Coogan's Bluff (1968)

Arizona Deputy Sheriff Wyatt Coogan (Clint Eastwood) has once again annoyed the sheriff.  Irritated, the sheriff gave him the unenviable task of an extradition from New York.  Coogan arrives in New York City and immediately goes to the police station.  Lt. McElroy (Lee J. Cobb) explains that the prisoner was transferred to Bellevue Hospital and cannot be handed over until the DA & Judge approve.  Coogan is not impressed.  Viewing the paperwork as nonsense, he went to the hospital and bluffed his way into see the prisoner, James Ringerman (Don Stroud).  Claiming that everything has been approved, he convinced the doctor to release Ringerman to him.  On the way to the flight, one of Ringerman's associates clocked Coogan over the head.

Coogan woke up in the hospital with Lt. McElroy castigating him.  Arizona has taken him off the extradition and recalled him.  Unwilling to leave New York as a beaten man, Coogan set out to find Ringerman.  He was not completely without allies; he had met parole officer Julie Roth (Susan Clark).  Initially, he pursued her as a fling to kill time.  However, she was also a parole officer who had worked with a woman who was tied to Ringerman.

Coogan is a womanizer.  While bringing in a suspect in Arizona, he stopped to hook up with a woman; the suspect was left handcuffed on the porch.  In New York, he pursued Julie Roth and had a one-night stand with Linny Raven (Tisha Sterling).  With Julie, he was quite persistent.  She repeatedly declined his offers, but he would not take "no" as an answer.  To modern sensibilities, he was quite pushy.  Despite his bad behavior, she did warm to him, even going to the airport to see him off.

There was a character named Pushie, played by David Doyle (the original Bosley from Charlie's Angels).  It was odd to see him as an unsavory lowlife goon.

The funny thing about the movie is that it is all Coogan's fault.  His loose cannon behavior in Arizona resulted in his assignment to extradition.  His impatience and flouting the rules led to Ringerman's escape.  Once Ringerman is recaptured, Lt. McElroy offers the same DA & Judge spiel that he offered at the start.  This time, Coogan accepted those rules.

The helicopter flight to and from New York City was amazing.  I saw this film before but had forgotten the helicopter landing on the PanAm building.  For more than a decade, it was possible to fly directly from  LaGuardia Airport or JFK to the PanAm building and thus be downtown in 10 minutes.  In a way, it seems like 1968 had better air travel than today.

Speaking of 1968, this movie has plenty of hippies.  The Pidgeon-Toed Orange Peel Nightclub was peak 60's hippie culture in feel.  Linny Raven's apartment had a paint scheme that reminded one of Scooby Doo's Mystery Machine.

According to Quentin Tarantino, this movie became the template for action movies for the next 25 years.  It does have a very familiar feel to it.  Not great, but certainly entertaining.