Honkytonk Man

Starring:Verna Bloom, Jim Boelsen, Matt Clark, Rebecca Clemons, Barry Corbin, Kyle Eastwood, Bette Ford, Johnny Gimble, Gary Grubbs, Jerry Hardin, Linda Hopkins, Alexa Kenin, Macon McCalman, John McIntire, Susan Peretz, Joe Regalbuto, John Russell, Tim Thomerson, Tracey Walter
Studio: Warner Home Video
Product Type: DVD

Editorial Review:
Amazon.com
One of Clint Eastwood's mid-1980s experiments in change of pace, this melancholy attempt at comedy confirmed something Clint already had shown in Paint Your Wagon: he's not a very good singer. In Honkytonk Man, which he also directed, he plays a has-been who never was, a would-be country singer who dreams of performing at the Grand Ol' Opry. As he works his way to Nashville with his nephew in tow (played by Eastwood's son, Kyle), he also battles with tuberculosis in a movie more interested in creating soggy handkerchiefs than musical credibility. What little there is of the latter is provided by real-life music stars such as Marty Robbins (who didn't live to see this movie released). --Marshall Fine
Description
Red Stovall (Clint Eastwood) is a Depression-era rascal whose fire-in-the-belly passion comes from the whiskey he slugs and the dream he chases: singing at the Grand Ole Opry. He takes off on a drive from Oklahoma to audition in Nashville with nephew Whit (Clint's son Kyle Eastwood) along to help keep the car on the road and Red on the straight and narrow.

DVD Features:
Featurette:Eastwood Film Highlights
Interactive Menus
Scene Access
Theatrical Trailer

Honkytonk Man / Pink Cadillac / City Heat

Average customer rating:

Honkytonk Man / Pink Cadillac / City Heat
Starring: Clint Eastwood
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

DVDs Under $7.49 | Today's Deals in DVD | Special Features | DVD | Video

( H ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

Every Which Way but Loose
Any Which Way You Can
Clint Eastwood - Adventurer (Firefox / Space Cowboys / White Hunter Black Heart)
Two Mules For Sister Sara
Joe Kidd

ASIN: B000HT38AS
Release Date: 2006-11-07

Description

Hollywood icon Clint Eastwood shows his on-screen versatility in three very different films. The star who grew up during the hard times of the 1930s takes on a Depression Era role as a rambling Honkytonk Man (Disc 1/Side A) and Dust Bowl drifter who hopes to land a Grand Ole Opry gig. The pace is lighter and loopier as Eastwood revs up a Pink Cadillac (Disc 1/Side B) to play a skip-tracer who nabs bail jumpers before the ink on their bogus I.D.s is dry. Bernadette Peters is the woman who slaps cuffs on the lawman's heart. Finally, Eastwood returns to Depression times for City Heat (Disc 2), teaming with Burt Reynolds in a hard-boiled and hilarious tale of jazz, bullets and bootleg gin in 1933 Kansas City. Drink up and duck!

Average customer rating:

-------Colorful characters and a thoughtful story-------
Most Country Music "Stars" Can't Sing Either!!!
Heartbreaking
Eastwood tries to sing country
Watchable, but horrid

Honkytonk Man
Starring: Verna Bloom , Jim Boelsen , Matt Clark , Rebecca Clemons , and Barry Corbin
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

DVDs Under $7.49 | Today's Deals in DVD | Special Features | DVD | Video

( H ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

Bronco Billy
Clint Eastwood Collection: Pink Cadillac
City Heat
Any Which Way You Can
White Hunter, Black Heart

ASIN: B00009N83V
Release Date: 2003-09-02

Amazon.com

One of Clint Eastwood's mid-1980s experiments in change of pace, this melancholy attempt at comedy confirmed something Clint already had shown in Paint Your Wagon: he's not a very good singer. In Honkytonk Man, which he also directed, he plays a has-been who never was, a would-be country singer who dreams of performing at the Grand Ol' Opry. As he works his way to Nashville with his nephew in tow (played by Eastwood's son, Kyle), he also battles with tuberculosis in a movie more interested in creating soggy handkerchiefs than musical credibility. What little there is of the latter is provided by real-life music stars such as Marty Robbins (who didn't live to see this movie released). --Marshall Fine

Description

Red Stovall (Clint Eastwood) is a Depression-era rascal whose fire-in-the-belly passion comes from the whiskey he slugs and the dream he chases: singing at the Grand Ole Opry. He takes off on a drive from Oklahoma to audition in Nashville with nephew Whit (Clint's son Kyle Eastwood) along to help keep the car on the road and Red on the straight and narrow.

