When the attractive, blond townswoman Callie Travers flirtatiously insults him, he rapes her in the livery stable. [4] Clint Eastwood's sophomore outing as director sees him back in the saddle as a mysterious stranger, and the result is one of his most memorable Westerns. Actor Geoffrey Lewis, who appeared in many Clint Eastwood films and made several appearances in TV shows throughout the '60s and '70s, has died of natural causes, a family friend told Variety. the townspeople had the marshal killed. A nameless stranger rides into a small town and immediately kills three gunmen. Westerns often have mysterious, strong silent protagonists but high plains drifter might have gone as far as to have the stranger be some kind of spectre or ghost, sent to the town to punish them for their sins. One of my absolute favorites. Still from the opening scene. Edit, It appears to have been cut at around 45 minutes into the film, when someone yells, "What the you doin' to my father's house?" The film stars Eastwood as a mysterious stranger who metes out justice in a corrupt frontier mining town. High Plains Drifter Is Clint Eastwood's Mysterious, Overlooked Masterpiece. Bach: Cantata 182, at Palm Sunday Hope Returns to Rejoice, J.S. Its also a film that deserves to be seen by anyone who has a sweet tooth for the genre or thinks they have a bead on Eastwood as a filmmaker. Not the townspeople, not the villains, not even the "anti-hero" at the center. Impressed by his abilities, the townsfolk hire him to protect the town, but start to second-guess their hire when he begins to take advantage of them. Privacy Policy. He later orders the hotel owners, Lewis and Sarah Belding, and all the other guests to vacate the premises, leaving him its sole occupant. Just confirm how you got your ticket. As he leaves, he paints over the town sign with a single word: "Hell". Edit, One gravestone shown in the intro is dated to 1882, so this movie most likely takes place in the mid-1880s. Now, with those murderers just released from prison, they want Eastwoods Stranger to defend them. Revelation 21:8 reads: But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.. And Eastwood takes that Old Testament theme of payback for cowardice, hypocrisy, and inaction and grafts it onto the genre that he knew in his marrow. We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back. Three gunmen hired to protect the town taunt and threaten him; he kills all three with little effort. 2.75/5 - Decent. Meanwhile, the best you can say for High Plains Drifter is that the title is a low pun. TVTropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Naturally, they never say this guy's name, but we all know who he is, so this is pretty much Eastwood's big answer to all of those rather annoying religious references that Hollywood had been throwing in all of their westerns prior to this one. The text is Martin Luthers. Not for nothing did it earn a controversial X rating in the U.K. when it opened there. With his cigar in his mouth, whether it was his Man with No Name in Leone's films or the Stranger in his own High Plains Drifter, Eastwood was a taciturn loner not looking for trouble. 3,224 IMDb 7.4 1 h 45 min 1973. Coming Soon. Bach, Cantata 6, at the Second Day of Easter Light and Darkness of Existence, The Ferryman's Obolus Mahler and Freud Meet in Leiden II:III, J.S. Genre: A film version broadcast on the Sundance Channel in 2020 has a few words noticeably cut out. Rape-Revenge Films: A Critical Study . (3) The stranger was the ghost of Marshal Duncan. While seemingly an act of meanness, particularly in the way he said it, in truth he wants them to stay out of harm's way. 2014 . "Eastwood Again". As stridently revisionist as any Western of the Vietnam era, High Plains Drifter is really only a Western on paper. A dwarf, named Mordecai, becomes, through the stranger, the titular mayor and sheriff of the town. Meanwhile, he picks up a brush to drip the letters H-E-L-L in crimson on a signpost at Lagos border. Is 'High Plains Drifter' based on a book. Clint Eastwood is the ultimate thinking mans cinematic killing machine. Speaking about the composition, Hammett said he didn't set out to write a song based on the movie, but upon finishing it, he realized it "conveyed the same sentiment as the film, so the piece was christened accordingly."