"Tightrope:" Cinematic art for men, complete with kinky sex, lusty prostitutes and severed limbs

Title: Tightrope
Released: 1984
Genre: Detective story, heavy on the whores
Notable for: Clint cast daughter Alison Eastwood in supporting role
Coolest thing Clint does: Pulls a severed arm off his throat

Clint was never accused, up to this point in his career, of appealing to female audiences. But "Tightrope" may be his one film that least resembles a chick flick. Estrogen must react to this movie like vinegar in a baking-soda volcano.

For starters, the film is shot in blackness extreme even for Clint. Women like movies that look bright and sunny. Dark lighting matches a dark story. It's a tense murder mystery with a creepy killer who wears masks and stalks prostitutes.

Also, the film has lots of good-quality violence and a fair amount of gratuitous female nudity, although usually the naked parts belong to women who are dead. As a subtext to murder, "Tightrope" features a cornucopia of male sexual perversions and fantasies.

Women must have left the theaters of 1984 and spent 40 minutes bitching about how thoroughly disturbed they were by "Tightrope."

In short, it's one of Clint's best non-cowboy films ever for the testicle-wearing audience.

Clint plays a police detective in New Orleans who investigates a series of murders in the sex district.

His cop character has a backdrop of semi-normal family life that is unusual for Clint's roles. He plays a divorced dude raising two daughters. The oldest daughter is played by his real-life daughter, Alison Eastwood, then 12. Little Alison went on to be a model, actress, film director and the head of a clothing line. Best of all, she posed for Playboy.

Clint's murder investigation is hampered by his chronic inability to ignore his boners. While questioning prostitutes and strippers, he cannot resist some kinky stuff. There is even a highly unClintlike suggestion that he has tried gay sex.

Every woman is gorgeous and they all want to screw Clint as soon as they see him. Click here to see some especially laughable sexual banter. Even the good girl Clint romances between whores wants it rough.

As the story unfolds, it becomes clear the killer is really targeting Clint, not random prostitutes. Before it's over, the killer attacks Clint's nice girlfriend and his daughters, and he stuffs Clint's old-lady babysitter into a washing machine.

The final scene ranks as one of the greatest in the chronicles of Clintdom.

Clint and the killer wrestle hand-to-hand in a fight to the death along some train tracks. A train bears down on them as they roll in the dirt. As the train passes, Clint rolls away from danger but the killer still has Clint's throat in a death grip.

As the camera backs up, we see the killer is no longer attached to his arm. It was severed by the train. Clint pulls the dead limb off his throat and throws it aside.

Sorry ladies, but that is some seriously manly shit.

Next up: "Pale Rider."