By Chris Heard BBC News Online entertainment staff

Secretly, of course, we were all rather hoping The Enforcer would turn his guns on The Terminator.

Eastwood was given a warm reception

As one tough guy actor-turned politician settled into office in California, the man who blazed the trail 17 years earlier was in the UK indulging in a verbal shootout in the rarefied atmosphere of the Oxford debating chamber.

In the end, though, the diplomatic former mayor of Carmel was any which way but loose with his tongue about his Hollywood colleague.

"I wish him the greatest of luck," said Eastwood of Arnold Schwarzenegger, newly-elected governor of California.

"I hope he does great things. God knows California needs it right now, a fiscally responsible citizen."

Hinting at a possibly greater esteem in which Eastwood is held by some Californians, he added: "It's nice when people call you the governor and you don't have to be."

The actor-director did take one snipe - but his target was pretty much a sitting duck - the state of modern-day Hollywood.

He made some mild criticism of studio executives for a lack of knowledge of film history - but this was the nearest we came to seeing the Bad or the Ugly side of Eastwood. Tonight was never going to be about him playing the mean-looking guy in the poncho.

He posed for photos with the Oxford Union committee

Introduced as "a living legend", he arrived in the Victorian oak-panelled chamber a minute before 2100BST to warm applause and cheers from the 600 students, acknowledging his greeting with a short bow.

The famous tall, slender frame of The Man With No Name and "Dirty" Harry Callahan, in light brown suit with tie, walked slowly to the front of the hall in his subtle designer trainers - "he always wears them," said his PR - and sat on a red velvet throne-like chair.

"I do think some of you might have applauded Clint Eastwood as well," said his interviewer Barry Norman, setting the tone for a night of the critic's typically deft yet inoffensive inquiry.

Explaining his half-hour delay, Eastwood said: "We should have been here a lot sooner but we were having some crumble in the other room."

At 73, he looked fit and lean - the swept grey hair, the fine cheekbones - and lived up to his laconic image with a series of dry anecdotes and sharp-witted responses.

He held court through 70 minutes of questioning, touching on subjects as diverse as his spaghetti westerns, the critics, jazz, Shakespeare, the Oscars, his film heroes - and even Newcastle Brown Ale.

There was plenty of humour as Eastwood and Norman exchanged some lively banter.

The debating chamber was packed for his address

Eastwood joked that he had attended Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar some years ago - like Bill Clinton - and Norman replied: "I am sure if you were here, you did inhale."

"Actually my first name is Clinton," Eastwood countered. "But I never got into some of the habits he did. Maybe some of them but not that one."

At his first mention of the words "Do you feel lucky?" - Inspector Callahan's immortal line from 1971 - the packed house erupted.

The loudest cheers were saved for his response to a questioner who offered him the fantasy of a .44 Magnum to test whether the journalists present "felt lucky".

"I could take care of the press gallery," he grinned.

Hollywood's unfazable hard man was in his stride as he batted off a student's lame joke-question: "I hope that the youth of Oxford can come up with a few better than that."

Then to a silver-bearded septuagenarian inquisitor: "You must be one of the young students."

Before his final ovation, a moment of screen detective history as two great fictional crime-solvers were united by a gift to Eastwood from Colin Dexter, creator of Inspector Morse, Oxford's very British take on the genre.

Go ahead Lewis. Make my day.