cult film freak: RIP WILLIAM SMITH 'ANY WHICH WAY YOU CAN' CLINT EASTWOOD

William Smith pointing the way Year: 1980 Rates: ***1/2

The popular sequel ANY WHICH WAY YOU CAN surpasses BUT LOOSE by getting the bickering love story between Clint Eastwood and Sondra Locke out of the way, and while Geoffrey Lewis as Clint's junkyard business partner deserved more scenes, William Smith adds genuine bad ass legitimacy and alone takes the place of the random HARD TIMES style money-brawls spread throughout the original, as it's all one big anticipated match here, a kind of QUIET MAN moveable bout filmed nicely by Clint's stuntman buddy Buddy Van Horn who, like Smith himself, also died recently, so let this be a quick memorial for both...

William Smith was one of the great heavies of cinema, and television, peaking a few years back as villain's villain Falconetti in both RICH MAN, POOR MAN series, and before that swung fists in a slew of biker, horror, blaxploitation and exploitation flicks. But what made the more mainstream ANY so great is he's a nice tough guy, who becomes friends with Clint's Philo Beddoe before the match... Philo whose beloved pet is that famous orangutan pet Clyde, doing the same "Right Hook" to knock down a biker gang, one of several repeats including Ruth Gordon doing her noisy old broad character: Thus ANY WHICH WAY YOU CAN allows the viewer to hangout with these hangout-movie characters instead of going through the motions of getting to know them. So Beer's To You, William Smith... and Buddy Van Horn too.