Underrated Treasure of the Week: City Heat

One of these days I shall compose an essay describing in exact detail how the movies I watched repeatedly during my primary school years shaped me into the amazing adult that you know today. However, until the full story appears in its magnificent entirety, hints and allegations will have to suffice. 

Today's feature: the 1984 Depression-era frenemy cop story, City Heat, which stars (quite alliteratively):

• Clint Eastwood as Lieutenant Speer: steely-eyed, snarly, and spare of frame
• Burt Reynolds as Mike Murphy: smarmy, swaggering, and suitably smart alecky
• Madeleine Kahn as Caroline Howley: pronouncing "s" correctly

Here is one of one available scenes I found on You Tube. Enjoy!

But, Paige, you're wondering...how did this affect you? How did this sophisticated cinematic opus mold you into the Nobel Prize winner/model/celebrity chef whose face has appeared on covers of The New Yorker, Cosmopolitan, and National Enquirer?? How, Paige, how???

Shut up! I will tell you.

In the very last scene of this movie, you see Speer and Murphy walking down a dark street. The story has come to a close. Loose ends have been tied up. The arch-nemeses came together to solve a mystery. Their mutual goal accomplished, they can return to their corners to live to die another day.

And Speer says to Murphy, "You'll always be Shorty to me."

It's important to know that my older sister and I often watched this movie together. While she tended to identify with the put-upon Speer, I preferred the rakish good looks of Burt.

And now: she is 5' 11''. And I am 5' 4''.

And there you have it...

City Heat made me short.