It should have been the biggest thing in the world. Seriously. In 1984, if you put Burt Reynolds and Clint Eastwood in the same room, you weren't just making a movie; you were basically printing money. They were the two undisputed kings of the box office. Burt had his smirk and his Trans Am; Clint had his squint and his .44 Magnum.
Then came City Heat.
Most people today have completely forgotten that the burt reynolds clint eastwood movie even exists. It’s a weird, tonal mess that feels like two different films fighting for air. On one side, you’ve got a gritty, 1930s Kansas City gangster flick. On the other, a slapstick buddy comedy. It’s the kind of project that leaves you wondering how something with so much "can't-miss" energy ended up becoming a cautionary tale in Hollywood history.
The Firing That Started It All
The history of these two guys goes way back. Like, "getting fired on the same day" back. Honestly, the story of how they met is better than half the scripts in Hollywood.
In 1959, Universal Pictures let them both go. The legend—which Burt loved to tell on the talk show circuit—was that the studio brass told Clint his Adam's apple was too big and he talked too slow. Then they turned to Burt and told him he just couldn't act. As they were walking to their cars, Burt supposedly looked at Clint and said, "You're in trouble. I can learn to act, but you'll never get rid of that Adam's apple."
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By the time the 1980s rolled around, they were the ultimate "A-listers." So, when Warner Bros. announced they were finally teaming up for a movie called Kansas City Jazz, the hype was real.
But things went south before the cameras even started rolling. Blake Edwards, the genius behind The Pink Panther, was originally set to write and direct. He wanted a stylized, sophisticated action-comedy. Clint Eastwood... did not. Clint wanted more grit. He wanted things done his way. Eventually, the friction got so bad that Edwards was fired—or quit, depending on who you ask—and was replaced by Richard Benjamin.
Benjamin was a fine director, but he was basically stepping into a minefield. The script was being rewritten on the fly by everyone, including Joseph Stinson (who wrote Sudden Impact). By the time it was renamed City Heat, the movie had lost its soul. It became a tug-of-war between Burt's desire to be funny and Clint's desire to be the "Man with No Name" in a fedora.
Why City Heat Didn't Work
If you watch it now, the burt reynolds clint eastwood movie is just... jarring.
You’ve got Burt playing Mike Murphy, a private eye who’s basically a walking wisecrack. Then you’ve got Clint as Lieutenant Speer, a cop who is so stoic he makes a statue look animated. They spend a huge chunk of the movie in separate subplots. That’s the cardinal sin of a buddy movie! You don’t put the two biggest stars in the world together and then keep them in different rooms for forty minutes.
The Tone Problem
One minute, a character is getting brutally murdered or thrown out of a window. The next, Burt is doing a double-take or a "sight gag" with a tiny gun. It never finds its footing.
- The Action: The shootouts are surprisingly violent for a PG movie.
- The Comedy: Most of the jokes land with a thud because the stakes feel too high (or too low) depending on the scene.
- The Chemistry: When they are on screen together, the banter is actually okay. There's a famous scene where they keep pulling out bigger and bigger guns to outdo each other. It’s the one part of the movie everyone remembers because it actually captures the "Burt and Clint" energy the audience paid for.
The supporting cast was actually incredible, too. You had Madeline Kahn, Jane Alexander, and Rip Torn. Even Irene Cara and Richard Roundtree (Shaft himself!) were in the mix. But the movie didn't know what to do with them. Madeline Kahn, one of the funniest women to ever live, is largely wasted in a "damsel" role that doesn't let her fly.
The Injury That Changed Burt's Career
People talk about City Heat as a box office disappointment—it made about $38 million on a $25 million budget, which wasn't a total disaster but was a huge letdown—but for Burt Reynolds, it was a physical catastrophe.
On the very first day of filming, a stunt went wrong. A stuntman was supposed to hit Burt with a breakaway chair made of balsa wood. Instead, he grabbed a real metal-and-wood chair by mistake. The blow shattered Burt’s jaw.
It was horrific. He couldn't eat solid food for months. He lost over 30 pounds, and because this was the height of the HIV/AIDS scare in the 80s, the tabloids started vicious rumors that he was dying. He wasn't; he was just in constant, agonizing pain and hooked on painkillers to get through the day.
Burt later said that his career never really recovered from that moment. He lost his "invincibility" in the eyes of the public. He looked gaunt and tired in his subsequent films. While Clint went on to win Oscars and direct masterpieces, Burt entered a long period of "direct-to-video" purgatory before his big comeback in Boogie Nights years later.
Is It Worth Watching Today?
Look, if you're a fan of 80s cinema, you kinda have to see the burt reynolds clint eastwood movie at least once. It’s a fascinating artifact.
It’s not a "good" movie in the traditional sense, but it’s a masterclass in how "star power" can’t save a broken script. The production design is actually gorgeous—they really captured that 1933 Kansas City vibe with the suits and the cars. And seeing those two icons side-by-side is still cool, even if the movie around them is crumbling.
Honestly, it's a bit of a tragedy. If Blake Edwards had stayed on, we might have gotten a classic like The Sting. Instead, we got a movie that feels like it was edited in a blender.
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What to take away from the City Heat story:
- Creative control is a double-edged sword. Clint's desire to control the tone essentially stripped the movie of its original wit.
- The "Buddy" formula requires the buddies to actually be together. If you're writing a script with two leads, don't separate them.
- Context matters. The movie's failure was compounded by the media's obsession with Burt's health, proving that the narrative around a film can be just as important as the film itself.
If you want to see the "real" Burt and Clint, skip the movie and go find old clips of them on The Tonight Show together. Their real-life friendship was full of the warmth and ribbing that City Heat desperately lacked.
To really understand the impact of this era, go back and watch Sharky's Machine (Burt at his peak) followed by Pale Rider (Clint at his peak). It highlights exactly what was missing when they finally collided in 1984.