Play Misty for Me is the first feature directed by Clint Eastwood. As has been more than once observed, Eastwood’s directorial style was greatly influenced by the directors of his most successful movies, Sergio Leone and Don Siegel. Leone was a manic sadist, a misogynist, and one of the great film makers. Siegel was a former editor, and a successful director of action films like Riot in Cell Block 11 and Dirty Harry. Eastwood’s second feature as a director, High Plains Drifter, has often been mistaken for a Leone film. Play Misty for Me bears many of the hallmarks of Don Siegel - creative editing and use of sound, mixed with routine exchanges of close-ups and familiar dramatic tension in the Psycho mould.