Saturday, July 17, 2010

"High Plains Drifter:" Sometimes weird is good, Duke



Title: High Plains Drifter
Released: 1973
Genre: Western ghost story
Notable for: Clint's first time directing a western
Coolest thing Clint does: Blasts three assholes from a barber chair

John Wayne was so disturbed by "High Plains Drifter" he sent a letter to Clint Eastwood complaining that the real west was nothing like the eerie and cruel place depicted in this movie. The real west was full of good people who pulled together to tame a wilderness, Wayne said. They were not cutthroats and cowards with no sense of decency.

To which we say: Who the hell cares?

"High Plains Drifter" was released when Brad was the same age Andrew is now. It immediately became his favorite Clint Eastwood movie and he is not sure that has ever changed. Andrew, for once, does not argue with his father on this point. "It's damn good," he says.

For starters, Clint's distinguished career of threatening grimaces, squints and low growls may have peaked in this film. He speaks every line in a menacing, hoarse half-whisper. No one messes with him without paying dearly. He humiliates, kills and rapes.

If we didn't like that stuff, this blog might be called "The Julie Andrews Project."

The thing John Wayne evidently could not appreciate is that Clint, who directed, did not try to make a story about the real West.

Our Netflix envelope credits "High Plains Drifter" for "existentialism." We're not exactly sure what that means, and we're too lazy to look it up. But we know Clint did a masterful job of using bleak visual images and eerie music to enhance a nightmarish and other-worldly story.


The film begins with Clint riding into a dreary town called Lago. He needs only a few minutes to kill three men who deserve it and rape a woman who likes it. We're pretty sure the rape scene -- or at least the part about the woman enjoying it -- would be too offensive to use in a movie today. But what are you going to do? This was made in 1973, not today.

Weird stuff begins right away. Clint, the ultimate mysterious stranger who will not tell anyone his name, has a dream about a man being whipped in a dusty street. It turns out the whole town has a dirty secret. Everyone stood by and watched as a former sheriff was whipped to death by goons hired by the local mining company.

The sheriff, in flashbacks, looks up through his dying eye at townspeople who do not lift a finger to help and says, "Damn you to hell." That's foreshadowing!

Town residents hire Clint to protect them from three desperadoes about to be released from territorial prison. These are the same three guys who whipped the sheriff to death. For some reason never made plain, the town framed all three on a robbery charge and now the killers want revenge.

Clint accepts the job on the condition that the town must give him anything he wants. He plunders the wares of merchants and makes a midget sheriff and mayor. He orders residents to paint every building bright red and renames the town Hell. He installs a banner welcoming the killers home and sets up a big table as if throwing a party.

At the end, Clint kills all three bad guys as the town burns down. Hell, indeed. As the last scumbag dies, he yells at Clint, "Who are you?"

That question is still treated with remarkable uncertainty. Richard Schickel, who has written extensively about Clint, contends his character's identity in "High Plains Drifter" remains a mystery. The New York Times overview (brace yourself, liberals) starts off by misquoting the ending of the film in a way that makes it more ambiguous.

Come on experts, this is no mystery.

In one scene, a woman says the murdered sheriff was buried in an unmarked grave. "They say the dead don't rest without a marker of some kind," she says.

In the final scene, the midget carves a grave marker.

"I never did know your name," he tells Clint. "Yes, you do," Clint says.

Then the camera focuses on the name on the grave marker. It's the name of the murdered sheriff. Clint rides away and literally disappears in the haze.

Those clues are obvious, not subtle. Clint is the ghost of the dead sheriff, come to bring justice to both the men who killed him and the town that let it happen.

It is a great film with the ultimate manly message that no bad deed goes unpunished. If John Wayne did not like it, that was his loss.

Next up: "Magnum Force."

17 comments:

  1. Just watched this movie and I love it! Good recap above

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  2. Hello! In your post did you use the data from any researches or these are totally your personal thought? Waiting forward to hear from you.

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  3. Why does it show the dead Sheriff as a completely different actor then in the flashbacks?

    Not doubting the conclusion, just confused by it really.

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    1. not sure what you mean, the flashbacks were clint eastwood. maybe i'm missing something, please fill me in.

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    2. That was actually Buddy van Horn, a stunt double for Eastwood.

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    3. Because if the phantom had come back with the dead sheriffs face the town would say, you're dead. Thus he came back with a different face and body. So he truly was a phantom to them.

