High Plains Drifter (1973)

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.

Director:

Clint Eastwood

Writer:

Ernest Tidyman

Stars:

Clint Eastwood, Verna Bloom, Marianna Hill

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Clint Eastwood	...	The Stranger
Verna Bloom	...	Sarah Belding
Marianna Hill	...	Callie Travers (as Mariana Hill)
Mitchell Ryan	...	Dave Drake
Jack Ging	...	Morgan Allen
Stefan Gierasch	...	Mayor Jason Hobart
Ted Hartley	...	Lewis Belding
Billy Curtis	...	Mordecai
Geoffrey Lewis	...	Stacey Bridges
Scott Walker	...	Bill Borders
Walter Barnes	...	Sheriff Sam Shaw
Paul Brinegar	...	Lutie Naylor
Richard Bull	...	Asa Goodwin
Robert Donner	...	Preacher
John Hillerman	...	Bootmaker

Storyline

A Stranger (Clint Eastwood) rides into in the dusty mining town of Lago, where the townspeople are living in the shadow of a dark secret. 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. The three have their sights set on returning to Lago to wreak havoc and take care of some unfinished business. A series of events soon has the townspeople questioning whether siding with the Stranger was a wise idea, as they quickly learn the price that they each must pay for his services. As the outlaws make their way back into Lago, they discover that the town is not exactly as they had left it, and waiting in the shadows is the Stranger, ready to expose the town's secret and serve up his own brand of justice.

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Plot Keywords:

revisionist western | outlaw | rape | anti hero | gunfighter | 

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Taglines:

Welcome to Hell

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Genres:

Drama | Mystery | Western

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Certificate:

R

Did You Know?

Trivia

Any holes in the plot were filled with black humor and allegory to Sergio Leone. Eastwood thought the allegory of this movie was "a speculation on what happens when they go ahead and kill the Sheriff and someone comes back and calls the town's conscience to bear. There's always retribution for your deeds."

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Goofs

After the town has been painted red, a shot pans past the bell tower atop the church. The (lack of) application of paint on the bell tower edges shows it was painted with a spray gun. Also, many of the buildings have a very thin and even coating of red paint applied. Again, obviously done with a spray gun. This technology would not have been available at the time.

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Quotes

[first lines]
The Stranger: Beer... and a bottle.
Lutie Naylor: Ain't much good, but it's all there is.
[brings drinks]
Lutie Naylor: You want anything else?
The Stranger: Just a peaceful hour to drink it in.

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Crazy Credits

The closing shot of The Stranger disappearing into the heatwaves plays out over the end credits.

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Alternate Versions

When originally released theatrically in the UK, the BBFC made cuts to secure an 'X' rating. All cuts were waived in 1987 when the film was granted an '18' certificate for home video.

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Connections

Referenced in The Shnookums & Meat Funny Cartoon Show: Poodle Panic/The Darkness, It Is Dark/Low Pants Drifter (1995)

User Reviews

Not a chick flick

Obviously this was produced before the age of feminist political correctness. The anti-hero with no name--Clint Eastwood, of course, a throwback to his days making spaghetti westerns in Italy with Sergio Leone--comes riding tall in the saddle down into a valley with a mining town by a lake. (The movie was shot around the Mono Lake area of California.) Particularly effective in this unforgettable opening scene is the music sounding like the high whine of the wind off of the desert. This town would be "Lago" later to be renamed "Hell" by Eastwood's character who is identified in the titles as "The Stranger." The stranger really just wants a shave and a bath and something to drink and eat and place to lay his head for the night. What he gets is a bad time from some roughnecks and a woman (Callie Travers, played by Marianna Hill) who has attraction/avoidance feelings for him. He shoots the three guys and rapes the woman before the movie is twenty minutes old. What I mean by this not being politically correct is that, despite herself, she likes it! That sort of thing is not done in cinema these days. The idea that a woman might be turned on by being raped would not play before today's audiences, nor would a Hollywood producer make such a film. I won't go any further into the plot but suffice it to say that Eastwood is just beginning to kick tail. It seems that everybody in town is cowardly and without the will to protect themselves from the bad guys, especially the three who just got out of jail and are headed their way. How Eastwood, who directed from a script by Ernest Tidyman (The French Connection [1971]; Shaft [1971] etc.), handles the familiar revenge theme is interesting. First it is no accident that Eastwood's protagonist is named "the Stranger." That is the English title of a famous novel by Albert Camus that surely influenced Eastwood. Camus's stranger is an existential anti-hero, a kind of benign sociopath who really doesn't feel anything for others except as they affect his life. But he is not particularly violent and just lives from one day to the next without any direction or goal. He just "exists." Eastwood's stranger does more than just exist. He takes action, and he is very good at it. Indeed, I can't recall a western movie in which a gunman could draw faster or shot straighter, or any movie hero who was less afraid of putting his life on the line. So, in a sense what Eastwood has added to Camus's stranger is Nietzsche's superman. And herein lies, I think, the underpinning of Eastwood's philosophy and his "message." Note that the people in the town to a man are cowardly. The only exception is Sarah Belding (Verna Bloom) who, like the aforementioned Callie Travers, can't resist the stranger's forceful charm, and falls in love with him. This somehow inspires her to leave the corrupt town. Yes, the town, like most of human society is corrupt. And yes the average man in the street is cowardly and without the will to defend himself. It is only the ubermensch, that rare breed celebrated in the works of the German philosopher, who has the skill, the strength and the will to bend events to his liking and to take on those who would use violence to achieve their ends. So what Eastwood does here in his second directorial effort (following Play Misty for Me, 1971) is to diverge from Leone's formula. While there is some very funny and intentionally ridiculous dialogue in such films as, for example, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966), or For a Few Dollars More (1965) or A Fistful of Dollars (1964), there is little that is funny, intentionally or otherwise in High Plains Drifter. Furthermore, whereas Leone just wanted to make a buck and saw that tough-minded heroes or anti-heroes involved in action-filled revenge plots was a good way to do it, Eastwood is interested in also making a philosophic (and perhaps political) statement. We are degenerate, we humans, he is saying, except for those rare individuals who take the law into their own hands, make their own rules, and through superior skill and bravery, make their own luck and create their own reality, as does his stranger. In this film there is also an element of the supernatural, or so it would appear. The stranger "sees" in his head the whipping of a past sheriff of the town. Perhaps it comes from the mind of the dwarf Mordecai (very well played by Billy Curtis, by the way) who witnessed the tortured death while hiding under the saloon. At any rate, the stranger shows that he is just as handy with the whip himself as he is with his six-gun. By all means see this for an early look at the work of Clint Eastwood as both an actor and a director. You will not be bored I can assure you. But don't invite the girl friend over. If there was ever an anti-"chickflick," this is it.

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

7 April 1973 (USA)

Also Known As:

High Plains Drifter

Filming Locations:

Universal Studios - 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$5,500,000 (estimated)

Gross USA:

$15,700,000

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$15,706,540

Company Credits

Production Co:

The Malpaso Company

Technical Specs

Runtime:

105 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.39 : 1