EVERY WHICH WAY: Acting 2: Sondra Locke's Performance

[KC]

Every Which Way But Loose was the next Eastwood film to be released after The Gauntlet, pairing up Eastwood with Locke again in their third movie together. What do you think of the casting of Locke as Lynn Halsey-Taylor? What do you think of her performance? What is her best moment in the film?

[misty71]

Im no big fan of Sondra.I have to admit, I liked her in the gauntlet, but Im still no big fan of Sondra.
 
Her performance in the movie?Ummm, where do I begin, maybe with the part shes in the truck with clint and she sings that atrocious "truck driving man" thing?
 Im sorry, I cant see her as a singer, shes AW-FUL.
I didnt really like her in the movie, in fact , shes the only thing I didnt like about the movie, and I think someone else, heck, anyone else could have been a better Lynn halsey taylor than she was.
 Sorry Locke fans, but that singing makes me wish I was deaf.
 All in all, a terrible choice of casting....I mean, there are tons of singers out there

[Matt]

I won't be posting many negative comments in this film discussion, but I'm going through the threads here that have been active today, and came upon this one... and it's hard to keep quiet on this issue.  Everyone who is only a casual reader of this board already knows what I think of Sondra's singing...    so I suppose there's no need to go into that again.  However, it is a major factor in why I have a hard time enjoying this film.  There's too many scenes with her singing to have to get through... wouldn't one have been enough? Well, I guess not.  

The story itself isn't affected by her lack of singing talent, in fact... it works.  We know she's a no-talent wanna-be country singer, but she believes she can be the next Parton or Ronstadt, which makes her character a little less glamorous than someone who was really great.  I don't think we're supposed to like Lynn Halsey-Taylor, so her high impression of herself only makes us dislike her more.  So that when she gets more and more hateful as the film wears on, we're okay with Philo seeing her for what she is.

On the other hand... it's asking a lot of us, the audiene, to have to spend about (guessing here) eight minutes of the movie listening to her god-awful singing.  (And I said I wouldn't go into it yet again.   )

Moving on...  I'm not what you'd call a Locke fan, however, I can appreciate the fantastic work she put into The Gauntlet and Bronco Billy, and although I don't like the film or the character that much, can even admit she puts in a good performance in Sudden Impact.  Her performance as Laura Lee in The Outlaw Josey Wales never really struck me in any way, positive or negative.  In these Which Way films, however, I really don't like her performance... and I'm sure some of it is that I don't like the character.  I do think the movie would have been better if this role had been cast differently.

[right turn clyde]

She was a manipulative selfish user...then there's the acting  

[philo]

I am not keen either . What I will say in her defence is that she was not wanting to sing and was persuaded to do so. She was apparently very nervous amongst some of the C&W greats.

Lastly her character being negative I thought was good and ended the film in a way you didn't expect. I liked it until Philo and her made up in the sequel.


Philo .

[D'Ambrosia]

I do find it hard to watch those god awful scenes with the Lockness monster in them especially when singing.  She should have stayed with making drinking fountains.  Halsey-Talyor was a type of drinking fountain very common back in the 60's and 70's and she makes a reference to it while explaining to Philo what shes needs $7000 dollars for.  "I'm going to open my own club in Denver called the Lynn Halsey Taylor Drinking Fountain".  Anyway, I'm sure not to many people got that joke.  I'm not a Locke fan at all, infact, after she went psycho on Clint and tried to take millions of his dollars that just completely did it for me.  She's a second rate actress and the only thing she ever did worth while was appearing in the few movies with Eastwood.  One a scale from one to ten Id give her a two.  That's just because Ive never seen a one before.

[right turn clyde]

But would you really want to give her one ??  

[KC]

I do find it hard to watch those god awful scenes with the Lockness monster in them especially when singing.  She should have stayed with making drinking fountains.  Halsey-Talyor was a type of drinking fountain very common back in the 60's and 70's and she makes a reference to it while explaining to Philo what shes needs $7000 dollars for.  "I'm going to open my own club in Denver called the Lynn Halsey Taylor Drinking Fountain".  Anyway, I'm sure not to many people got that joke.

I certainly didn't, D'Amb ... thanks for explaining it! I always wondered why she hat that peculiar double-barreled name.

Maybe it was this model ... kinda looks like her, don't you think?


Lots more here:
http://www.halseytaylor.com/drinking_f.html

[mgk]

I am not a fan of Sondra Locke's but have seen her have a couple of good performances in Eastwood movies.  But, this is my least favorite performance from her.  There is, of course, the singing and I'll admit that it's hard to critique a performance when you're not really fond of the character.

However, I thought she was great in the scene where she starts hitting Philo over and over.  Her facial expressions reavealed such anger and frustration and her attempts to hit Philo were just plain relentless.

[mgk]

Thanks, everyone! This thread is now locked.  Please post any additional thoughts you have on this topic in the General Discussion forum.

[The Schofield Kid]

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