Film Review: High Plains Drifter (1973)

The 1970s marked a seismic shift in American cinema, a period often dubbed the “New Hollywood” era, where filmmakers tested the boundaries of narrative, style, and censorship. Directors such as Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, and Sam Peckinpah embraced the creative freedoms of the post-Production Code landscape, producing works that were audacious, morally ambiguous, and steeped in existential angst. Yet this wave of experimentation was not confined to the arthouse auteurs or countercultural provocateurs. Even those figures seemingly entrenched in genre filmmaking—such as Clint Eastwood—found themselves swept up in the tide. By 1973, Eastwood was primarily known as the steely-eyed star of Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy and the gritty Dirty Harry (1971), roles that cemented his image as a purveyor of macho minimalism. However, with High Plains Drifter, his second directorial effort, Eastwood ventured into darker, more surreal territory, crafting a Western that stands as one of the most unnerving and thematically provocative works of the decade.

Set against the stark beauty of Mono Lake, California—a location that would become a visual and thematic cornerstone of the film—the narrative opens on a desolate, sun-scorched landscape. The unnamed Stranger (Eastwood) rides into Lago, a lakeside town shrouded in paranoia. The townspeople, visibly uneasy around outsiders, are soon confronted by the Stranger’s lethal efficiency when three local gunslingers provoke him and are summarily executed in a blistering sequence of violence. The tone is set: this is no ordinary Western hero. The Stranger’s ruthlessness escalates when he drags Callie Travers (Marianna Hill), a provocatively flirtatious widow, into a stable and rapes her—a scene that remains one of the most controversial in Eastwood’s filmography.

The townsfolk, having lost their hired gunslingers to the Stranger, beg the Stranger to defend them from the vengeful Stacey Bridges (Geoffrey Lewis) and his cousins, men that had spent a year in prison due to townsfolk’s frame-up. In exchange for his protection, he demands total control, stripping the town of its autonomy. He forces them to paint buildings blood-red, appoints the dwarf Mordecai (Billy Curtis) as mayor and sheriff, and imposes draconian drills. Through flashbacks, the film reveals Lago’s dark secret: the former marshal, Duncan, was whipped to death by Bridges while the townspeople stood by, complicit in his murder. The Stranger’s punitive measures—psychological and physical—culminate in a hallucinatory showdown, where the town’s sins are purged in a hail of gunfire and fire, leaving only ashes.

Eastwood’s transition from actor to director was catalysed by his dissatisfaction with the handling of Westerns by others. After the critical and commercial success of Leone’s spaghetti Westerns, which redefined the genre with their operatic violence and existential undertones, Eastwood grew disillusioned with the limitations of working under other directors. His 1972 collaboration with John Sturges on Joe Kidd—a competently made but uninspired revisionist Western—convinced him that to truly explore the genre’s potential, he would have to assume control behind the camera. High Plains Drifter thus became both a homage to his mentors and a declaration of artistic independence.

The film’s cemetery scene, where the Stranger passes graves marked “Leone” and “Siegel,” is a pointed nod to the directors who shaped Eastwood’s career. Don Siegel, who directed Eastwood in Coogan’s Bluff (1968) and Dirty Harry, instilled in him a pragmatic, no-nonsense approach to storytelling, while Leone’s influence is evident in the film’s stylised violence and morally ambiguous antihero. Yet High Plains Drifter is no mere pastiche. It synthesises these influences into a vision that is distinctly Eastwood’s, blending the existential dread of the spaghetti Western with the revisionist critique of American myths that defined the era.

Screenwriter Ernest Tidyman, best known for The French Connection (1971) and the creation of Shaft, drew inspiration from the 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese in Queens, New York—a crime where dozens of bystanders allegedly failed to intervene. Tidyman transposed this collective apathy onto the fictional town of Lago, where the residents’ complicity in Duncan’s murder mirrors the modern urban malaise. The film’s themes of moral rot and communal guilt echo High Noon (1952), where Gary Cooper’s sheriff faces abandonment by his town. However, where High Noon is a parable of civic duty, High Plains Drifter is a dirge for a society beyond redemption.

