Clint Eastwood: American Icon Collection

This three-disc, four movie set introduces the sort of character that Eastwood will perfect in his Dirty Harry movies in the contrary Coogan of Coogan’s Bluff. Then there’s the mountain-climbing hit-man action in The Eiger Sanction. But the real treasures in this set of early Eastwood films are pretty far removed from his later work. In The Beguiled, he plays a wounded Union soldier nursed back to health at a Southern girls’ boarding school. The moody, weirdly erotic vibe that threads through this movie has to be seen to be believed, and it includes exceptional work from the phenomenal Geraldine Page and Elizabeth Hartman, as well as a truly strange turn by child star Pamelyn Ferdin (the voice of Lucy in the Peanuts specials). Then there’s the best of all, Eastwood’s first try at directing, Play Misty for Me, which introduced us to the concept of a psycho stalker. (And did it really, really well.)