Clint Eastwood cruises through this coarse comedy as a travelling prizefighter whose best buddy is a beer-swilling, lowlife orangutan named Clyde. There are plenty of lively scenes to keep fans satisfied (with some bare-knuckle fight sequences that squeamish viewers may find disturbing), and Eastwood just about manages to avoid being made a monkey of by his scene-stealing co-star. But his romantic hankerings after country singer Sondra Locke don't add much to the brew. Hardly one of the films for which Eastwood would most like to be remembered, but it did such good box-office that he was tempted back into a feeble sequel, Any Which Way You Can.

Philo Beddoe is your regular, easygoing, truck-driving guy. He's also the best bar-room brawler west of the Rockies. And he lives with a 165-pound orangutan named Clyde. Like other guys, Philo finally falls in love - with a flighty singer who leads him on a screwball chase across the American Southwest. Nothing's in the way except a motorcycle gang, some cops, and legendary brawler Tank Murdock.