"The Gauntlet:" Clint laughs with his fans, not at them (we think)

Title: The Gauntlet
Released: 1977
Genre: Comic-book cop
Notable for: Making it obvious that Clint had a Yoko
Coolest thing Clint does: Drives a bus through an impossible storm of bullets

Life is full of jokes, and that is our best explanation for what was in Clint's mind when he made "The Gauntlet."

For regular guys, it's like when we pull out a seven-iron for a 210-yard tee shot, or when we pretend the size of our manhood is enormous.

Clint must have found it amusing to make an action film so far beyond believable that the joke is on himself. He becomes a parody of the ultimate action star. At least that's our theory. No matter what Clint had in mind, we're pretty sure he knew his audience would like over-the-top action even it is silly.


Even the movie poster was a ridiculous comic-book styled drawing. A frightened Sondra Locke clings to a ripped and gun-toting Clint (never mind that in the movie she is just as tough as him) with torn clothing revealing flesh seductive enough to qualify as false advertising.

The most basic elements of the plot are standard cop-movie stuff. Clint is a Phoenix detective sent to Las Vegas to retrieve a jail prisoner needed to testify in a trial. He becomes a target for mobsters and police who want his prisoner dead. The prisoner is a woman, and a romance develops.

It sounds like something Dirty Harry could do, but this time Clint is no Dirty Harry. His cop is a drunken loser chosen for the assignment because no one would doubt he could screw it up enough to wind up dead.

Clint eventually figures out his boss expects him to fail. Making it all the way back to Phoenix becomes a personal test of manhood. At the end, he delivers his prisoner to the courthouse by driving a bus reinforced with sheet metal past a gauntlet of cops who open fire.

Action movies never bear up well to strict scrutiny for realism, but "The Gauntlet" makes no effort to appear plausible. So many scenes and story lines are flat-out impossible that Clint had to be laughing. Here are just five examples.

1. Early on, cops open fire on Clint when he is inside Sondra's ranch-style house. They pump out so many bullets the structure collapses. That's a lot of bullets. Luckily Clint and Sondra escape through the secret tunnel that leads from her house into the desert.

2. Vegas casinos take bets on whether Clint and Sondra will make it alive to Phoenix. When the odds are 100-1 against them, Sondra bets $5,000 that they'll make it.

3. Cops are portrayed as mindless robots who gather in large numbers to murder anyone their boss wants dead. Except at the very end, whey they all inexplicably grow a pair and defy orders.

4. The prosecutor is in on the conspiracy to murder his witness, which raises the question: Why did he file the case at all?

5. In the climactic final scene, hundreds of cops fire at Clint's reinforced bus from both sides of a city street, apparently too dumb to notice the danger of cross-fire.

There is much more, but you get the idea.

In real life, "The Gauntlet" ushered in Clint's "girlfriend-movie period." His ill-fated romance with Locke had come to full bloom, and she would become a frequent co-star despite limited box-office appeal. Clint would earn the same sort of pussy-whipped reputation John Lennon received for putting Yoko on "The White Album."

It's good Clint was able to laugh at himself. That's a talent that comes in handy in movies and real life.

Next up: "Every Which Way But Loose."

"The Enforcer:" The manly appeal of a world where no one is screwed over without violent retribution

Title: The Enforcer
Released: 1976
Genre: Dirty Harry, part 3
Notable for: Tyne Daly and the beginning of Clint's questionable reputation as a feminist filmmaker
Coolest thing Clint does: Drives a car into a liquor store with guns blazing

Deep, black despair has clouded our perspective since a despicable fraud was committed last weekend in the corrupt city of Chicago.

Our beloved Detroit Lions started a new season in strange and unfamiliar style — with victory — by beating the Chicago Bears 21-19. Millions of television viewers saw Calvin Johnson catch the winning touchdown in the waning seconds of the game.

Oh, we were happy. We danced around our living room, sang the sacred Lions fight song ("Gridiron Heroes") and called Jay Cutler names like "crybaby" and "douchebag."

Then it happened. Under the influence of either Satan or a large bribe, the referees invented a rule and pretended it was violated by the Lions. They pretended the winning touchdown never happened due to some gibberish about the "process" of catching a football.

The usual futility, stupidity and ineptitude make it difficult enough to go through life as Lions fans. Adding larceny to the list is too much to bear.

Our despair was still strong when we sat down to watch the one man who never gets screwed like the Lions: Dirty Harry Callahan in "The Enforcer."

