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DVD Hang 'em High
After starring in the now-legendary trilogy of spaghetti Westerns for Italian director Sergio Leone, Clint Eastwood became a box-office star and imported the style of those classic shoot-'em-ups for this 1967 Western directed by Ted Post, with whom Eastwood had worked during their days on the television series Rawhide. Eastwood plays an innocent rancher who is mistaken for a cattle rustler and sentenced to hang by an angry mob. When he is saved from the noose by a passing lawman, he embarks on a renegade campaign of vengeance against the men who attempted to lynch him. Hang 'Em High offers a number of memorable moments and stylistic flourishes, and features a superb supporting cast of Western veterans, including Ben Johnson, Ed Begley, Pat Hingle, Dennis Hopper, Bruce Dern, L.Q. Jones, and the "Skipper" himself, Alan Hale Jr. Made just three years before Dirty Harry, the film marked a turning point for Eastwood, who would soon move into a prolific period of contemporary thrillers. The digital video disc offers standard and widescreen formats and a remastered soundtrack. --Jeff Shannon
......who thinks Eastwood was a bit mechanical in this role. His trademark glares and stares seemed to pop into place a bit too quickly in this one, compared to his other western stuff. Kinda like he was trying too hard, which wouldn't be hard to understand. This was his first American flick, and he had to be pretty fired up about making it. Awesome suporting cast, just awesome - Bruce Dern and Dennis Hopper in the same movie? Wow....... ;-)
A smart, compelling western that exceeds expectations
A good western is about two themes: violence and justice. "Hang 'em High", mostly overlooked beneath the shadow of Eastwood's work with Sergio Leone of the same period, is a surprisingly deep examination of these themes as they play out in pre-statehood Oklahoma.
The film works through three different storylines, all of which come together to address the primary theme of the picture.
The central storyline is a simple revenge tale. Eastwood's character, former lawman Jed Cooper, is wrongfully hanged by a gang of nine vigilantes. Saved from death by an honest marshall, Cooper becomes a lawman once again as deputy marshall in the Oklahoma Territory. With the blessing of the territory's judge, he embarks on a mission to round up those who were responsible for his hanging.
Along the way, he pursues and apprehends three cattle rustlers who had done murder. Among them are two young men who claim they had nothing to do with the decision to murder the man, and the two cooperate with Cooper's effort to bring all three men to town to face justice. The mob that helped him catch the men had wanted to hang them on the spot, but Cooper insisted that they be taken into custody and brought before a court of law. Back in town, Cooper stands up for the two young men and doesn't want to see them hanged. The judge sees things differently: the people demand justice as they see it, and the way they see it is through a hanging. If the judge doesn't hang them all, then the people will take the law into their own hands, just as they did wrongfully try to hang Cooper himself.
The third storyline is that of the pretty, young blond girl. The jailors and lawmen are all under orders to let her examine every outlaw brought into town. She later reveals that she's looking for two men in particular, two men who had done her a great wrong in the past.
In large part, this is a film about the death penalty and the merits of the retributivist theory of justice. If the girl were to find those two men, would their hanging do her any good? What if she never found them? Does Cooper need to find the men who've done him wrong? What to do with those he does find?
Whether men are hanged or spared their lives, there are consequences. There are consequences both for individuals seeking justice, and for society as a whole. There are consequences for those who perpetrate violence and those who are victimized by it. "Hang 'em High" engages the viewer on these subjects, and in so doing exceeds the expectation that it is just another shoot-'em-up gunslinger picture.
The musical score, an integral part of any good western, both hits and misses. It hits with a great, memorable theme. You probably have heard the theme even if you've never seen the film. The score misses, however, by muddying up the theme with the full orchestration commonplace in MGM studio pictures of the time. In many places, the score sounds like it was yanked directly out of "Star Wars", and the music produces a mood that doesn't fit with the film.
Overall, this is a western that does all the typically western elements right. It surpasses expectations by delivering on an engaging storyline about the ethics of justice. "Hang 'em High" is an excellent film. I'm compelled to drop it down to 4 stars, however, by the way that it stumbles about for the first 30 minutes or so trying to find its groove, and by the way the score seems misplaced in those early scenes. It fully recovers and becomes a great western, but doesn't quite reach the heights of perfection reached by "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly" or "A Fistful of Dollars."
Eastwood Fans - It's to die for!
