Review of High Plains Drifter (1973) by Stuart K — 02 Sep 2011
Clint Eastwood's second film as a director, and he made this western from a screenplay by Ernest Tidyman (Shaft, The French Connection), which owes alot to the Man With No Name films that Clint did with Sergio Leone.
It's alot more moody and graphic than what Leone did, but he would have been pround with what Clint did here. In the town of Lago, a nameless drifter (Clint) rides into town. He comes into the saloon and has a drink, but there's 3 hoodlums there.
So, he heads across the street for a shave and a hot bath at the Barber's shop. The hoods follow him there, and Clint shoots them dead. This makes him something of a hero in the town of Lago, which is a mining town who pay protection money to 3 outlaws Stacey Bridges (Geoffrey Lewis), Dan Carlin (Dan Vadis) and Cole Carlin (Anthony James), who had killed Lago's previous Marshal Jim Duncan (Buddy Van Horn).
So, the town ask the stranger to protect them from the outlaws coming back. The stranger is given anything he wants. He makes dwarf Mordecai (Billy Curtis) both sheriff and mayor, and paints the town red, literally.
It's a very unconventional western, a revisionist western, like the sort Sam Peckinpah was making at this time. But, Eastwood was starting to hit his stride as a director, and he had learnt alot from Leone and Don Siegal.
It certainly wouldn't be his last western.
This review of High Plains Drifter (1973) was written by Stuart K on 02 Sep 2011.
High Plains Drifter has generally received very positive reviews.
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