By this third installment of the Dirty Harry series, we know what to expect.

1. Clint carries a huge pistol and blows away scumbag maniacs in spectacular style. Check.
2. He has disdain for superior officers who are either spineless or evil. Check.
3. Unnecessary nudity and/or a kinky sex scene is unexpectedly but briefly stumbled upon. Check.
4. Harry's partners are jinxed. Double check.
5. Against all odds, the bad guys lose in the end. Check (of course).

We like that kind of stuff. How about you?

The basic storyline pits Harry against a gang of homicidal radical terrorists like the Symbionese Liberation Army, a militant group famous in the mid 1970s for kidnapping and brainwashing heiress Patty Hearst.

The creeps kidnap the mayor of San Francisco and demand ransom. Harry and his new partner track them down on Alcatraz Island, which they invade and conquer with bullets and shoulder-fired rockets. Clint does not care about the mayor, who is a douchebag, but he has a revenge-seeking hatred for the gang of radicals because they killed one of his many dead partners.

As is true for many Clint movies, the plot is not everything. Here are some highlights.

Funniest scene: Clint is transferred to the personnel department as punishment for being too violent in his police work. "Personnel," he says, "that's for assholes!" To which his sniveling, brown-nosing boss says, "I was in personnel for 10 years."

Best action: Three trigger-happy robbers are holed up in a liquor store with hostages. They demand a car from police. "What are you going to do?" Clint's partner asks. "Give them one," Clint says. Then he drives through the front of the store, dodging a shotgun blast, and shoots all three perps. The last one is intentially shot in the crotch from behind while running away, and he falls to the floor grabbing his nuts with both hands.

Best actor sighting: We nearly went crazy trying to place the actor who plays a black militant leader and reluctant informer who helps Dirty Harry. First we thought it was Jim Brown, the great football player turned marginal actor. But it was not Jim Brown. It was what's-his-name, the guy who played the bank robber who heard the first "Do I feel lucky?" speech in the original "Dirty Harry."

The most obvious way "The Enforcer" is different from earlier Dirty Harry films is Clint has a chick for a partner. It's Tyne Daly, later of the "Cagney and Lacey" television show. Clint is appalled to receive a female partner, but she wins his respect and, it seems, affection. There is no love scene, but you get the idea they would eventually hump like otters except Tyne gets shot dead at the end. Dirty Harry looks like he wants to cry.

"Men appreciate more than killing," Andrew reflected.

Oddly enough, Clint was lauded in certain feminist quarters for "The Enforcer." The bra-burners praised him for presenting a strong female character who overcame prejudice to prove her worth as a cop and a friend. Maybe feminism is what Clint had in mind, but we sincerely doubt it.

Dirty Harry was no feminist. He was hugely popular because, regardless of race or gender, he hated no one except people who deserved hatred. And because in his perfect world injustice was always punished by, at minimum, a bullet to the testicles.

We needed a man like that in Chicago last week.

Next up: "The Gauntlet."

"The Outlaw Josey Wales:" An American icon without pancakes

Title: The Outlaw Josey Wales
Released: 1976
Genre: Western when westerns weren't cool
Notable for: Being maybe the best Clint Eastwood movie ever
Coolest thing Clint does: Kills a lowlife bounty hunter, then spits tobacco juice on his forehead

We regret a serious delay in The Clint Eastwood Project caused by the disruption of a family vacation to the city that may best represent everything people love and hate about the United States of America: Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

Gatlinburg's natural beauty, breathtaking over-commercialism, excess consumption and cheesy roadside attractions form a scene like Wisconsin Dells times five or Niagra Falls on steroids. For miles, half the businesses are Ripley's Believe it or Not museums, hillbilly-themed gift shops, and dinner theaters featuring live animals. The rest are pancake houses. Gatlinburg evidently passed a city ordinance requiring every able-bodied citizen to eat pancakes.

Every time we ventured out of that madhouse and onto the side trails in the neighboring Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which is profoundly beautiful, we were surprised to see almost no people.

"Where is everyone?" I asked. Andrew's theory: "They're all looking for pancakes."

Our single biggest disappointment in Gatlinburg was not the rampant over-commercialism or the widespread incidence of morbid obesity. It was the choice of exhibits in the so-called "Hollywood Wax Museum."

Andrew and I eagerly strolled through the gallery of wax figures looking for you-know-who. We figured to take each other's photograph standing next to Clint, maybe saying things like, "Go ahead, make my day."

