Clint Eastwood's all-time favorite film isn't a western—and the reason why he loves his surprise pick is as enigmatic as the man himself.
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00:00Clint Eastwood's all-time favorite film isn't a Western, and the reason why he loves his
00:05surprise pick is as enigmatic as the man himself.
00:08Eastwood's Hollywood career officially began in 1955, when he made a brief, uncredited
00:13appearance as a lab technician in Jack Arnold's Revenge of the Creature.
00:17Nine years later, unhappy as a mid-level television star on the CBS Western series Rawhide, he
00:22jetted off to Spain to make a different kind of Western with a very different kind of director.
00:27Set him up and move him out."
00:29The result, Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars, changed the face of the genre forever, and
00:34set Eastwood down the path to becoming a filmmaker in his own right.
00:38Eastwood's directing career got off to a curiously assured start with the wildly suspenseful
00:42thriller Play Misty for Me, in which the tough, swaggering star of Dirty Harry played a victimized
00:47Bay Area disc jockey.
00:48I never told you that I loved you."
00:51No one expected this from Eastwood, and it's fair to say no one saw this hugely popular
00:55big-screen idol going on to make a film about jazz great Charlie Burt Parker, a heartbreaking
01:00adaptation of the shamelessly sentimental novel The Bridges of Madison County, and,
01:04well, space cowboys.
01:06"'Stop laughing, you used up all your oxygen to me."
01:09Since 1992's revisionist masterpiece Unforgiven, Eastwood has repeatedly strayed outside of
01:15his comfort zone to share with audiences his difficult-to-pin-down worldview.
01:19You may think you've got him pegged politically, but judging from his movies, he deals in shades
01:23of gray.
01:24His latest movie, Juror No. 2, is another zig from the legend, an old-fashioned courtroom
01:29drama with a doozy of a twist.
01:31Speaking of zigging, when it comes to rattling off his favorite movies of all time, Eastwood
01:35has expressed a deep and abiding love for films like John Ford's How Green Was My Valley
01:40and John Huston's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
01:42If you're the police, where are your badges?
01:45Badges?
01:46We ain't got no badges.
01:48But his all-time favorite?
01:50It ain't a Western, though someone does get shot in it.
01:52In a joint interview with his son, Scott, for Esquire, Eastwood singled out director
01:56Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard as his all-time favorite movie.
02:00All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up.
02:03The pitch-black, dark comedy starring William Holden as a sap of a screenwriter who finds
02:07himself in the employ of an out-to-pasture silent film star played by Gloria Swanson
02:11doesn't seem to have a direct influence on any of Eastwood's movies, save for maybe Black
02:15Hunter White Heart, a fictionalized Hollywood drama about the making of the African queen.
02:20Well, you mustn't interrupt now, because you're way too beautiful to interrupt people.
02:24So what about Sunset Boulevard places it above all the rest?
02:28Eastwood told Esquire,
02:29"...two different styles, the style of the silent movie actress and then with William
02:33Holden's character, someone more contemporary.
02:36The two styles working so well together.
02:38And I always liked Billy Wilder."
02:40If you've ever seen Eastwood talk movies or even delve into his own craft, this is about
02:44as introspective as he gets.
02:46No doubt he loves this movie, but if you're hoping he'll open up a little more, you can
02:49pretty much forget it.
02:51What's truly special about Sunset Boulevard to Eastwood will remain a secret.
02:55And if you're wondering what he watches when he needs a good laugh, he told Entertainment
02:58Weekly in 2008 that it's Tropic Thunder.
03:01The man is an enigma.