[23]. The Ferrymans Obolus, the third and concluding sequence of Part 2, The idea is Gods. The narrative concept is minimalist in scale, and the interpretation gets flimsy, but this story of a stranger gracing, then growing to corrupt ad plague and strange land carries intriguing mystery, in addition to thought-provoking themes on temptation and placing faith in unpredictable features that are stronger than the film itself. This script is a transcript that was painstakingly transcribed using the screenplay and/or viewings of High Plains Drifter. A gun-fighting stranger comes to the small settlement of Lago and is hired to bring the townsfolk together in an attempt to hold off three outlaws who are on their way. Duncan made a Faustian bargain with the devil. Clint: The Life and Legend . Check this excellent film out. This kind of uncertain pussyfooting around from us as the viewer is much like the townspeoples choice of not choosing a side when the poor man was being whipped. Western, Original Language: I was mostly satisfied by the story as the more it went on the more I got interested. The film often intercuts with a blurry flashback of a Marshall being whipped by three gunmen with close to the entire town standing by watching, doing nothing to help the poor fellow. Rob Ager, in a detailed and wordyinterpretationof the film, and also argues that the avenging angel is the ghost of the murdered marshall. 1998 . 978-0786449613 . Murphy, Arthur D. (March 28, 1973). I don't suppose the film, running only a little over 100 minutes, is too draggy, but there are a few overdrawn set pieces, some of which are a little forceful in a manner which makes the implied twists sort of obvious sooner that they ostensibly should be, or at least leaves the plot to outstay its welcome enough to hit formulaic moments. Kapsis; Coblentz, Kathie . This is even true for the DVD version. But Eastwood has always been cagier about interpreting his film, saying that that interpretation might be true, but its also possible that the Stranger is Duncans avenging brother. Anti-heroes are still common, but with stronger roles for women and more-sympathetic portrayal of Native Americans and Mexicans. The Clint Eastwood 3- Movie Western Collection on Blu-ray is the perfect Father's Day gift that features the Academy Award winning actor in 3 iconic roles. rape and sadism). All we know is it is very difficult to side with him as a protagonist and as such we are left with an uneasy feel throughout the film from which we can only be unburdened after knowing just what he wants and why hes doing it but we never do, which is probably why I was left with such an uncomfortable feeling after the film was finished. 17 June 2019. [] Eastwood, Clint: High Plains Drifter (1973.) Anyway Clint. [19], Nigel Andrews of The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote that "after Play Misty For Me, High Plains Drifter emerges as a disappointingly sterile exercise in style, suggesting that the first thing Eastwood should do as a director is forget the lessons he has learned from other film-makers and start to forge a convincing style of his own. [3] The film was influenced by the work of Eastwood's two major collaborators, film directors Sergio Leone and Don Siegel. Amid shoot-outs and existentialism, a stranger is hired to protect a town from outlaws -- but his recipe for defense could be a deal with the devil. The film was directed by Clint Eastwood and written by Ernest Tidyman and stars Clint Eastwood, Verna Bloom and Mariana Hill. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. The town's solution to their quarrel with the marshal. Under a joint production between Malpaso and Universal, the original screenplay was written by Ernest Tidyman, who had won a Best Screenplay Oscar for The French Connection.[5]. The drifter, or stranger, accepts an offer to help the townsfolk defend against the three gunmen who have recently been released from prison and are on their way to cause havoc. Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story: Season 1, Link to Marvel Movies Ranked Worst to Best by Tomatometer, Link to RT25: Celebrating 25 Years of Rotten Tomatoes, Link to Prime Video Acquires J.J. Abrams and Matt Reeves. External Reviews The camera then reveals the name on the grave marker to read "Marshall Jim Duncan, Rest In Peace." "[19] John Wayne criticized the film's iconoclastic approach; in a letter to Eastwood, he wrote, "That isn't what the West was all about. [22], American musician Kirk Hammett included a song named High Plains Drifter, which takes its title from the film, on his 2022 extended play, Portals. This would explain why nobody in the town recognized him, but he knew how exactly the Marshal was killed and he was able to kill