Breezy (1973)

Director:

Clint Eastwood

Writer:

Jo Heims (writer)

Release Date:

9 March 1974 (Denmark)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Plot:

Breezy is a teen-aged hippy with a big heart. After taking a a ride with a man who only wants her for sex...

Plot Keywords:

Sex | Nudity | Melodrama | Female Nudity | Age Difference

Awards:

Nominated for 3 Golden Globes.

Cast

William Holden	...	Frank Harmon
Kay Lenz	...	Edith Alice Breezerman ('Breezy')
Roger C. Carmel	...	Bob Henderson
Marj Dusay	...	Betty Tobin
Joan Hotchkis	...	Paula Harmon
Jamie Smith-Jackson	...	Marcy (as Jamie Smith Jackson)
Norman Bartold	...	Man in Car
Lynn Borden	...	Harmon's Overnight Date
Shelley Morrison	...	Nancy Henderson
Dennis Olivieri	...	Bruno
Eugene Peterson	...	Charlie
Lew Brown	...	Police Officer
Richard Bull	...	Doctor
Johnnie Collins III	...	Norman
Don Diamond	...	Maitre d'

Runtime:

Germany:102 min | USA:108 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

Spain:18 | UK:AA (1973) | Argentina:16 | Singapore:M18 | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:Btl | USA:R | West Germany:16

Company:

Malpaso Company, The

Trivia:

When Frank and Breezy go on their movie date, the film they attend is High Plains Drifter (1973).

Goofs:

Continuity: In the scene when Frankie and Breezy are walking down the boardwalk and pass Director Clint Eastwood, he is standing to the left of the post. As they continue walking, they pass a couple at the next post. In the next camera angle high above, Director Clint Eastwood is still leaning over the railing, but now he is to the right of the post, and the couple just passed by, are no longer even on the boardwalk.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With (2006)

Soundtrack:

Breezy's Song

Wisdom & Happiness

One of Clint Eastwood's early yet still obscure directorial efforts, `Breezy' gently and charmingly explores the nature of wisdom, which can be present in the most unusual of people and the real meaning of happiness, which is usually found in the oddest and least-expected of places, usually when one is not looking for it.

Amid the smoldering cultural wreckage of the recently-ended 1960s with its nagging remnants of the shrill `don't trust anyone over 30' crowd and the seemingly still-unbridgeable `generation gap,' the odd and quirky relationship between the youthful, Ophelia-like Edith Alice `Breezy' Breezerman (Lenz) and the middle-aged Frank Harmon (Holden) successfully and simultaneously reveals several very simple but still frequently-ignored truths; that shrewdness and insight are not necessarily the sole province of the `aged' and that a carefree, happy spontaneity isn't and shouldn't be automatically restricted to the `young.' And, more subtly, we also are quietly reminded that neither wisdom nor happiness can realistically exist isolated from one another and that the bitter memories of our own respective pasts can often tragically prevent us from getting what we truly need the most.

Like the Italian neo-realist director Sergio Leone under which Eastwood successfully toiled in the 1960s, the personalities of the film's characters are deliberately and slowly intensified but not over-presented or stereotyped, which adds to the power, insight and poignancy of this understated and well-produced film.