One day a stranger (Clint Eastwood) rides into the newly constructed small desert town of Lago. He promises the townfolk that he will defend and rid them of a band of three men who had killed a sheriff (Buddy Van Horn) and give him whatever he wants. He makes a little person (Billy Curtis) the sheriff, trains the townsfolk how to defend themselves and seeks his own unknown punishment on the townsfolk.
Eastwood's directorial debut of a western shows he has clearly learnt some lessons from Sergio Leone's Italian westerns and has brought them with him including the almost haunting images of the stranger riding in to town and mysteriously riding out again. Where this has developed is in the almost supernatural element to his character that smartly does not reveal his identity or his connection to the town. It is revionist of the genre, even if it brings many tropes and stylistic qualities of the European western.
His look is cool, rough and ready and almost comic book like, cooly handling all comers and using his trademark economy of words. You can almost smell the wood of the newly built town constructed by Lake Mono in the desert of northern California with the sense of the heat and barreness of the locale coming through in Eastwood regular cinematographer Bruce Surtees as the stranger appears in the town through the heat haze.
There is also a good deal of character in the supporters and marks the first appearance of Geoffrey Lewis in an Eastwood film, although other than Verna Bloom's character who sees the light, there are few genuinely sympathetic characters. HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER is in many respects a simplistic western film that has enough mystery and a good deal of style that carries it through, even if it is perhaps not his best western.
Eastwood's directorial debut of a western shows he has clearly learnt some lessons from Sergio Leone's Italian westerns and has brought them with him including the almost haunting images of the stranger riding in to town and mysteriously riding out again. Where this has developed is in the almost supernatural element to his character that smartly does not reveal his identity or his connection to the town. It is revionist of the genre, even if it brings many tropes and stylistic qualities of the European western.
His look is cool, rough and ready and almost comic book like, cooly handling all comers and using his trademark economy of words. You can almost smell the wood of the newly built town constructed by Lake Mono in the desert of northern California with the sense of the heat and barreness of the locale coming through in Eastwood regular cinematographer Bruce Surtees as the stranger appears in the town through the heat haze.
There is also a good deal of character in the supporters and marks the first appearance of Geoffrey Lewis in an Eastwood film, although other than Verna Bloom's character who sees the light, there are few genuinely sympathetic characters. HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER is in many respects a simplistic western film that has enough mystery and a good deal of style that carries it through, even if it is perhaps not his best western.