood". The Washington Post. D1.
  15. ^ McGilligan (1999), p.273
  16. ^ "The Gauntlet, Movie Reviews". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. Retrieved September 8, 2023.
  17. ^ Discogs album entry accessed February 2, 2016
  18. ^ a b Yanow, Scott. More for Les at the Village Vanguard – Review at AllMusic. Retrieved February 1, 2016.

Bibliography

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