The “piece of crap” Clint Eastwood movie disowned by its writer: “It was horrible!”
It’s hard to see past Clint Eastwood as the most successful multi-hyphenate in Hollywood history, because who else is there that’s become an iconic figure in front of the camera before moving behind it to knock out 40 features with remarkable consistency, winning four Academy Awards along the way?
As far as actors-turned-filmmakers go, they don’t come much better. He’s a legendary actor, legendary director, and powerhouse producer, which isn’t bad going. However, there’s one thing that Eastwood definitely isn’t, and that’s a screenwriter.
Beyond his on and offscreen credits, Eastwood has also composed the scores for many of his pictures, contributed to the soundtracks of others, released an entire album of cowboy songs during his Rawhide days, produced films that he hasn’t starred in or directed, and been given a ‘Special Thanks’ in the credits of many, many movies that he inspired or influenced in one way or another.
However, he’s never once been awarded a writing, screenplay, or story credit. That’s not to say he doesn’t have an input on that side of things, but knowing how he prefers to shoot his flicks with as little fuss as possible, if he sees a script that he likes, he’ll no doubt shoot it as close to word-for-word as possible.
Occasionally, he’ll have another writer take a pass at someone else’s script, which is where the problems can start. Eastwood reunited with his Coogan’s Bluff and future Dirty Harry director, Don Siegel, for their second film together, 1970’s Two Mules for Sister Sara, which was initially penned by Bud Boetticher.
When the script was sold to producer Martin Rackin, he enlisted Albert Maltz to do a rewrite. Boetticher was friends with both Eastwood and Siegel, but when he sat down at the movie’s premiere to see how his story had been brought to the silver screen, it’s an understatement to say that he was pissed.
“Changes? It was horrible!” he raged to Andrew Rausch. “Don called me the day after the premiere and said, ‘Thanks for not walking out of the theatre last night’. I said, ‘Don, how could you make a piece of crap like that?’ And he said, ‘It’s a wonderful thing to wake up in the morning and know there’s a check in the mail’. And there was dead silence. Finally, he said, ‘I’m talking to the wrong guy, aren’t I?'”
Boetticher was furious that Siegel and Eastwood had bastardised his script, and when the filmmaker tried to defend himself by saying he was paid handsomely for making the film, the writer told him that “it’s better to wake up in the morning and not be ashamed of what you see in the mirror.” His name was still in the credits, but he wasn’t happy about it.
There’s not a lot a writer can do once they’ve sold their script to a studio or director, but since Boetticher was close with Two Mules for Sister Sara‘s two key figures, he thought they wouldn’t stab him in the back and tarnish his work. They did, as far as he was concerned, and he wanted nothing to do with the finished feature.
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