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Destro Movie Review - High Plains Drifter, Clint Eastwood

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#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
High Plains Drifter (1973) Director: Clint Eastwood, Universal Studios

Showing tonight 11pm on Ovation channel (FIOS688)

Many of you are familiar with Clint Eastwood from his roles as the gritty Man with No Name from the
1960s Sergio Leone "spaghetti westerns" and later 70s, and even 80s westerns starring the legend. In this review I'll cover one of my favorite flicks, High Plains Drifter, Eastwood's second go as a director, and a western a bit more bizarre and "trippy" than the rest, but it distinguishes it as one of his all time classics.

High Plains Drifter isn't just a Western, it is a retribution allegory. It operates in the setting of a Western but much like Apocalypse Now it also ventures into a bizarre other plane, sometimes confusing and strange, almost mystical, but pure bad@$$ revenge from the Man with No Name--now officially billed as "the Stranger".

(Spoiler Alert - if you haven't seen the movie I'm going to talk about the plot. If you saw it a while ago or don't remember every detail enjoy my perspective on one of my favorites).

A stranger rides into a frightened town that has a secret.

The old towns marshal was attacked by 3 outlaws while the town watched and let him die. They did this because the marshall found out a mining claim that would take away all the town's money, so the let him die. They were all guilty. As the outlaws whipped him to death he damns the town to hell with his last breath.

Now --in present time--the 3 outlaws are going to be let out of jail and the town fears their retribution. The mysterious stranger that rode into town proved himself in the bar with some other thugs, so the town hires him to defend them.

He enlists the town (who is spinelessly willing to give him anything he wants) in drills to prepare them for the return of the outlaws, along with his new sidekick, a midget named Mordecai.

He has the town painted red, and writes "HELL" over the name Lagos, and has them build picnic tables to welcome the outlaws. His drills show them self-sufficiency but it is up to every many to test his faith.
As the outlaws get out of prison the stranger tells Mordecai he is to sound the alarm when the outlaws arrive and then the stranger rides out of town.

The cowards can't take care of themselves and the outlaws quickly take over the town…until in the the night a stranger with a whip returns and challenges them. He kills the outlaws. The town suffers casualties in the melee. Ultimately the stranger showed them the way, but they were too cowardly to take care of things themselves, the ultimate allegory.

The next day, the Stranger departs, slowly riding through the ruined town in the same manner he arrived. At the cemetery, he passes Mordecai carving a fresh grave marker.

Mordecai comments to the departing Stranger that he never did know his name, to which the Stranger answers cryptically, "Yes, you do." A look of astonishment crosses the little man's face, and he enigmatically replies "yes, sir, captain" and salutes. The camera pulls back to reveal that the wooden marker carved by Mordecai reads, "MARSHAL JIM DUNCAN. REST IN PEACE." The Stranger rides out, vanishing into the haze.

Eeery /strange music plays as the man with no name rides and fades into the hazy horizon the shot following him into the distance, until he seemingly vanishes.

This is one thing of note. The dramatic and awesome score of the Spaghetti Westerns of Ennio Morricone is missing here but the trippy and eerie 70s score of Dee Barton (almost like a Horror Movie score) works well with the surreal material.

Eastwood is the man with no name, but he is a Reaper of Retribution, an Archangel, a Karmic Soldier, a Ghost-rider or the vengeful spirit of Marshal Duncan (if you are familiar with Viking mythology--or the show Vikings--the god Odin often assumes a human form of the Wanderer, a strange drifter that comes into town and will interact with people, often giving life for death or some other deal before wandering on). This sort of visceral purity of triumphant, gritty revenge is at the heart of the Spaghetti Westerns that Eastwood cut his tooth on. This, his second directorial effort, actually adds some weird disjointed elements to it (along with the imagery and weird music) that makes for an almost trippy, disconcerting Western revenge tour de force.
 

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#5 ·
Good Flick. Some elements came through in Pale Rider
 
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