As The Outlaw Josey Wales, two-time Academy Award winner Clint Eastwood is ideally cast as a hard-hitting, fast-drawing loner, recalling his Man with No Name from his European Westerns.

But unlike that other mythic outlaw, Josey Wales has a name - and a heart.

After avenging his families brutal murder, Wales is on the lam, pursued by a pack of killers.

He travels alone, but a ragtag group of outcasts (including Sondra Locke and Chief Dan George) is drawn to him - and Wales cant leave his motley surrogate family unprotected.

Eastwoods skill before and behind the camera connected with audiences for its humour and tenderness as well as for its hair-trigger action.