High Plains Drifter

1973 weird western

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A mysterious stranger rides into tiny Lago, a town with a checkered past of shadows and whip cracks. He kills a couple three roughies, rapes a woman, and agrees to help the townspeople by protecting them from three guys just released from prison who may have a reason to come and shoot up the place. But it comes at a price--anything the stranger wants. So he makes the midget the sheriff/mayor and paints the entire town red. Hell arrives.

Strange western. With Eastwood in his "Man with no Name" role and little person Billy Curtis, there's almost too much tough guy in this one. The plot is simple enough, but there are layers and a lot, I think, that is open to interpretation. (I have my own theories involving Angels of Death and purgatory.) My favorite tidbit about this is that Eastwood wrote to John Wayne about potentially working with him following the release of this movie. John Wayne apparently hated the violence in High Plains Drifter so much that he wrote a pretty nasty letter back saying he had no desire to work with him. Odd, because the violence doesn't seem especially graphic when compared to earlier Leone or Peckinpah movies. And it may just be my sick mind, but I thought this movie was more comedic than it was violent. I wonder if Wayne would have worked with Billy Curtis. Man, that would have been something.