DVD Features:
Featurette:Eastwood Film Highlights
Interactive Menus
Scene Access
Theatrical Trailer

Customer Reviews:

-------Colorful characters and a thoughtful story-------.......2006-12-14

Honkytonk Man is an entertaining and well-done film directed by and staring Clint Eastwood. The story takes place during the Great Depression and is about Red Stovall (Clint), a country singer who has a chance to make it on the Grand Ole Opry. Red knows it's probably his last chance for fame. He's an alcoholic and also very sick with tuberculosis. On his way to Nashville, he stops by to visit his sister in Oklahoma. She persuades Red to take along his teenage nephew Whit (Kyle Eastwood) to drive for him. She suspects that Whit will also have to take care of his uncle before very long.

I don't know if Kyle Eastwood appeared in any other films, but I was impressed by how well he did. He was charming and very natural in the role of admiring nephew. In fact, the supporting cast couldn't have been better.

There are some negative comments from other reviewers about Clint's singing. I felt his style matched the character he was portraying in the film. He had a quiet singing voice that was between talking and singing. I found his voice to be pleasant. He's an actor and not a professional singer. I've heard many actors used that same vocal technique when required to sing.

This was not a glamorous or glitzy type of film. It was the story of people who seemed real and lived during the Depression when life was tough and all you had were your dreams.

Most Country Music "Stars" Can't Sing Either!!!.......2005-11-12

This is yet another wonderful offerring by Clint Eastwood. In this movie Clint plays Red, an aspiring guitarist and singer who dreams of performing in Memphis. We see Red's deterioration through Tuberculosis as the movie progresses. His final cry to a lost love is more believable than anything I have seen or read by that so called "Master Of Vulnerable Sentimental Nostalgia" Tennessee Williams.I give this movie 5 stars because Mr. Eastwood can't sing which means he has something in common with most Country Music Stars today.

Heartbreaking.......2005-09-12

Honkytonky Man starts in a casual manner. The first hour made me think it's one of those films by Eastwood that are not be taken too seriously. As Red's illness grows worse day by day, his character becomes more and more pityable. Clint Eastwood plays the dying man in this movie. It was nearly tearjerking to see him cry out for his love when his end is near. Towards the last half hour of the film, the film manages to reach it's peak in terms of moving script. I dont know how he does it but Clint Eastwood somehow manages to make "not so serious films" into gulp inducing trips. If I could start again, I would say this film is about a man who makes music. He ain't a big shot and he doesnt have many big dreams. Towards the end of his life(Thanks to TB which he suffers from) he realises he must record his music. His nephew is his only friend and he's always around. The core of this movie would interest a person who likes travelling,beer,acoustic guitar and casual flings. I can't possibly comprehend just how terribly serious this film got towards the end.

I have seen 5 Clint Eastwood films before this. Escape from Alcatraz, Absolute Power and MDB are his best. This one will earn more respect if I ever give it a watch again. I would look back at Honkytonky Man as a film in which Clint Eastwood played the character of a semi cowboy who lived his life to what he stood for. Kyle Eastwood acted well considering this might have been his debut.

All in all, a winner of its own sort with a very good touching end.

Eastwood tries to sing country.......2004-03-29

In the early 1980's, Clint Eastwood tried a number of different characters. He had his ups and downs, and HONKEYTONK MAN is definately a down. Based on a novel, the movie takes place in the 1930's with Eastwood playing Red Stoval, an aging country singer trying to make it in the bars. He sest out on a trip to Memphis, hoping to make it big. His real-life son Kyle plays his nephew, who tags along to keep him out of trouble.

