High Plains Drifter (1973)

High Plains Drifter: When The Man Comes Around | 5/5

Written by Noah Dietz: 1/15/2025

The day is hot, the sun is high, and a new face has blown into town. The residents of Lago aren’t friendly to strangers— especially so, the hired guns who were brought on to protect the town. Even before Clint Eastwood’s traditional Man With No Name does anything to directly rile them, the decision has been made to run him out. The only say he gets in the matter is whether it’s on his horse, or in a box. The Stranger is more than ready for a group of whiskey-soaked thugs, shooting them all in a moment as punishment for interrupting his hot shave with threats. Immediately after leaving the barbershop he has his way with a local woman, facing no consequence for his actions because the town’s governing body has decided he might be unscrupulous enough to be their new protector.

Lago, a gold mining town in the nebulous American West, had long since sold its soul to the devil. Even before the incompetent men The Stranger guns down, the town sold out their previous three outlaw guardians for getting too greedy. Though their greed is something greatly familiar to the town as well. Those original three men had killed Jim Duncan, a US Marshal, as a favor to the town to attempt to bury the fact that the mine had been built on government land. Despite all knowing it’s wrong, the townspeople stand silently, watching their Marshal get whipped to death in the middle of the street. The entire town is practiced in looking the other way for their own benefit; what difference does it make if they get in bed with the newest devil to roll through?

While it’s perhaps not as meaningful as his work with Sergio Leone, or even as polished as some of his own work in years following, High Plains Drifter is possibly my favorite of Eastwood’s westerns. One of the cruelest and most jaded roles we’d seen him in at the time (with the exception of starring in Don Siegel’s urban western, Dirty Harry), High Plains Drifter tells the story of a deal with the devil as old as any you could ask for. What does a town who betrayed the men they hired to murder a US Marshal care about hiring a rapist and murderer? He’s far from the worst they’ve backed, and in their cowardice they make it clear that they would happily back worse if it serves their goals.

With no concrete answer to The Stranger’s true identity in the film, this is left to the viewer to decide who he might be. Is The Stranger the ghost of the Marshal coming back for revenge? The restless spirit of a man buried in an unmarked grave seeking restitution? In a decision that helps blur the lines of reality, Marshal Duncan is played by Clint Eastwood’s stunt double, Buddy Van Horn. Lending credence to The Stranger being a vengeful spirit are the nightmares of The Marshal’s death he’s plagued by. These visions are scattered through the film between scenes of him happily abusing the power given to him by the fearful townsfolk. It endlessly hammers home the feeling of an unholy retribution against the passive killers of the town while going through the motions of preparing them for the actual killer's return.

I love a story with a Faustian bargain and for me, this is one of the greats. The story is quick to show that innocent people are moved along to avoid punishment. The Mexican workers that The Stranger utilizes to build up everything for the grand event are sent away before the bloodshed. The Native Americans in town are ushered out before things get bad with as much as Eastwood can hand them from the general store. He even attempts to vacate the hotel, prompting the local priest to prove he’s no more innocent than the rest when he offers lodging at no higher a rate than the people would pay at the hotel itself. Greed runs deep in Lago, and the devil’s finally come to collect..

This is a bleak, miserable western that isn’t nearly as fun or uplifting as a lot of the genre can be. The foreboding atmosphere hangs heavy across every single scene, coming to a head in the final act. With the name of the town painted over with a drippy “Hell” and every building drowned in red, the symbolic deal has finally been sealed. By the time The Stranger kills the outlaws he asked to originally, the town is left in shambles. It’s clear that more harm than good has come from every deal the people of Lago have struck, with only a semblance of a good ending coming around to them. The film ends with a grave marker finally having been made for Marshal Duncan, allowing his spirit to rest and concluding the arc of the townspeople. Their sins laid bare and their souls purified by the hellfire they called on their own heads, everyone is finally allowed to rest.

Over the last few years I’ve made a concerted effort to get back into westerns, both revisionist and otherwise. Stories of revenge and betrayal are always hits, and High Plains Drifter is that in spades. Clocking in at just over 100 minutes, this isn’t even one of the longer films to commit to. Treat yourself, dust off your spurs and ride into the sunset.