Gary Cooper: American Life, American Legend (1991)
** 1/2 (out of 4)
Clint Eastwood narrates this documentary that takes a look at the career of legend Gary Cooper. Calling this a documentary is a little unfair as the only person talking is Eastwood and he only casually drops in to say a few lines. The rest of the film pretty much just shows us clips from all his movies including WINGS, PRIDE OF THE YANKEES, SERGENT YORK, HIGH NOON and many other classics. There's really two ways to look at this and one is that if you haven't seen any of Cooper's great films then you should enjoy what you see here enough to where you'd want to go out and buy the films. On the other hand, if you've seen these movies already then you really don't learn too much. The only personal stuff really talked about is Cooper's disastrous affair with Patricia Neal and how he changed his life before his death. The Honorary Oscar award, which was accepted by James Stewart, is shown here and was quite touching. That footage makes this documentary worth sitting through, although a more complete one is certainly needed.