Product Description

A middle-aged california businessman rebounds from divorce to an affair with a hippie. Studio: Uni Dist Corp. (mca) Release Date: 06/01/2004 Starring: Jamie Smith Jackson Eugene Peterson Run time: 108 minutes Rating: R Director: Clint Eastwood

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #34272 in DVD
• Brand: Universal Studios
• Released on: 2004-06-01
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 107 minutes

Customer Reviews

"Breezy".... Cool and Refreshing
This review refers to the DVD Widescreen Edition(Universal) of "Breezy"...

Long before there was a "Pretty Woman" there was "Breezy". She stole the heart of William Holden and will steal yours too, as this touching tale, directed by Clint Eastwood, way back in 1973, hasn't lost a bit of it's charm.

Breezy, played by Kay Lenz, doesn't know where her next meal is coming from. She hangs out on the streets, crashing at anybody's pad that will have her for the night. She's young, a free-spirit, and can only see the good in any situation thrown her way. She welcomes life with open arms, and it seems to smile down on her as well. Frank Harmon(Holden), on the other hand is a middle-aged well-to do Real Estate broker, who's heart has hardened toward the world. He lives in a beautiful home in the hills and the almighty dollar is the only thing he welcomes into his life. That is of course until fate sends Breezy to him, and he learns to open his heart once more.

Despite the age difference, Holden and Lenz(nominated for a Golden Globe for "most promising newcomer"), have a terrific on screen chemistry. Eastwood displays early on his intuitiveness for the behind the camera magic he would perform for many years to come. The beautiful California coast line plays a big part in the film as well, and looks inviting on this great DVD. The transfer of this over 30 year old film is wonderful. The film is clear, colors bright, and is presented in anamorphic widescreen(1.85:1). The sound is pretty decent in the DD2.0(Mono), there are English captions for those needing them, and subtitles in Spanish and French.

The clothes and cars used in this film may be out of fashion, but this film is one that tells a story that will never get old.

Enjoy....Laurie

If you enjoy the music from eastwod's films you make likeMusic for the Movies of Clint Eastwood

a touching romantic drama
Breezy (1973)

Breezy has been a film I have known about for about sixteen years but have never seen until last week when I finally got the DVD.
Directed by Clint Eastwood, the film has been pretty much forgotten about over the years, not helped by the unavailability of it on home video, mainly here in the United Kingdom.
But now it's here, at last.

Eastwood, fast becoming the most popular movie star in the early seventies after the success of his Spaghetti Western trilogy (1964,'65,'66) and his roles in Dirty Harry (1971) and High Plains Drifter (1973) turned his eye to directing and directed the highly acclaimed Play Misty For Me in 1971.

For Eastwood's third directorial effort Breezy in 1973, Eastwood decided to stay behind the camera instead and the leading man duties were handed over to William Holden.
Eastwood felt he was to young to play the role of Frank Harmon, although he was 43 at the time and more than twice the age of Kay Lenz who played the role of Breezy, Lenz was only twenty. Incidentally William Holden was 55.

Filmed entirely in Los Angeles this low key effort is a story set to a May - December romance between a successful businessman Frank Harmon (Holden) and a free spirited hippy chick named Breezy (Lenz).
I can recommend the DVD to anyone interested in an often touching romantic drama with consistently well acted performances from the films two leading actors.

Here is the basic synopsis of the film.

Frank Harmon (William Holden) and Breezy (Kay Lenz) are polar opposites: he is a successful, middle-aged real estate executive disillusioned by love; she is a young, outgoing free spirit with a trusting heart. Following a chance meeting, Frank reluctantly befriends the eccentric young woman, and eventually their friendship evolves into a love affair. The relationship gives Frank a renewed outlook on life but also fills him with doubts about their age difference, and he eventually breaks it off. The painful separation from Breezy forces Frank to decide whether or not to take a risk that may give him his one true shot at happiness.

Eastwood as director has a tendency to let his actors just get on with it and do their thing and in this film William Holden and Kay Lenz really shine through.
Both actors are marvellous to watch and give truly outstanding performances.
Eastwood was proud of the film but unfortunately it did not do very well upon it's release and received harsh reviews.
One wonders if the film may have been more a success if Eastwood himself took the starring role. But personally I believe William Holden delivered a charming side to his character that I don't think Eastwood would have been capable of at the time.

Eastwood during this period was fast becoming inpatient with the way Universal were handling his movies and made one more for the studio, The Eiger Sanction (1975), before sealing a partnership with Warner Bros. that has lasted for nearly thirty years.

About the DVD.

The film is presented in an anamorphically enhanced 16:9 format in the original theatrical ratio of 1.85:1. The picture looks quite superb.
The sound is delivered in 2.0 Dolby Digital Mono which is just fine for this type of film and sounds good for it's age.
The only down side to this DVD is the lack of any extras. No trailer, nothing except the standard menu options, scene access, language and subtitle options etc.

Notes:

Sondra Locke auditioned for the role of Breezy but was turned down. She would later go on to star in six Eastwood movies and the couple had a twelve year relationship, but that's another story.

Breezy was the first film which Clint directed but did not star.

The film cost $750,000 to make.

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," which had left many men and women from all age groups deeply confused, adrift and alienated, the odd and quirky relationship between the youthful, Ophelia-like Edith Alice "Breezy" Breezerman (Lenz) and the cynical, middle-aged Frank Harmon (Holden) successfully and simultaneously reveals several very simple but still frequently-ignored truths; that wisdom 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 and unpleasant experiences of our own respective pasts can often tragically keep us from getting what we truly want and need the most.

Like the Italian neo-realist director Sergio Leone, in whose classic "spaghetti westerns" the eponymous "man with no name" successfully toiled in the 1960s, director Eastwood slowly and deliberately unfolds the personalities of the film's characters (warts and all) but does not self-consciously over-present or stereotype them, which adds to the power, insight and poignancy of this understated and well-produced film, topical, yes, but in its own way, timeless, one head and shoulders above such glittery, simpleminded and laughably stereotypical trash like "Pretty Woman."