Inexplicably, Clint was not there. The place was full of second-string Hollywood luminaries like Pierce Brosnan and Owen Wilson -- but no Clint. You better believe we left a sharply worded comment card in the suggestion box.

So it was a pleasure to return home and enjoy another iconic American experience known as Clint Eastwood in "The Outlaw Josey Wales," directed by Clint Eastwood.

Anyone with the slightest interest in Clint has probably already seen "The Outlaw Josey Wales" and considers it one of his best movies. If he released the exact same film today, it would be nominated (at least) for a best-picture Oscar. But he released it in 1976, when westerns were out of fashion and Clint Eastwood was not considered serious.


The basic story is Clint is a peaceful farmer who seeks bloody revenge after his wife and child are murdered during the Civil War by an irregular outfit of marauding Union sympathizers. When Mel Gibson made the same movie and set it in Scotland, he won an Oscar. That was "Braveheart." Gibson enjoyed it so much he made the same movie again, set it in colonial America, and called it "The Patriot."

Clint becomes an outlaw for refusing to make peace with the Union after the war. He is gruff and deadly, but never kills anyone except in self-defense, although sometimes it's rather eager self-defense.

Unlike most of Clint's westerns, he forms friendships with a collection of rag-tag outcasts. This is one of the first movies to treat Indian characters as real people who are interesting and even funny. Chief Dan George is superb as the "civilized" Indian who, like Clint, turns against the government because of wrongs to his family.

In the end, it is a story not just of murder and revenge. It is a story of murder, revenge and redemption. Plus great spitting!

Clint spits tobacco juice with such enthusiasm and expertise it is almost a form of dialogue. For one outstanding example, he unloads a gob on the white suit of a carpetbagger attempting to sell bottles of miracle elixir. "How is it on stains?" Clint asks.

Several more Immortal Clint Lines are sprinkled through the movie. Most notable is his classic response to a bounty hunter who says he came after Clint in order to make a living. "Dying ain't much of a living, boy," Clint says.

To summarize: Great story, great action, great spitting and classic lines. We even see a glimpse of Sondra Locke's boob and ass, although we are not sure we want to.

God bless America and God bless Clint.

Next up: "The Enforcer."

"The Eiger Sanction:" Give a guy credit for balls of steel

Title: The Eiger Sanction
Released: 1975
Genre: Spy thriller
Notable for: Clint climbs mountains
Coolest thing Clint does: Dangles (for real) on a rope off a sheer rock face

Nothing sounds much stupider than the idea of Clint Eastwood playing a mountain-climbing assassin spy. The stupidity factor explains why neither of us ever watched "The Eiger Sanction" until compelled by the noble yet absurd duty of completing The Clint Eastwood Project.

Expectations were low, but we were both pleasantly surprised.

"Definitely worth watching," Andrew says. It is a passably interesting spy story sprinkled with gratuitous female nudity, humor now very politically incorrect, and legitimately striking mountain sequences.

Forgive us for being slightly confused about whether we are supposed to take the spy stuff entirely seriously. Much of it is more like "Get Smart" than James Bond. The spy boss is a "bloodless albino" far beyond eccentric. His right-hand man is an obnoxious tool who breaks out ridiculous karate skills to fight Clint. Clint's lifelong enemy is a swishy guy with a homicidal streak and a beefy bodyguard.

The story starts with Clint, a college art-history professor, being both blackmailed and bribed out of retirement and back into the employ of a shadowy spy network. His specialty is assassination, or "sanctions." Clint is the only man for the job because he has mountain-climbing experience and one of two enemy agents to be killed is going on a expedition up the Eiger in Switzerland.

Clint's character is somewhat urbane and very jaded. He has disdain for his students, his spy network and even his country. In his assassin's view, America conducts itself no better than its enemies.

We suppose his character is also intended to be hip and worldly because he enjoys interracial love and his nemesis is a gay guy played by Jack Cassidy. The hipness falls flat but we laughed at the jokes because they are full of stereotypes no one would put on film now. Cassidy's gay character has a lapdog named "Faggot." Clint's main love interest is a "black chick" named Jemima. "Maybe your mother was turned on by pancakes," he tells her in allegedly flirty banter. He also has sex with a Native American girl who never says a word, as if the white fathers have not taught her their tongue. Clint himself puts on a stereotypical "cupcake" lisp as a disguise in one scene. We gather it was considered a hoot just to see Clint pretend to be gay.

Clint, as director and lead actor, was mostly interested in the mountain-climbing stuff. That's what makes the movie.

