Guilty pleasure time: I have a soft spot for this moody 1984 Clint Eastwood noir thriller.  

I remember the UK reviews at the time were not particularly kind (“Trite rope” was the headline on one I recall).  Tightrope is far from perfect, but I think its one of Clint’s better films from the 80s (against some pretty slim competition, admittedly.)   The plot is by-the-numbers (prostitute serial killer/rapist stalks New Orleans), but Clint took quite a risk with his image by playing a disturbed S&M-intrigued cop who may or may not be the murderer (spoiler alert: he’s not). Its a dark film in every sense, credited to writer/director Richard Tuggle (who pretty much vanished without trace afterwards), although Clint reportedly ended up directing much of the film himself.

On my Film Studies course at university, one of my favourite modules was Film Noir, mostly covering the black and white hard-boiled thrillers from the 40s and 50s. But I was particularly interested in latter day (colour) noir-inspired films like this one, that took elements of the aesthetic (eg the haunted hero on a self-destructive path) and reinterpreted it for a modern audience. I seem to remember once writing a whole essay on this subject!

I saw Tightrope back then during my student magazine film reviewing days – I think I went alone to the press screening for this one, which is probably a good job as its not exactly a great date night movie. I’ve not seen it again since, so it may not have aged well, but having revisited it again for this post I would now like to give it another viewing. 

The images here are the cover of the press kit (which featured the same image of Clint plus handcuffs as the poster), plus several stills of Clint, alongside co-stars Genevieve Bujold and Clint’s own daughter Alison Eastwood.