the three men in the same way. 2011 . In an era when New Hollywood movie-brat auteurs grasped for Art, Eastwood seemed to unconsciously position himself as their antithesis. "You know," Mordecai says, "I never did know your name." "[15], Arthur D. Murphy of Variety called it "a nervously humorous, self-conscious near satire on the prototype Clint Eastwood formula of the avenging mysterious stranger. Dee Barton's score is genuinely refreshing, capturing the supernatural feel of the film through a fusion of classic western themes and a whimsy which ranges from colorful to rather intense, while Bruce Surtees' cinematography, despite being not quite as playful as Barton's still-underused efforts, is also attractive in its bleakness, with a rugged palette over gritty art direction by Henry Bumstead. 1-57806-070-2 . That night, in his hotel room, the Stranger dreams of Jim Duncan, a U.S. Book: Green, Philip . I don't have much to say about 'High Plains Drifter'. Universal Pictures, [23] It made its Blu-ray debut on October 15, 2013, with a newly remastered transfer,[24] and was reissued on October 27, 2020, by Kino Lorber with commentary tracks and new interviews. High Plains Drifter is a 1973 American Western film directed by Clint Eastwood, written by Ernest Tidyman, and produced by Robert Daley for The Malpaso Company and Universal Pictures. To keep the townspeople busy, he orders every building in town painted blood red. Robert E. . The film was shot on location on the shores of Mono Lake, California. Meanwhile, the best you can say for High Plains Drifter is that the title is a low pun. original, Release Date (Streaming): He could also be some sort of avenging spirit as well. Watch the Clint Eastwood movie "High Plains Drifter". The next morning, Sarah tells the Stranger that Duncan cannot rest in peace because the town buried him in an unmarked grave. Because of the stranger's expertise with a gun, the town votes to hire him at any cost to protect Lago from three outlawsStacey Bridges (Geoffrey Lewis), Bill Borders (Scott Walker), and Cole Carlin (Anthony James)who have just been released from jail after they brutally whipped to death Lago's previous Marshal Jim Duncan (Buddy Van Horn) and who are believed to be on their way back to Lago. . Clint Eastwood's America . The jail-freed trio realizes too late that he's after vengeance for the whip-torment they inflicted on weakling Marshal Jim Duncan (Buddy Van Horn) years ago, still the stranger's daily nightmare. Its difficult to know where we stand because the townspeople deserve punishment for what theyve done but at the same time just how much of the Strangers behaviour is acceptable? Not just politically, but also stylistically. "[26], Siskel, Gene (April 20, 1973). When the drifter rides into Lago, he is met with incredulity and disapproval by the townspeople. She's standing less than 8 feet away from him, but he simply ducks under the water and comes out completely unscathed. Because maybe you didn't go back for more? >> http://bit.ly/24NeaTM 367 42 comments 73 shares Most relevant Wendy Banks Nice 2y Amid shoot-outs and existentialism, a stranger is hired to protect a town from outlaws -- but his recipe for defense could be a deal with the devil. High Plains Drifter 1973 | Maturity Rating: 16+ | 1h 45m | Westerns Unavailable on an ad-supported plan due to licensing restrictions. The angel of death, who is the Satan depicted in Paradise Lost, is not inherently evil, being created by God, but is that creation of God who Himself contends with evil, and, indeed, tempts it. "You know," Mordecai says, "I never did know your name." As the Stranger trains the townsfolk to take arms and the gunmen draw closer, the hidden secrets and corruptions of the town begin to unravel, and the truth behind Lago's feud with the outlaws and their culpability in the death of a federal marshal, with whom the Stranger has a connection soon comes to light A Deconstruction of the Western genre with supernatural overtones, High Plains Drifter is one of Eastwood's most popular and acclaimed films. "[14], Arthur D. Murphy of Variety called it "a nervously humorous, self-conscious near satire on the prototype Clint Eastwood formula of the avenging mysterious stranger. 