His character works to get back into mountaineering shape by looking up an old friend who runs a mountain-climbing school in the desert. The old friend is played by George Kennedy in his second Eastwood film in a row. For another return appearances, this is the third film in a row that shows Clint drinking Olympia beer. Malpaso must have had a product-placement deal with Olympia, because no one liked that beer that much.

Conveniently, Kennedy's mountain-climbing school has been transformed into a resort full of beautiful young women do nothing but lounge around in bikinis. Clint's trainer is the Native American girl who can run like the wind up mountains. To encourage Clint to keep up, she pulls ahead and pops her top to show her boobs. So there is some great film-making here.

Twists and turns of the spy story seem of secondary importance by the time they get on the Eiger. Clint and some other actors really went up on the mountain (helped by helicopters). They shot real climbing scenes and many of their own stunts. That stuff was real: One crew member was killed an another was seriously injured by a rock slide during production.

Mountain-climbers gave the film props for authenticity, despite a couple of gaffes only an expert would notice. Expert credentials are not necessary to see that, no matter how safely the stunts were staged, Clint had balls to do it.

Any real man respects a guy with balls. It's difficult to imagine any filmmaker today doing what Clint did to make this movie.

Next up: "The Outlaw Josey Wales."

"Thunderbolt and Lightfoot:" No pigeon holes here

Title: Thunderbolt and Lightfoot
Released: 1974
Genre: Offbeat crime caper
Notable for: Oscar nomination for best supporting actor
Coolest thing Clint does: Blows into bank vault with 20 mm cannon

Ten minutes into the film, Andrew's friend Preston looked up from his tacos and uttered four words that must have been spoken many times by Clint Eastwood fans.

"I don't get it," the kid said.

Just when Clint seemed securely pigeon-holed as the quiet but deadly cowboy/cop, he put out a movie that is completely different. It worked because "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot" is very entertaining and maybe even very good.

Here are some ways this is no regular Clint Eastwood movie: Everyone around Clint dies but he kills no one; people shoot at him repeatedly but runs instead of shooting back; as far as we know, he doesn't even have a gun; he is likable and smiles several times; by his standards, Clint has character growth and dialogue; and for maybe the first time ever, Clint plays a character who is supposed to be his real age, a Korean War veteran slightly past his prime.

Told you it was different.

It is difficult to describe the movie in any way that gives it justice. Clint basically leads a gang of robbers in an elaborate caper, but the story is punctuated by enough weird interludes that the overall flavor resembles a "Road Runner" cartoon.


At the start of the film, Clint is a soft-spoken preacher, for Christ's sake, delivering a sermon in slick-backed hair. Only a few moments are required to determine things are not as they appear. A dude walks into the church and starts shooting at the preacher. Clint runs away and flags down a passing car. It's a freshly-stolen vehicle driven by Jeff Bridges, who plays Lightfoot.

Lightfoot is, to put it mildly, a free spirit. He has a silly laugh, an abundance of self-confidence, mad driving skills and an engaging smile. A friendship and man-to-man affection develop, and Clint and Jeff become road buddies.

Clint is pursued by former colleagues who think he double-crossed them on an earlier robbery. They broke into a bank vault with a cannon, a crime famous enough that newspapers nicknamed Clint "The Thunderbolt." Loot from the robbery was hidden in a one-room schoolhouse but surviving gang members mistakenly believe Clint took it. They tracked him down when he was laying low by pretending to be a preacher.

Clint and Bridges go to the schoolhouse to get the money but discover the building is gone. It has been replaced by a new school. "Progress, I guess," Clint says.

Two surviving members of the old gang, led by a brutal mug played by George Kennedy, eventually track down Clint and Bridges. They are ready to execute them when instead the four decide to try the old robbery a second time.

An elaborate caper ensues, featuring an extended scene with Bridges in drag. The robbery appears to be a success, but it unravels quickly. One robber is shot by cops. Kennedy decides to take the money himself, but first he knocks Clint unconscious and gives Bridges a savage beating. Kennedy ends up being eaten by a dog, which seems fair.

Luck turns better for Clint and Bridges when they happen upon the old schoolhouse and find it still contains money from the first robbery. The school was not torn down, as they assumed, but moved to become a historical museum.

A happy ending is not in the cards.

Bridges is still messed up from the beating given by George Kennedy. Trying to smoke a victory cigar in the front seat of a Cadillac convertible, Bridges starts speaking to Clint with half of his face, like a stroke victim. He dies right there in the Caddy. Clint throws away the cigar and drives on.

