Clint Eastwood started out as nice guy Rowdy Yakes in Rawhide, but that was only the beginning of the Clint Eastwood western era. His spaghetti westerns were among the most interesting movie westerns ever made. High Plains Drifter was as close to spaghetti western as Clint Eastwood make it.
This is the story of a Man With No Name who rides into a town in the middle of a desert and is seen as a savior by the town’s folks. Seems there are some bad men coming on the train and they need someone to protect them. That someone is not Clint Eastwood. We find out in flashbacks that Clint is the ghost of the town’s Sheriff who was killed by the same bad guys returning to the town now. There are a lot of weird scenes in the film, which ends up with the town being painted red and Clint Eastwood writing Welcome to Hell on the city limits sign.
Clint Eastwood director and Clint Eastwood cowboy don’t quite mix here. High Plains Drifter is just a weird movie. Clint Eastwood westerns are often weird though, so it is worth a look. Like The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, there are a lot of really nasty looking extras and co-stars in this film. They don’t seem to make it more real though, just more surreal.
In the closing shot of the film Eastwood rides into the sunset, where he vanishes in the shimmering heat waves.
John Wayne, not too surprisingly, didn’t like this movie. But I don’t think Clint Eastwood had John in mind when he made it.
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