High Plains Drifter
Short description
A stranger dressed in black rides into the small frontier settlement of Lago and shoots dead three men who provoke him. The townspeople, terrorised and largely intimidated, ask him to stay and protect them from three outlaws who are due to return after serving prison sentences for crimes committed against the town itself. He agrees, but on conditions that unsettle the community and turn life in Lago upside down.
Clint Eastwood directed High Plains Drifter, his second film behind the camera after Play Misty for Me and before Breezy. He also stars as the stranger, alongside Verna Bloom, Marianna Hill, Mitchell Ryan, Jack Ging and Stefan Gierasch. Ernest Tidyman wrote the screenplay, and Robert Daley produced for Malpaso Productions with Universal Pictures. The film runs 106 minutes.
Released in April 1973, the film earned about 16 million dollars worldwide against a budget of roughly 6 million, a solid return. On IMDb it holds 7.4 out of 10 from more than 62,000 votes, and on TMDB 7.3 from around 1,400. A critics' rating of 7.6 from 32 reviews places it slightly above the audience scores on both sites.
What's left behind the scenes
- The role of Sheriff Jim Duncan was played by stuntman Buddy Van Horn, who had long been Eastwood's double.
- Universal Pictures wanted the film to be shot on a studio lot. Instead, the director and star, Clint Eastwood, arranged for the construction of an entire mock town in the northeast of central California. A team of 46 technicians and 10 workers spent 18 days (with ten-hour workdays) building 14 houses and a two-story hotel. After filming was completed, it was all burned down.
- According to one version, the Man with No Name is the restless spirit of Sheriff Duncan, returned for revenge. This is indicated by some of the dialogue, as well as the fact that at the end of the film, the stranger rides off and dissolves into the plateau from which he arrived. In an interview for Inside the Actors Studio, Eastwood stated that early versions of the script suggested the stranger was the brother of the murdered sheriff. He himself prefers a more supernatural interpretation.
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