COOGAN’S BLUFF has preternaturally relaxed Arizona lawman ‘Coogan’ (Clint Eastwood) come to kinky, psychedelic 1968 New York City to extradite a killer. Eastwood’s first cop flick is pretty darn dated, with its hippies and ‘now’ look; his hero is so tight-lipped and studly he may as well be a cartoon.

Apart from one okay fight in a poolroom, there’s very little action in 94 minutes, directed by Don Siegel, and the storyline is blah to begin with. Susan Clark’s romantic interest is perfunctory: she’s just there for Clint to demonstrate his caveman charms on, when he’s not busy showing those citified police that, concrete or cactus, a varmint’s a varmint.

The cowboy-cop idea turned into McCloud, much to Dennis Weaver’s fortune. Eastwood, Siegel and composer Lalo Schifrin did the genre up right three years later, in San Francisco, with a cop named ‘Callahan’.

With Lee J. Cobb, Tisha Sterling, Don Stroud, Betty Field, Tom Tully, Melodie Johnson, James Edwards and Seymour Cassel. Rudy Diaz plays the renegade Coogan chases at the start of the film, with accompaniment from Schifrin’s punchy theme: it’s best part of the flick. Grosses came to $6,800,000.