Clint Eastwood has a little fun with his iconic Man with No Name persona from Sergio Leone’s classic spaghetti westerns (A Fistful of Dollars, etc.) in the 1973 High Plains Drifter, the second feature he directed following Play Misty for Me.
This time Eastwood is The Stranger, a taciturn gunslinger who literally emerges in the spooky, opening shot from waves of shimmering desert heat at a vast distance from the camera. His horse trots like that of an Arthurian knight as The Stranger enters and passes through the length of a tiny mining town called Lago. The eyes of the townspeople are fixed on him—what does he want here? Well, he wants a beer, a shave, and a bath.
But he also seems to have some larger purpose mysteriously tied, as we see in The Stranger’s dreams, to the brutal murder of the town’s former sheriff, a crime the entire town supported to suppress his intention to reveal corruption. The unstated suggestion in the story is that this outsider, perhaps in a supernatural way, has come to wreak Old Testament-like wrath on these sinners. Meanwhile, the hired killers, betrayed by these terrible people, have been released from prison and are on their way to Lago to exact revenge.
Will The Stranger, who has already shot seven bad guys in 24 hours, help Lago defend itself? He will, but at a price, enjoying some spoils and commanding everyone, in an act of pure irony he enjoys, to paint all of Lago hellfire red.
Eastwood has a fluid command of his widescreen, beautiful images (a nearby sea that turns up in a number of shots adds to the Biblical feel of the story), and the little wooden town’s isolation in an endless dry landscape is haunting. The action is crisp and the cast is full of creative energy. (An actor of short stature named Billy Curtis is a standout.) Eastwood has a sharp-edged presence that, typically for him, is truly compelling. Strongly recommended.