Watch this one again.

I recently picked up the DVD of the 1974 Clint Eastwood thing "Thunderbolt And Lightfoot." I'd seen it plenty of times, mostly as a kid when it used to crop up on TV.

But seeing it again, uninterrupted, and with its Panavision framing preserved, this movie impressed the hell out of me. Here, we get a hint at the kind of performances Eastwood would give later and a good, Oscar-nominated turn by Jeff Bridges. The film's successful juggling of comedy and drama simply wouldn't work if these guys weren't up to the task.

It's a pretty standard Seventies combination character study/buddy/road/crime movie, played for laughs much of the time. Eastwood is The Thunderbolt and Bridges is Lightfoot. I'm not gonna bother with the plot.

Michael Cimino writes and directs (for the first time), and we can assume he should be thanked for much of the picture's breezy charm. This has none of the bloat and pretense of his later "Deer Hunter" or "Heaven's Gate," but instead the pace and efficiency we know from Eastwood's own direction or his work with the great Don Siegel.

The capable cast--rounded out by George Kennedy and Goeffrey Lewis--give many of the scenes an improvised feel, quite rare for a genre film. (Eastwood and Bridges' scene at the park, when Bridges finds out Clint's the fabled crooked Thunderbolt, is a good example.) The heist itself is well done and exciting. And many of the set pieces along their journey are a real hoot, such as Bill McKinney's crazed, muscle-car-driving redneck.

Given the stuff that's turning up in multiplexes these days, I've found that a lot of the Sixties and Seventies action movies seem like true masterpieces. Unlike today's stuff, there's nothing in "Thunderbolt And Lightfoot" that feels manufactured or test-marketed. So, if you haven't seen it in a while, you might want to watch it again. If you've never seen it, by all means do--if you're a fan of stuff like this.

By the way, the poster art you see here was done by Robert McGinnis. McGinnis is known for his James Bond movie posters of the Sixties and Seventies and for thousands of paperback covers. You can check out his work here: http://www.graemeflanagan.com/robert_mcginnis/index.html