"That was incredibly sad," Andrew said.

Clint brought the star-power to the billing but it is impossible to watch the film and think of him as the main man. Other actors, including two previous and future Oscar winners, were more compelling. Kennedy was great playing the dangerous guy. Bridges received an Oscar nomination as best supporting actor for his kick-ass portrayal of Lightfoot. He lost out to Robert DeNiro in "Godfather II," so we won't argue with the academy on that call. Brief and quirky appearances by character actors like Dub Tayor and the guy who played the "Squeal Like a Pig" rapist in "Deliverance" make a big impression.

If Clint consciously allowed other actors to outshine him, he deserves credit. That's something few mega-stars do.

A real man does not allow himself to be pigeon-holed. Clint, in his later films, made that obvious. Now we get it.

Next up: "The Eiger Sanction."

"Magnum Force" and meeting the burdens of manly obligations

Title: Magnum Force
Released: 1973
Genre: Cop versus cop
Notable for: First of one too many "Dirty Harry" sequels
Coolest thing Clint does: Girl: "What does a girl have to do to go to bed with you?" Clint: "Try knocking on the door."

Right in the middle of watching the return of Dirty Harry Callahan in "Magnum Force," we were struck by a crisis of masculine obligations.

Candace, Brad's wife and Andrew's mother, came home, walked in the door and said, "Help."

The manly code says we are obligated to assist a woman who asks for help. But, for God's sake, Dirty Harry was on a rampage. Brad looked up from the screen. "Did you say help?" he asked. "Yes," she said, "there's something wrong with my car!"

Damn. Car trouble. The final holdover of what used to be called man stuff. Brad ran to the garage but Andrew kept watching "Magnum Force." He did not even hit the pause button out of courtesy. He knows the code well. You have to assist a woman in need, but not if someone else does first.

Less than two minutes passed before Brad returned, having fulfilled the age-old obligation of opening the hood and peering inside. "Your serpentine belt came off," he told Candace. "Did I miss any killings or boobs?" he asked Andrew.

Thus all laws of gender relations were fulfilled. Sometimes it's hard to be a man.

"Magnum Force" features the return of Dirty Harry without bothering to mention how Harry is a cop again. Clint threw his badge into a pond at the end of the first movie, before anyone realized a spree of sequels was coming.

Oh, well. Clint's fans didn't care and we don't either. "Magnum Force" is, again, a fast-paced series of unlikely action sequences but with a higher body count and more gratuitous nudity than the original. One walk-on homicide victim is a bimbo who takes off her bikini top at a pool party moments before she is blown away by the bad guys. Nice screenwriting there.


The story is pretty simple. A bunch of gangsters and lowlifes are blown away by motorcycle cops, and Clint uncovers a death squad of young hot-shots operating within the San Francisco Police Department. The only real surprise is his that Hal Holbrook, Clint's by-the-book superior officer, turns out to be the ring-leader.

The cast is full of future semi-stars including Robert Urich (Spenser: For Hire), David Soul (Hutch), and Tim Matheson. No matter how well Matheson played a killer cop, we could not look at him without seeing Otter from "Animal House," a movie made five years later. Toga!

Early in the original "Dirty Harry," Clint thwarts a bank robbery while eating a hot dog. In "Magnum Force," he thwarts an airplane hijacking while eating a hamburger. Both movies climax with a chase-slash-showdown in some sort of mining facility. "Magnum Force" also appears to try giving Clint a cool catch phrase. "A man's got to know his limitations" lacks the charm of "Do you feel lucky? Well, do you, punk?"

Despite that, "Magnum Force" clearly was intended to be different than the original. It tried, somewhat awkwardly, to put to rest the criticism that "Dirty Harry" was a fascist.

A death squad within the police department, as any fool can see, now those are some real fascists. And Harry fought them to the death. He turns down an invitation to join the death squad. "I am afraid you've misjudged me," Clint says to the bad guy on screen and to movie critics in the audience.

This stuff eventually produces what may be the longest and most ham-handed line Dirty Harry ever utters.

"I hate the goddam system," Clint tells Hal Holbrook. "But until someone comes along with some changes that make sense, I'll stick with it."

It seems silly that Clint felt the need to make sure everyone knows Dirty Harry is a true-blue American. But we guess he had his own manly obligations. When people call a guy a fascist, he must to do something to shut them up.

Next up: "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot."

"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."