Clint Eastwood’s ‘Play Misty for Me’ Carved Out an Entire Horror Subgenre [Make My Day Podcast]

Clint Eastwood, ever heard of him? Of course you have … though maybe not around these parts. Whether he’s on screen, behind the camera, or, hell, even both, the two-time Oscar winner is best known for grounded dramas (Million Dollar Baby, Mystic River, Bridges of Madison County), cutting-edge westerns (Unforgiven, High Plains Drifter, Dollars Trilogy), crime thrillers (Dirty Harry, Tightrope, Escape from Alcatraz), left-of-the-dial comedies (Every Which Way But Loose, Bronco Billy, Space Cowboys), biopics (Sully, Richard Jewell, American Sniper), and the list goes on. But Horror? Short of his bit parts in The Witches and Revenge of the Creature, you’d have to bend the tenets of the genre to make it work.

The most malleable of his films to the Horror genre is his directorial debut: 1971’s Play Misty for Me. Written by Jo Heims and Dean Riesner, the taut thriller pre-dates the “-from hell” subgenre (think: Fatal Attraction) by nearly two decades. It’s also a better movie than most of them. Eastwood not only proves to be the lean and mean director we know and respect today from the get-go, but he also serves double duty as the central role. He plays a suave albeit naive radio show host in Carmel who clicks through women faster than he shifts through radio blocks. One particular femme fatale proves to be a thorn in his side. Spoiler: Gangie, aka Jessica Walter. What follows is a delirious tryst … yep, from hell.

To celebrate Valentine’s Day, Make My Day: A Clint Eastwood Podcast — a detour of The Losers’ Club and Halloweenies — heads to Carmel-by-the-Sea to cruise through Eastwood’s diamond debut and claim it as a Horror classic. Together, co-hosts Michael Roffman, McKenzie Gerber, and Adam Carston discuss why Eastwood landed on this title for his first foray into filmmaking, the connections to his filmography, the what-if career he may have had in Horror, and why this is one of the best hangs of all time. This is a personal favorite of the trio and they go longer than usual. You might say they’re obsessive.

Stream below and subscribe to the series via Apple Podcasts or Spotify. In the past, they’ve covered Dirty Harry, High Plains Drifter, and Tightope — three titles that could easily fall into a Halloween lineup or two. They also covered A Fistful of Dollars with special guest Ed Larson of Last Podcast on the Left, the not-awful Space Cowboys, Juror No. 2, and, yes, the Oscar-winning Million Dollar Baby. It’s a monthly show, so be patient, folks.

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