Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: High Plains Drifter (1973) - Eastwood cleans up red town in great western

12/18/2020

High Plains Drifter (1973) - Eastwood cleans up red town in great western

♥♥♥♥♥

Director/star Clint Eastwood with a whip and a revolver looks dangerous on the colorful poster for his High Plains Drifter

Into the small mining town of Lago in the American West rides a stranger, who has soon - with swift action - killed 3 men. The town then want him for their protector and leader, as a feared gang is on the loose.

High Plains Drifter is written by Ernest Tidyman (The French Connection (1971)) and directed by Californian master filmmaker Clint Eastwood (Play Misty for Me (1972), whose 2nd feature it is, and who also stars in the lead.

Eastwood has rarely been more cocky, arrogant, commanding and self-assured than here, and he is still very much the hero in this town of hypocrites, weaklings and swooning women. Lago also has the memorable dwarf Mortdecai and psychedelic music, - Eastwood and composer Dee Barton (Chain Gang (1984)) follow the contemporary cue set by Ennio Morricone in Sergio Leone's spaghetti-westerns starring Eastwood. There's good acting all around, and the story gets related in a mysterious pace that feels perfect.

High Plains Drifter is both hard-boiled and laced with humor; there's very long whipping flashbacks, SPOILER which point forward to the somewhat odd 'metaphysical' ending; Eastwood's stranger turns out to be a new incarnation of the town's late sheriff Duncan Jones, whom no-one, however, recognizes!...

2008 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
Gran Torino (2008) - Eastwood's actor persona comes full circle in absolute smash (co-producer/director/starring actor)
The Changeling (2008) or, The Christine Collins Story
2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess
Letters from Iwo Jima/硫黄島からの手紙 [Öjima Kara no Tegami] (2006) - The Japanese side of Eastwood's remarkable WWII two-parter
Flags of Our Fathers (2006) - Eastwood's Iwo Jima portrayal is captivating and profoundly moving

Blood Work (2002) - Eastwood churns out uninspired thriller adaptation (producer/director/starring actor)
The Dead Pool (1988) - The highly entertaining last Dirty Harry movie (starring actor)
City Heat (1984) - Eastwood and Reynolds wrestle dispassionately in Benjamin's messy period affair (co-starring actor)
Tightrope (1984) - An undervalued Clint Eastwood sex killer thriller (starring actor)
Any Which Way You Can (1980) or, More Monkey Business! (starring actor)
Escape from Alcatraz (1979) - Siegel, Tuggle and Eastwood's phenomenal prison escape thriller (starring actor)
Every Which Way but Loose (1978) or, Honky Tonk Monkey Business! (starring actor)
The Enforcer (1976) - Eastwood teaches revolutionaries a lesson in third, less punchy Dirty Harry (starring star)
The Eiger Sanction (1975) - Eastwood's mountain climbing dud
The Beguiled (1971) - Intense, erotic Civil War kammerspiel thriller (starring actor)
Dirty Harry (1971) - Eastwood's great, signature renegade cop character comes to life (starring actor)
Coogan's Bluff (1968) or, Dopes and Hippies, Beat It! (starring actor)
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) - Leone ends his poncho trilogy with certified classic (starring actor)
For a Few Dollars More/Per Qualche Dollaro in Più (1965) or, Return of the Poncho Killer (co-starring actor)
A Fistful of Dollars (1964) or, Killer in a Poncho (starring actor)

Watch a 3-minute clip from the movie here

Cost: 5.5 mil. $

Box office: 15.7 mil. $ (North America only)

= At least a box office success - but likely a big hit (returned 2.85 times its cost domestically alone)

[High Plains Drifter premiered 6 April (Los Angeles) and runs 105 minutes. The town in the film was built from scratch: 14 complete buildings, including a church and a two-story hotel built in 18 days, using 150,000 feet of timber. Shooting took place in Nevada and California in and around July 1972, specifically it lasted 6 weeks, 2 days ahead of schedule and under budget. The film was the 20th highest-grossing in North America in 1973, and the 6th highest-grossing western in North America in the 1970s. Eastwood returned with Breezy (1973), and as an actor with a cameo in Breezy and as a starring actor in Magnum Force (1973). High Plains Drifter is fresh at 93 % with a 7.70/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

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Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

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Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

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Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

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12/18/2020

High Plains Drifter (1973) - Eastwood cleans up red town in great western

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