0786484217 . After gunning down three desperado's who tried to kill him, the town hires the gunfighter to help defend the town from three murderous outlaws. For a video version of my thoughts, see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4hLVDc9yrs. Book: Cornell, Drucilla . After a shoot-out leaves the town's hired-gun protectors dead, the town's leaders petition the Stranger to stay and protect them from three ruthless outlaws who are soon to be released from prison. Verified reviews are considered more trustworthy by fellow moviegoers. [4] The film was influenced by the work of Eastwood's two major collaborators, film directors Sergio Leone and Don Siegel. That, however, is small comfort as this cold, gory and overthought movie unfolds. You're almost there! If the film is memorable, it's for the themes and relatively gripping latter acts, and while I wish there was more inspiration throughout the film in order to make the final product rewarding on the whole, when the drama bites, it grips as an at least almost rewarding thriller. Cracks in the Pedestal Ideology and Gender in Hollywood . Check box if your review contains spoilers, High Plains Drifter: Maybe You Think You're Fast Enough, Now Playing: High Plains Drifter: Maybe You Think You're Fast Enough. That isn't the American people who settled this country. [11], "It's just an allegory," Eastwood said, "a speculation on what happens when they go ahead and kill the sheriff, and somebody comes back and calls the town's conscience to bear. Brutal story-line which is about as close to an explicit allegory as the western has ever come. This is the film of a magnificent intellect. And maybe it stung the young director at the time. By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Brings back the memory of my Dad bringing home a . Cinemark A mysterious, unnamed stranger rides out of the desert into the isolated mining town of Lago in the American Old West. The outlaws arrive and easily overcome the poor resistance of the townspeople; the defenders are all killed, while the survivors are rounded up in the saloon. The three gunmen all get what they deserve, but the first one to die, Cole, is whipped to death just as the Marshal was. Metacritic Reviews. Three hired "town security" gunmen taunt and threaten him; he kills all three with little effort. . With Clint Eastwood, Verna Bloom, Marianna Hill, Mitchell Ryan. And High Plains Drifter is wall to wall with killing (not to mention some pretty un-P.C. Edit, A stranger (Clint Eastwood) rides his horse out of the hot undulating waves of the desert and into the mining town of Lago and asks for a beer, a bath, a shave, and a haircut. When trouble found him, the cigar usually came out long enough . Payback! The locals are impressed, enough to vote in town council to let Sheriff Sam Shaw (Walter Barnes) explain those were hired guns overstepping their task. The film was critically acclaimed at the time of its initial release and remains popular. This 10-digit number is your confirmation number. They won't be able to see your review if you only submit your rating. High Plains Drifter, which followed a mysterious gun-fighter (Eastwood) hired by a local town to defend its people against three violent outlaws, is a dark, revisionist examination of the cowboy . High Plains Drifter 1973 | Maturity Rating: 16+ | 1h 45m | Westerns Amid shoot-outs and existentialism, a stranger is hired to protect a town from outlaws -- but his recipe for defense could be a deal with the devil. A mysterious drifter referred to only as "The Stranger" rides into the dismal mining town of Lago, which has a crisis on its hands: three ruthless gunmen are making their way to the town so they can settle scores over an old wrong done to them by the townspeople. Universal released the R-rated High Plains Drifter in the United States in April 1973, and the film eventually grossed $15.7 million domestically,[2] ultimately making it the sixth-highest grossing Western in North America in the decade of the 1970s and the 20th highest-grossing film released in 1973. Haunting. This uncertainty is kind of understandable, as Eastwood must work hard to transcend natural shortcomings to this minimalist narrative, which is still meaty, yet would have seemed meatier if style didn't also come with its own immediately questionable elements. Edit, American screenwriter Ernest Tidyman wrote the screenplay for High Plains Drifter and followed it up with a 1973 novelization of the film. He favored a less explicit and more supernatural interpretation, and excised the reference. Clint Eastwood's orchestration of subtle stylization begets subtle color that rarely allows entertainment value to slip too far, and when slow spells do enter, upon being met with a genuine sense of thoughtfulness, rather than the dryness which plagues this drama as much as