Movies - Pale Rider

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	Movies - Pale Rider

Pale Rider is a 1985 film, directed by and starring Clint Eastwood, which makes references to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, as the rider of a pale horse is Death. In this movie Eastwood played a character with some similarities to his earlier Man with No Name from Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars
and its sequels, although this time the character dresses as, and is considered by other characters to be, a preacher.

The conflict is between a group of simple poor miners and the most powerful man in the nearby town. The preacher behaves reasonably enough in the beginning of the story, even choosing to dispatch a gang of ruffians with a hickory axe handle, but finally shows his true ability as a gunfighter in the end, eliminating a crack group of guns-for-hire posing as deputies who stand in the miners' way.

It is possible that the preacher is actually the Man with No Name approaching retirement and trying to make a more peaceful life for himself, but he is forced to return to his violent ways before the end. Eastwood gives this theme of an inescapable past a much more explicit treatment in his 1992 film Unforgiven
.

The movie was filmed in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area, just north of Sun Valley, Idaho. It also features Michael Moriarty, Carrie Snodgress, Christopher Penn, Richard Dysart, Sydney Penny, Richard Kiel, Doug McGrath, and John Russell.

There is also some possible supernatural implication, similar to High Plains Drifter
. The Preacher has what appears to be bullet hole scars in his back. Furthermore, in the showdown with the Preacher, Stockburn appears to recognize him and to be shocked to see him. However, Eastwood has been quoted as saying "Pale Rider is kind of allegorical, more in the High Plains Drifter mode: like that, though he isn't a reincarnation or anything, but he does ride a pale horse like the four horsemen of the apocalypse...". This with interviewer Christopher Frayling, according to

Pale Rider has plot similarities to the classic Western Shane
, including a final scene that is very similar to the famous final scene of Shane.

Trivia

One of the pieces of music featured on the soundtrack is "Best Endeavours" by Alan Hawkshaw. The piece is better known in the UK as the theme to the Channel 4 News, and its appearance in the film is therefore often somewhat jarring to British viewers.

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