Clint Eastwood's first Western as director is rather fascinating due to its quasi-supernatural component.
High Plains Drifter (1973)
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Reviews Counted:24
Fresh:23
Rotten:1
Average Rating:7.7/10
Runtime: 1 hr 46 mins
Genre: Westerns
Synopsis: In Eastwood's supernatural homage to his own cinematic roots -- the films of Sergio Leone and Don Siegel -- the residents of a greedy mining town conspire to murder their own sheriff when he... In Eastwood's supernatural homage to his own cinematic roots -- the films of Sergio Leone and Don Siegel -- the residents of a greedy mining town conspire to murder their own sheriff when he threatens to inform the government that they've been operating on public land. They then attempt to frame the hired killers, prompting the gunmen to seek revenge. The townsfolk go to the well once more, hiring a mysterious Stranger to rid them of these bandits. But the Stranger has his own agenda and proves to be more than they bargained for. [More]
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Verna Bloom, Marianna Hill, Billy Curtis
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Verna Bloom, Marianna Hill, Billy Curtis, Mitchell Ryan, Jack Ging, Stefan Gierasch, Ted Hartley, Geoffrey Lewis, Scott Walker, Walter Barnes
Director: Clint Eastwood
Director: Clint Eastwood
Producer: Robert Daley
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Reviews for High Plains Drifter
As a director, Eastwood is not as good as he seems to think he is. As an actor, he is probably better than he allows himself to be.
Whatever the reasoning, it is a gripping work, harsh and ahead of its time.
Eastwood registers strongly as actor and director of this revenge Western (yet another critique of High Noon), with a style that's influenced by his mentors, the economic efficiency of Don Siegel with touches of Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Westerns
This was supposed to be Eastwood's fond adieu to the worlds of Sergio Leone and Don Siegel; and indeed he cuts the operatic excess of the former with the punchy economy of the latter.
Clint Eastwood is the ultimate thinking man's cinematic killing machine.
Part ghost story, part revenge Western, more than a little silly, and often quite entertaining in a way that may make you wonder if you have lost your good sense.
Clint Eastwood's second film as a director -- and his first western -- is a minor classic.
Clint's a supernatural amoral mythical hero (of the pulp novel kind), bent on cruelty and getting revenge for a past misdeed.
Revenge doesn't do much for your claims to nobility, but more often than not it makes for some pretty good stories and lots of guilty pleasure.
High Plains Drifter will make an excellent double bill along with Eastwood's other post-modern Western, the 1992 Unforgiven.
There's some nice action here, and the whole thing is cloaked in an archetypal spookiness that makes High Plains Drifter work not only as a 'man with no name' Western but also as something a little deeper.
Dark, bloody, and uncompromising; the ultimate deconstruction of the Western genre.
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