anything, they bite, with high tension. [12] On Metacritic the film has a score 69% based on reviews from 10 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". "[17] Tom Zito of The Washington Post called it "an enjoyable, well-constructed work that suffers only from a slightly tedious tone that makes the film seem longer than its 105 minutes. "[21], The film was recognized by American Film Institute in 2008 on AFI's 10 Top 10 in the category "Nominated Western Film". Although hed already appeared in more than a dozen often-uncredited, blink-and-youll-miss-them parts by 1959, Eastwoods career was salvaged when he was cast that year as Rowdy Yates on the hit TV oater, Rawhide. Cookie Notice You know, the rhythm of this title really makes me think of "Catch Scratch Fever", and you know, I'll run with it, because it's better than getting the Beastie Boys song stuck in my head. Whenever Clint Eastwood is given a unnamed Cowboy you better expect nothing but the best. Yes, there are subtle problems throughout the film, but there are also considerable strengths, and they stood a real chance of taking a small-scale narrative and molding it into a rewarding thriller, only to go overpowered by the cold spells which, when combined with those subtle missteps, ultimately secure the final product shy of its potential. the Terms and Policies, and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes. [13], Vincent Canby of The New York Times called the film "part ghost story, part revenge Western, more than a little silly, and often quite entertaining in a way that may make you wonder if you lost your good sense. Still, the film comes close enough to rewarding to endear adequately as a thriller, and a stylish one at that. As the Stranger rides off into the desert, a perplexed Mordecai stands beside the tombstone he just finished engraving: "Marshal Jim Duncan, Rest in Peace". The Stranger accepts the job and takes full advantage of the deal: He appoints a downtrodden dwarf named Mordecai as both sheriff and mayor, provides a Native American and his children with blankets and candy when the shopkeeper refuses to serve them, gets a new saddle and boots, and forces the saloon to serve everyone free drinks. Terms and Policies Some critics thought Eastwood's directing derivative; Arthur Knight in Saturday Review remarked that Eastwood had "absorbed the approaches of Siegel and Leone and fused them with his own paranoid vision of society". Book: McGilligan, Patrick . Even when the film is traditional in structure, it's often distancing, for Eastwood's quiet directorial intensity is often more quiet than intense, and therefore more dry than Eastwood can handle as a sophomore directorial storytelling, resulting in dullness that is the biggest issue of the final product. The character of Marshal Duncan was played by Buddy Van Horn, Eastwood's long-time stunt double, to suggest that he and the Stranger could be the same person. Universal wanted Eastwood to shoot the feature on its back lot, but Eastwood opted instead to film on location. Clint asked John Wayne if he wanted to be in a Western together. Machoism is also a meaty theme of most westerns but that is given a slap to the face also in the film. [8] The film was completed in six weeks, two days ahead of schedule, and under budget. This particular revisionist western is characterized by trippy, almost abstractionist artistic touches that are admirable as unique, and not even all that overwrought, yet the occasions in which the offbeat meditations are overplayed stand, distancing subjective value with artistic non-conventions to storytelling. Portions of the town aflame in the night produce the backdrop of the lake of fire. Tidyman's screenplay was inspired by the real-life murder of Kitty Genovese in Queens in 1964, which eyewitnesses reportedly stood by and watched. [8], The character of Marshal Duncan was played by Buddy Van Horn, Eastwood's long-time stunt double, to suggest that he and the Stranger could be the same person. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. The next day, Lago's town council, needing to replace the three gunmen, offer the Stranger anything he wants to protect the town from Bridges and the Carlins, who will soon be released from prison. After having sex with him in his room, she slips out as three men enter. In Rabbinical literature, the angel of death, a creation of God on the first day, exacts slaughter, in the manner ordained by God, to restore the honour of mankind.

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