Movies - High Plains Drifter

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	Movies - High Plains Drifter

High Plains Drifter is a 1973 Western movie starring and directed by Clint Eastwood, wherein he plays a character clearly influenced by the Man with No Name from Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars
and its sequels. Eastwood's direction, too, was inspired by Leone, as the film utilizes often beautiful widescreen compositions (by cinematographer Bruce Surtees) very similar to those seen in the "Dollars" films. The film has a much quicker pace, however, which also indicates the stylistic influence of Eastwood's other mentor, Don Siegel. (In fact, Eastwood has noted that the graveyard set featured in the film's finale had tombstones with the names 'Sergio Leone' and 'Don Siegel' on them, intended as a comical "dedication" to both then-living directors).

Filmed on located on the shores of Mono Lake, California, High Plains Drifter is morally complex in the manner of the spaghetti westerns, and introduces the environmental themes that were to appear in a number of Eastwood's later movies. The screenplay was written by Ernest Tidyman, and Dee Barton provided the film's eerie musical score.

The movie opens as has countless other Westerns: out of the shimmering haze of the horizon, a lone horseman stranger rides into town. The townspeople eye him warily, and the crack of a teamster's whip serves to show how tense the air is.

The Stranger (Eastwood) enters a bar for a beer and a bottle of whiskey. He is challenged by three gunslingers -- only to turn his back and walk away from them. They follow him to the barbershop across the street, where he surprises them and shoots all three dead in an explosion of bullets. Then, insulted by a local woman, he drags her into the livery stable and rapes her. The next day, she tries to kill him while he takes a bath. "Wonder what took her so long to get mad?" asks the puzzled stranger; "Because maybe you didn't go back for more?" replies an onlooker.

Three felons, who are to be released from the jail in Yuma in a few days, are expected to return to the town of Lago and wreak havoc. In desperation the town hires the Stranger's help in return for "anything he might want".

The town and the three felons are linked by an illegal mine, and they killed the previous town marshal to keep him quiet. (The felons had been framed for theft of gold from the mine in order to keep them quiet about their part in the marshal's death).

This tale of vengeance eventually revolves around the Stranger and his bizarre demands and activities. Eastwood's character extracts a steep price for his help with the three returning felons: by the film's end, the town is in ruins, many of the prominent citizens are dead or missing, but the men the town has feared are dead too.

The question that has tormented the townspeople through the movie -- who is the Stranger? -- is addressed cryptically at the end. Leaving town, the Stranger encounters Mordecai, the town outcast, finishing a grave marker apparently at the Stranger's request. Mordecai says to him, "I never did know your name." The Stranger replies, "Yes, you do." Mordecai blanches at the answer, and as the Stranger returns to the shimmering haze of the horizon, the camera pans over the grave marker to reveal the murdered Marshal Duncan's name.

Trivia

Eastwood had an entire town built on the shores of Mono Lake for the project.
Filming was completed in only six weeks.

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Movies - High Plains Drifter

Trivia

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