High Plains Drifter

The Malpaso Company

Universal Pictures

R4 DVD

Although this film goes back to 1972 it highlights Eastwood’s love of the Western genre and shows the influence of his “spaghetti western” days. “There have always been westerns and there will always be westerns”. This is not a traditional U.S. western in the old Gary Cooper style, with everyone spotlessly turned out and the action carefully sanitised. It is dark, dirty and violent. The hero is also not heroic in the traditional sense – he is instead a man driven by revenge.

The town of Lago is owned by the Lago Mining Company. It has had to hire gunmen to protect its property and sometimes these men have gone over the top with their violent behaviour, as on the night when they bullwhipped the town’s young marshall to death. The entire town stood by and watched as he was cut down in front of them. Noone lifted a finger to help. But the marshall didn’t die. He was left for dead somewhere but now he’s back, unrecognised and nameless. The town will pay for their apathy as he humiliates them one by one.

There is a further problem. The three gunmen who bullwhipped him are out of prison and have sworn their own vengeance on the town. The town must now hire the nameless man to defend them. Will he defend them or does he have another motive?

The revenge motive is not uncommon in westerns, but it is usually on the part of the “baddie”. In this film it is hard to assign good or bad roles to most of the characters and in this the film is at sharp contrast with the conventional westerns. Despite its age I think this is one of Eastwood’s better westerns.

Six of Eastwood’s later films are available in a compilation set from Universal called the Clint Eastwood Collection. The films are Coogan’s Bluff, Two Mules for Sister Sara, Play Misty For Me, Joe Kidd, High Plains Drifter and The Eiger Sanction. The set is a good representative sample of the later work from this fine actor.

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This review will appear in Volume 3 No. 4 of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.

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