I give him credit for trying, but Eastwood CANNOT sing. He actually did a better job trying in PAINT YOUR WAGON then here. The movie is rather slow, with the occasional sleazy comment or action to hold your interest, which doesn't last long. One funny moment is when Red tells off a cop who is frisking him. Another is when he holds up a friend with a shotgun, (yes, he does carry a gun in this one briefly). By far the funniest part is where he takes his nephew to a brothel to help him lose his virginity! Still, the movie is depressing with Red suffering from TB throughout the whole film, and to see him waste away while singing doesn't make things any better. The cars are also not in date with the film. Wanting to be somebody is a good motive for still going on with the show, but he takes it too far, and any Eastwood fan would be rattled by the ending. HONKEYTONK MAN was a commercial disappointment, and I would sadly rank it as one of Eastwood's worst films.

Watchable, but horrid.......2003-05-12

Let me say straight off the bat that this is an enjoyable film in many ways. It moves along without ever boring, despite not having much in the way of dramatic highs and lows. The acting feels pretty natural for the most part, but not really believable for the place and time in which the movie takes place.

But there is a lot to complain about. First of all, Eastwood cannot sing at all. It's pretty embarrassing, and I'm a little astonished that he didn't have someone do this for him. It's not just because his voice is timid to the point of being characterless, or without any sort of natural projection or decent intonation. There are plenty of "way off" country singers I love and admire. It's more that his voice has no country in it at all - it's almost a more tepid and unaccented sub-sub-James Taylor sort of voice. Downright bewildering, especially when this film is meant to take place in the 30's, when country music was in its infancy and fairly crude sounding, recorded or live.

I notice one other reviewer mentions a cameo from Bob Wills, who entered into a coma a decade before the movie was made, and died eight years prior to the film. That's a hell of a cameo! Even if this "thirties" movie was meant to represent 1939, Wills still would have only been in his early 30s - which makes odd the fact that he's played as if he's at least in his 60s here, and performing a song that wasn't recorded until two decades later. (Kudos, on the other hand, for having an actor who actually worked with Wills play the part.) Ditto the clothing styles (a woman who performs on the Grand Ole Opry wears an outfit that wouldn't have been worn until roughly five decades later, performing a song that sounds like early 80s Barbara Mandrell - nothing even remotely within two generations of the period in which this movie takes place.) One could say it's this failure to get even the most basic period details correct that prevented this movie from having very much success. It's a largely comical adventure a la "O Brother, Where Are Thou", which plays around with a lot of cultural mythology - but "O Brother" could play even faster and looser with credible plot development largely because they captured the details of the time period so wonderfully well. Bear in mind that even the term "honky tonk" was not widespread until the 40s, and hardly used at all to describe a genre of music until the early 50s. That makes the title of this film and its general basis pretty suspect. It's ironic that the success of "O Brother" was largely in their use of "real" traditional music sounding like what it did at the time, not some weakened Nashville pap. Another point is that in the mid-30s the Grand Ole Opry wasn't anything like what it became in the 40s and 50s - Chicago actually would have been a better destination, as the WLS Barn Dance was really roaring then.

There's also the names - there was a Herman Arnspiger who played with Bob Wills and was by any account I've read, a pretty swell guy. Here he is a friend of Bob Wills, but a total lying scumbag robber thief trying to pimp an underaged girl. "Stovall", the name of Eastwood's character, was also the name of a guy who was one of country's great songwriters. (His name was Vern, not Red though). And the TB thing is kind of a conflation of the death of Jimmie Rodgers (or Woody Guthrie's cousin Jack, for that matter) - coughing between takes in his final recording session. I know people who assume this was based on a true story, and that's a shame, as some of the true stories of these country guys are far more compelling than this tale was.

I'm a young person whose musical interests extend largely to reggae / punk / 60s soul, so it's not like I'm an oldtimer complaining about how it really was. I sure wasn't there then. My point is more that when a novice classic country fan such as myself can see the gigantic flaws in research, there's a big problem.

My final word is that this is a fair way to spend a couple of hours, but probably a poor choice of things to spend your money on. Buy "O Brother" or Robert Altman's "Nashville" instead if you want something similar.

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