Coogan's Bluff

The second film in Siegel's rogue cop cycle, this falls between Madigan and Dirty Harry. It's about an Arizona deputy sent to New York, stetson, boots and all, to escort a prisoner home; the prisoner escapes, and Coogan (Eastwood) roams New York, cowboy in the big city, until he eventually recaptures the hippy prisoner and returns home. Siegel's handling of this conflict between the self-reliant Westerner and the big-city rule book is predictably very funny, and he is aided by a very tight script as well as a mercilessly sarcastic performance from Cobb as Coogan's New York superior. Even Siegel's somehow off-centre treatment of New York hippiedom is intriguingly wry.