The town’s hypocrisy is laid bare through its treatment of marginalised groups. Mexicans and Native Americans are relegated to the margins of Lago, their presence a silent rebuke of the townsfolk’s racism. The Stranger, in his role as avenger, weaponises their exploitation, forcing shopkeepers to give goods to Indigenous characters and appointing Mordecai—a figure of mockery—to positions of power. Yet his methods are far from noble. His rape of Callie, who later conspires against him, and his coercive relationship with Sarah Belding (Verna Bloom)—a hotel owner who becomes his reluctant ally—complicate any reading of him as a traditional hero.

The film’s visual contrast between the harsh beauty of Mono Lake and the moral decay of Lago is a masterstroke. Cinematographer Bruce Surtees, known for his work with Eastwood on Play Misty for Me (1971), captures the region’s otherworldly vistas, where jagged rocks and turquoise water evoke a primordial landscape. This natural splendour stands in stark opposition to the town’s squalor—a metaphor for the corruption festering within its inhabitants. The Stranger’s decision to paint Lago red—a literal staining of its sins—transforms the setting into a tableau of Gothic horror, foreshadowing the apocalyptic climax.

Few scenes in Eastwood’s filmography have drawn as much scrutiny as the rape of Callie Travers. The act is presented without condemnation, framed as a comeuppance for her complicity in the town’s crimes. This troubling implication—that her violation is justified—reflects the film’s morally murky terrain but also risks alienating modern audiences. The Stranger’s subsequent coercion of Sarah, who later aids him in the finale, further complicates the film’s gender politics.

Eastwood’s handling of these sequences is emblematic of his broader ambivalence. The Stranger’s actions toward marginalised groups—Mexicans, Indigenous peoples, and the dwarf Mordecai—suggest a progressive impulse, yet his punitive measures are indistinguishable from tyranny. This duality mirrors the film’s central theme: in a world devoid of virtue, even justice becomes indistinguishable from cruelty. The Stranger himself is a cipher, a figure whose motives oscillate between vengeance, justice, and sadism.

The film’s flirtation with the supernatural elevates it beyond a mere revenge Western. Flashbacks reveal the Stranger’s obsession with Duncan’s fate, but his exact relationship to the dead marshal remains enigmatic. Is he a vengeful ghost, a demon, or a mortal avenger exploiting the town’s guilt? The ambiguity is deliberate, echoing the existential dread of Leone’s films while adding a metaphysical dimension. The red-painted town, renamed “Hell,” becomes a liminal space—a purgatory where sins are absolved through violence. This surrealism, combined with the Stranger’s eerie calm and the film’s haunting score, creates an atmosphere of dreamlike unease.

Dee Barton’s score, while evocative in its use of dissonant jazz motifs, remains the film’s most divisive element. Barton, a jazz musician and Eastwood’s personal friend, composed a soundtrack that leans into atonal experimentation, eschewing the sweeping orchestral themes typical of Westerns. While this choice underscores the film’s subversive tone, it often feels at odds with the genre’s conventions. A score from Ennio Morricone or Lalo Schiffrin—composers whose work defined Eastwood’s earlier films—might have lent the film a more cohesive identity.

Despite its flaws, High Plains Drifter solidified Eastwood’s reputation as a director of formidable skill. His ability to blend visceral action with psychological complexity laid the groundwork for later masterpieces like Unforgiven (1992), which would deconstruct the Western mythos with even greater nuance. Here, Eastwood’s style is still evolving—his pacing occasionally languid, his symbolism heavy-handed—but the seeds of his auteurist vision are unmistakable.

High Plains Drifter is a film that defies easy categorisation. It is a Western steeped in the existential malaise of 1970s cinema, a morality play without moral certainty, and a directorial statement that bridges Eastwood’s past and future. Its willingness to confront uncomfortable truths—about complicity, vengeance, and the fragility of civilisation—elevates it beyond genre entertainment. For Eastwood, it marked the beginning of a directorial journey that would redefine the Western, proving that even the most formulaic genres could serve as canvases for artistic ambition.

RATING: 7/10 (+++)

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