Saturday 21 October 2023

High Plains Drifter (1973 Clint Eastwood

Well acted and designed bizarre revenge western. Bizarre, because no one in the town of 'Lago' (which is by a lake) can remember the face of the Marshal who was bullwhipped to 'death' a year ago while they stood round and watched. He gets his revenge on the townsfolk and the three whippers in a strikingly red-painted and fiery town.

Or is it? The Marshal in the flashback scene isn't Clint, but Buddy Van Horn, the (good) stunt coordinator, according to the credits. Maybe I don't exist.

Very questionable sexual politics on display here - Clint rapes two women, neither of whom seem to mind much. They are Marianna Hill and Verna Bloom, who doesn't have a line of dialogue until 53 minutes in.

Clint found the location himself: Pyramid Lake, Nevada, photographed by Bruce Surtees.

Whatever's going on, the script was by Ernest Tidyman (Shaft, The French Connection) and put into final form by Dean Reisner, uncredited.

Dee Barton provides a suitably bizarre score. Ferris Webster edits again

With Mitchell Ryan, Billy Curtis, Geoffrey Lewis, John Mitchum.




Clint had to move the schedule about to accommodate Verna Bloom's wedding trip


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