So they lynched him and left him for dead, but left before they knew for sure, well Jed Cooper (Eastwood) is the top vigilante of any western I've ever known. Bringing the aggressors to justice is no easy task, but Eastwood plays the part smoothly. I really enjoyed this movie, and watch it all the time.
Note: If you're a Gilligan's Island fan, look for Alan Hale, he plays one of the men who tried killing Eastwood. It's so weird seeing the skipper out of his sailor clothes! HaHa
Clint Eastwood's second film as a director (and his first Western) is a variation on the "man with no name" theme, starring Eastwood as the drifter known only as "the Stranger." He rides into the desert town of Lagos and is quickly attacked by three gunmen. Recovering with the aid of a local dwarf (a memorable role for Billy Curtis), the Stranger is hired by the intimidated townsfolk to fend off a band of violent ex-convicts. After teaching the citizens self-defense and instructing them to paint the entire town red and rename it "Hell," the Stranger vanishes. He reappears when the marauding criminals arrive, and delivers justice and teaches the townsfolk a harsh lesson about moral obligation. Is he a figure from their past or a kind of supernatural avenger? Combining humor with action,... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Clint Eastwood - Verna Bloom Director(s): Clint Eastwood DVD Release Date: Released the 24 February 1998 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Sergio Leone's trilogy of operatic spaghetti Westerns with Clint Eastwood made the former TV star into an international sensation as the scraggly, silent Man with No Name, a wandering rogue with a scheming mind and a sense of humor drier than the dusty, wind-scoured desert. With A Fistful of Dollars, a blatant rip-off of Kurosawa's cynical samurai hit Yojimbo, Leone transforms the Western hero into a crafty mercenary. The follow-up, For a Few Dollars More, teams Eastwood up in an uneasy alliance with Lee Van Cleef in a tale of revenge, but the masterpiece of the set is The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, an epic scramble for buried gold set against the violence of the Civil War. In this film good is a relative term as three criminals make a series... More Info about this DVD DVD Release Date: Released the 05 October 1999 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Clint Eastwood fired the original director, Philip Kaufman (The Right Stuff), and took over the reins of this project himself. He may have had a point: this brutal, thoughtful western, a near-tragedy about a Civil War veteran whose past comes looking for him, is probably Eastwood's most mature frontier drama prior to the Oscar winning Unforgiven. Hoping to build a quiet life in a cooperative community of settlers, Eastwood's Wales blames himself when his enemies attack the homestead, and he has to revert to his warrior instincts to help fend off the threat. The jittery intensity of Sondra Locke (who would be Mrs. Eastwood, at least for a while), and the screen-filling charisma of the late Chief Dan George harmonize beautifully with Eastwood, who had finally figured out how... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Clint Eastwood - Sondra Locke Director(s): Clint Eastwood DVD Release Date: Released the 20 November 2001 Usually ships in 24 hours
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After a nine-year break from the genre that made him an international star (the Western just before this one was The Outlaw Josey Wales, from 1976), Clint Eastwood returned in this gritty Western, crafted in the tradition of Shane and High Noon. Eastwood directed and stars as the nameless stranger known only as "Preacher," because he rides into a beleaguered mining town wearing a clerical collar. He's either an agent of death or an angel of mercy, and the echoes of Shane ring loud and clear when he comes to the aid of independent miners who are being terrorized by a local tycoon (Richard Dysart) and his ruthless band of hired guns. Befriended by a miner (Michael Moriarty) and idolized by the miner's wife and daughter (played by Carrie Snodgress and Sydney... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Clint Eastwood - Michael Moriarty - Carrie Snodgress - Sydney Penny Director(s): Clint Eastwood DVD Release Date: Released the 18 November 1997 Usually ships in 24 hours
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In the cactus-studded Mexican backcountry of the 1860s, a surly drifter who could easily be mistaken for the Man with No Name becomes protector and lethal helpmate to a red-haired nun wanted by the French for aiding the Juarista revolutionaries. Essentially a two-character showcase for the newly stellar Clint Eastwood and what was beginning to seem the poststellar Shirley MacLaine (subbing for Elizabeth Taylor), this sardonic study in testy collaboration, mutual deception and distrust, and slightly creepy sexual attraction is highly rated by a fairly small number of critics--chiefly, one suspects, for the dual-auteur cachet of having been directed by Don Siegel and based on a story by Budd Boetticher. Others deem it an undersauced spaghetti Western and find that the stars grate on the... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Shirley MacLaine - Clint Eastwood Director(s): Don Siegel DVD Release Date: Released the 06 May 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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