High Plains Drifter

1973's HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER is one of actor/director Clint Eastwood's most cynical, nasty, and brutal Westerns.  A revisionist take on the old frontier that impressed critics and pissed off John Wayne.  For much of the movie, I was surprised at how nihilistic it really is.  I might even say it's darker than the crown jewel among Eastwood's genre pics, UNFORGIVEN.  That is saying quite a bit.  As the unnamed "protagonist" who, as in the tradition of many Westerns before it, helps a scared town face a group of outlaws, he also torments the residents in ways that seemed unusually cruel and just plain mean.  Some of the actions are indefensible.  Then we reach the end of the story, and realize just why.  Maybe sometime before.

Lago is the name of the isolated mining town into which the stranger rides.  For several minutes after the film's opening credits, we watch him slowly, ominously guide his horse past the residents, many of whom cast suspicion from under their brims.  And hear his ominous spurs (and kudos to James R. Alexander's sound design throughout).  By the fifteen minute mark or so, the stranger has gunned down three townspeople and raped another.  The stranger shows no sign of remorse, rather more irritation that he didn't get that shave and bath he paid for.

As the story progresses, the stranger learns from the town's de facto sheriff that a trio of murderers, who whipped the town marshall to death some time before, are headed back to Lago after a year in prison.  Would he be willing to help defend the lakeside burg from these thugs, especially since the three he gunned down were originally hired for that task? The stranger's not interested until the town's merchants offer him whatever he wants.  He wastes no time, and even orders the hotel he's staying in to be completely evacuated. In one of HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER's many digs at social and religious hypocrisy, the town preacher promises the evicted residents that the rates at the church aren't that much different.

Why does the stranger order a barn stripped of its lumber to build picnic tables for a welcome home feast for the killers? Why does he order the entire town be painted red? Why does he paint over the sign that says "Lago" with "Hell"?

Ernest Tidyman's script just about eviscerates the tropes we've seen in those Wayne Westerns.  Perhaps it's more accurate in its depiction of the Old West.  But Eastwood gets to have it both ways; many elements of his film, his second as director, fit firmly in the genre.  He also certainly tips his hat to old mentor Sergio Leone.  This film is as iconic as any of Eastwood's other dust sagas.  I found this one also had a bit in common with the later PALE RIDER.

The argument could be made that HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER is a ghost story, and much of the film plays like a horror movie (note Dee Barton's very eerie score).  If you go with that theory, it makes the entire story that much more interesting, and understood, in my opinion.  But no less harsh and grim.  Many viewers will wince at moments.