Clint Eastwood, dressed in minister garb, stands at the pulpit of a tiny Idaho church preaching to his small congregation.
“And the leopard shall lie down with the kid,” he says to his captive audience.
Cut to 24-year-old Jeff Bridges strutting through a weed-covered field dressed in black leather pants, plaid shirt unbuttoned at the top, silver chain dangling over his chest.
The strikingly handsome young man looks more suited to Greenwich Village than small town America.
Within the first three minutes of Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, writer-director Michael Cimino is already telegraphing to the audience that the relationship between the film’s two male lead characters will be more than just a friendship.
The 1974 classic is, in fact, a romantic drama, with elements of action and adventure thrown in as mere framing devices.
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