Honkytonk Man

Honkytonk Man

Honkytonk Man
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DVD Cover Information

Actor: Barry Corbin, Jim Boelsen, Matt Clark, Rebecca Clemons, Verna Bloom
Brand: Warner Brothers
Primary Contributor: Kyle Eastwood
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; Portuguese (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Portuguese (Subtitled); Japanese (Subtitled); Georgian (Subtitled); Chinese (Subtitled); Thai (Subtitled); Portuguese (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 122 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-09-02
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Warner Home Video

Movie Reviews of Honkytonk Man

Movie Review: If your baby leaves you, and you've got no place to go, call me up sweet baby, & bring along some dough, & we'll go honky tonkin
Summary: 5 Stars

In 1982 Clint Eastwood released Honkytonk Man. It was clearly a labor of love, of the music, and a chance for him to make a movie with his son, Kyle, who looks to be about 13 or 14 years old. The story resembles The Grapes of Wrath--Oklahoma farmers escape the dust and tornadoes and The Great Depression. But instead of California, Red Stovall (Clint Eastwood) wants to go to Nashville and audition at The Grand Ole Opry. The rest of the family goes to California, but his nephew, Whit (Kyle Eastwood) somehow persuades mom and dad to let him go with drunk uncle Red. He is fascinated by Uncle Red: his hat, his car, but most of all his guitar and music. His Uncle has two problems, though. He is a raging alcoholic, and he is dying of TB. Whit is the designated driver for the rest of the journey, and what a journey it is.

I happened to glance at some other reviews that were heavily critical of the music, saying some of it wasn't authentic for the time period. I say that he might have stretched it a bit here and there, but the music was so good, that minor quibbles like that are quickly quashed. Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys, or at least a very reasonable facsimile, as well as a blues singer in the vein of Bessie Smith, are a few of the many musical highlights. The story is great, too, as Uncle Red shows his nephew how to tune a guitar, steal chickens, and even takes him to a brothel. If you weren't so caught up in the story, you might realize that the parallel story was Clint showing his son Kyle how to act in a movie, and introducing him to the Honkytonk life. Kyle Eastwood has grown up to be a musician, and he plays bass for his own big jazz band. Perhaps his fascination with the guitar wasn't acting at all.

The story, based on a novel by Clancy Carlile, who also wrote the screenplay, never gives in to easy sentimentality, but it tugs at the heartstrings, and is gritty where it needs to be. Clarence Lawson Carlile's father was half Cherokee, and he was born on a Choctaw Indian reservation. He worked in Texas picking cotton until his sharecropper family moved to California to pick fruit. He began writing while in the Army during the Korean War and later received a Master's degree from San Francisco State University (my alma mater, by the way). His first novel, "As I Was Young and Easy" (1958), was written in 17 days.

Red's struggle with tuberculosis was a harsh reality in those days, and TB also took the life of Jimmie Rodgers, the Singing Brakeman. Like Rodgers, Red Stovall knows he is dying, but he just wants to record some songs, do something that matters, before he dies. Honkytonk Man matters, and I recommend it wholeheartedly, it is one of Clint Eastwood's neglected masterpieces.

10 Films Starring and/or Directed by Clint Eastwood.

Million Dollar Baby (Two-Disc Widescreen Edition) (2004) .... Frankie Dunn, Director
The Bridges of Madison County (Deluxe Widescreen Edition) (1995) .... Robert Kincaid, Director
Unforgiven (1992) .... William 'Bill' Munny, Director
Bird (1988) .... Director
High Plains Drifter (1973) .... The Stranger, Director
Dirty Harry (1971) .... Insp. Harry Callahan
Play Misty for Me (1971) .... Dave, Director
Paint Your Wagon (1969) .... Pardner
Buono, il brutto, il cattivo, Il (1966) .... Blondie
... aka The Good, the Bad and the Ugly(USA)
Per qualche dollaro in pi? (1965) .... Monco
... aka For A Few Dollars More(UK) (USA)

Summary of Honkytonk Man

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


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

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