Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974) on Netflix
A gunman shoots at a preacher in his pulpit. The preacher is John Doherty, called Thunderbolt, a bank robber in hiding whom a young car thief named Lightfoot rescues.
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Trailer
Plot summary
Lightfoot, a young car thief, takes a car from a dealer's lot and drives off. On the road he knocks down a gunman who is chasing a preacher and gives the preacher a lift. The preacher is John Doherty, nicknamed Thunderbolt for the cannon he once used to break into safes, a bank robber hiding out as a clergyman since a Montana job. The men who want him dead are his old gang, who believe he kept the haul for himself. Lightfoot, who has been stealing cars alongside him, learns all this when he proposes robbing a bank. Thunderbolt says the money from the Montana robbery is still hidden, and the two set out for the town of Warsaw, Montana, to retrieve it, with the gang on their trail.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Clint Eastwood liked Michael Cimino's script enough to plan on directing it himself, then met Cimino and handed him the job instead. It became Cimino's feature debut, and he later said that without Eastwood he would never have had a career in film.
- Eastwood refused to go past three takes. Jeff Bridges recalled asking Cimino for another try and Cimino having to check with Eastwood, who would say "Give the kid a shot", while first assistant director Charles Okun said Eastwood was the only man who ever said no.
- Years later Cimino used this shoot as his defense. When Heaven's Gate ran into trouble in 1980 and United Artists told him to deliver a three-hour cut on a new budget or be fired, he pointed to how fast he had worked here.
- The picture made money, but Eastwood swore he would never work with distributor United Artists again because he thought the promotion was poor. Author Marc Eliot writes that Eastwood also felt Jeff Bridges had upstaged him.
- This film and his television commercial work brought Cimino his next job: producer Michael Deeley approached him to direct and co-write The Deer Hunter, released in 1978.
