After he firmly established himself as the flinty lead of the “Man With No Name” and Dirty Harry franchises, where did Clint Eastwood decide to go in 1978? Eastwood branched into a comedy that made him buddies with an orangutan, of course!

Which paid off big-time, as Every Which Way But Loose turned into the fourth highest-grossing flick of 1978 and also Eastwood’s biggest hit to that point. I guess playing against type can work.

Philo Beddoe (Eastwood) earns extra bucks as a bare-knuckle brawler. When he hits the road, he does so with his simian pal Clyde as his “co-pilot” along with his fight promoter brother Orville (Geoffrey Lewis).

Along the way, Philo meets country vocalist Lynn Halsey-Taylor (Sondra Locke) and falls for her. When she disappears, Philo, Orville and Clyde head out to find her.

Loose became enough of a hit to inspire a sequel via 1980’s Any Which Way You Can. Inevitably, it couldn’t replicate the success of the 1978 flick, as Loose made $85 million US on a mere $5 million budget.

Can cost $15 million and earned $70 million US, more than enough for a tidy profit. It also ended the burgeoning franchise, perhaps because the decline in receipts might’ve led Eastwood and the studio to get out before they ran the property into the ground.

Or perhaps Eastwood simply didn’t want to spend the rest of his career stuck at the hip with an orangutan. In between these two flicks, the ripoff TV series BJ and the Bear arrived, and that likely made Eastwood more reluctant to continue with Clyde.

As an 11-year-old in 1978, one would think I’d have been part of the target audience for Loose, but I didn’t see it. Even as a kid, the concept seemed idiotic.

47 years later, this Blu-ray becomes my first screening of Loose. Did I judge correctly as a pre-teen in the late 1970s?

Yup. Outside of the silly novelty of Eastwood yukking it up with an ape, I can’t figure out why audiences flocked to this nonsense in its day.

My synopsis implies that Loose comes with an actual plot. Technically, I guess the quest to find Lynn creates a semblance of a narrative.

However, it seems like only the loosest of threads and it doesn’t exist as anything other than an excuse to send Philo and company on the road. This feels like an unnecessary complication.

And it doesn’t matter much anyway, as Philo’s pursuit of romance becomes superfluous. Loose exists to show Clyde’s semi-profane antics and let Eastwood brawl a lot.

The latter becomes a mistake. Rather than seem like a decent guy, Philo comes across as more than a little psychotic.

Philo gets obsessed with anyone who even vaguely “wrongs” him and he goes to absurd extremes to settle these scores. This makes him look like a nut, and not a sympathetic one.

The supporting cast of colorful characters can’t help matters. Ruth Gordon annoys as the mother of Philo and Orville, and the various oddballs they meet along the way overact relentlessly in their pursuit of laughs that never arrive.

Essentially Loose consists of one tedious brawl after another. Each gets depicted as goofy enough to add to the attempts at comedy but they just grow tiresome quickly.

As does everything about Loose. Audiences ate up this slop 47 years ago but I can’t figure out why, as this turns into a moronic piece of junk.

Every Which Way But Loose appears in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. Though it never excelled, the image held up fairly well.

Overall delineation seemed pretty good. Some softness developed in wider shots and interiors, but these instances stayed modest.

No issues with jagged edges or shimmering occurred, and I saw no edge haloes. Grain seemed natural and I noticed no obvious print flaws.

Loose opted for a palette that veered earthy, with a lean toward browns and blues. These came across as intended and showed reasonable vivacity.

Blacks felt dark and tight, while low-light scenes brought good clarity. Ultimately, this came across as a more than competent presentation for a movie from 1978.

Originally a monaural affair, the Blu-ray boasted a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 remix. Don’t expect much from the soundscape, though.

Surround usage remained so minimal that it became nearly non-existent. The back speakers offered basic and light reinforcement of the forward domain and nothing more.

In the front, music became “broad mono”, as the songs and score spread to the sides in a modest manner. However, none of these displayed actual stereo delineation.

Effects cropped up on the sides in a moderate way, at least, especially as vehicles broadened across the speakers. Still, the track largely stayed anchored to the front center.

Audio quality felt acceptable, with speech that appeared reasonably natural and without obvious edginess. Effects showed decent accuracy, albeit without a lot of range.

Music varied, as some elements showed superior breadth than others. Still, the songs and score came across fairly well. I couldn’t find much reason to make this a 5.1 track but it seemed good enough for a “B-“.

No extras appear on the disc.

A major hit in 1978, Every Which Way But Loose doesn’t hold up after 47 years. Actually, I don’t know what made it a success back then either, but it seems monotonous and without charm now. The Blu-ray provides largely positive picture and audio but it lacks bonus materials. This turns into a decent release for a witless movie.

Note that this 2025 Blu-ray reissues the movie’s prior release in 2008. The 2025 BD simply reproduces the same disc from 17 years earlier.