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    4. I read on wikipedia that the marahall getting whipped was Clint Eastwood's stunt double. So that it would look like him, but not exactly. I agree with the conclusion that the stranger is the ghost of the marshall.

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  4. I must agree....Mr. Wayne was entitled to his opinion, but this was a completely different type of film than he was used to.

    One of my favorite Eastwood films.

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  5. John Wayne was an idiot, just jealous because everyone loved that film and he didn't get to make it himself. And I'm sorry to say the old west was like that and probably worst, just depends on what part you were from. So it's obvious John Wayne came from a nicer part of town, that's why he made such pussy ass films. That's exactly why Thomas Edison was a jealous worthless piece of shit also, Nikola Tesla was the real genius and that's why Thomas Edison STOLE all his work by his men. It's just another example of a jealous piece of shit, that destroys someone's talent and work like of Tesla's

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    1. Your comments about Wayne say much more about YOUR mental capacity than Wayne's. John Wayne made EPIC, awesome westerns...so did Clint. Lighten up Francis

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    2. I like that... especially lighten up Francis

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  6. I guess the whipped sheriff was the avenging angel himself. Everybody thought he died but he didnt. And so he came back for revenge.

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  7. This movie eats dick... Pale Rider is better. A blog about manhood by pussies, how pathetic.

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  8. Just watched High Plains Drifter as part of my Clint Eastwood marathon, and I find it maddening that there's no real way of knowing The Stranger's real identity. I'm partial to the idea that he's Duncan's brother. That would be the most logical explanation, and because I've never seen Clint in any sort of supernatural/paranormal movie, one would have to assume The Stranger was a real human being.

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  9. Actually though Clint Eastwood didn't receive credit, he played Jennings in Revenge of the Creature in 1955.

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  10. Clint Eastwood's film High Plains Drifter (1973)

    The first time I saw High Plains Drifter was probably in the late 1970s. Clint Eastwood stars in and directs the film. Most westerns are either about cattle drives or cowboys and Indians. High Plains Drifter is different: this is a God's-Judgment-on-the-wicked western.

    Clint Eastwood plays a stranger who rides into the town of Lago--and he has a really bad attitude. This stranger is also very good with a side arm. During the course of the film, the stranger ends up killing some bad guys and burning the town of Lago to the ground. There are a couple of flashbacks of one Marshall Jim Duncan being whipped to death. At the end of the film, the audience can see that the stranger was the Second Coming of Marshall Duncan:

    The stranger rides out of the town of Lago past the cemetery. This little guy named Mordecai is writing something on a grave marker.

    The stranger looks at Mordecai and Mordecai looks up and says, "I'm almost done here."

    Then Mordecai asks the stranger, "I never did know your name."

    And the stranger replies, "Yes, you do."

    As the stranger rides off, the camera shows the grave marker: "Marshall Jim Duncan."

    I have a short story entitled "High Plains Drifter" (Ethos, March & May 1995); I have a book entitled High Plains Drifter: A Hitchhiking Journey Across America (PublishAmerica, December 2008); I have a blog called "High Plains Drifter." So is this some sort of gunslinger fixation or is there method to my madness? The clue is in one Scripture: "In the mouth of two or three witnesses let every word be established."

    There is a lot of sin (unrepented sin) in the United States and in the world. When people continue to live in sin, eventually God's Judgment falls. The more people try to hide their sin, the greater God's Judgment. The people of Lago tried to hide the murder of Marshall Duncan, but their sin was found out. You can't hide from God.

    There is a scene in High Plains Drifter where this lady tells the stranger, "Ever since Marshall Duncan's death, the people in this town are afraid of strangers."

    There is another scene in High Plains Drifter where the people of Lago (the town of Lago reminds me of Algona, Iowa) are meeting at the church. One of the guys is speaking in the front of the church. The camera then pans to the right and shows a bulletin board with this Scripture:

    Isaiah 53: 3-4: "Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed."

    Marshall Jim Duncan was whipped to death; Jesus Christ was at least nine-tenths whipped to death. The stranger riding into Lago (the first scene of the film) is a symbol of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ: not as the Lamb of God, but as the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.

    Isaiah 63: 1-6: "Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winefat? I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment. For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come. And I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me; and my fury, it upheld me. And I will tread down the people in mine anger, and make them drunk in my fury, and I will bring down their strength to the earth."

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