Honkytonk Man

1982 2h 2m English 6.6

Action, Comedy, Drama, Music, Western

As this movie opens on an Oklahoma farm during the Great Depression, two simultaneous visitors literally hit the Wagoneer home: a ruinous dust storm and a convertible crazily driven by Red Stovall (Clint Eastwood), Emmy's (Verna Bloom's) brother. A roguish country-western musician, he has just been invited to audition for the Grand Ole Opry, his chance of a lifetime to become a success. However, this is way back in Nashville, Red clearly drives terribly, and he's broke and sick with tuberculosis to boot. Whit (Kyle Eastwood), fourteen, seeing his own chance of a lifetime to avoid "growing up to be a cotton picker all my life", begs Ma to let him go with Uncle Red as driver and protégé. Thus begins a picaresque journey both hilarious and poignant.—Paul Emmons