Clint Eastwood's 1973 directorial effort, "High Plains Drifter," is now available to stream for free on YouTube. The film, which Eastwood also stars in as the mysterious "Stranger," is noted for its departure from traditional Westerns, incorporating elements of horror and ambiguity.
Following his iconic roles in the "Man with No Name" trilogy in the 1960s, Eastwood transitioned to directing. While his debut, "Play Misty for Me," was a thriller, his second directorial outing, "High Plains Drifter," returned to the Western genre but infused it with distinct, genre-defying characteristics. The film centers on an unnamed gunslinger who arrives in the isolated mining town of Lago and is hired by the fearful townsfolk to protect them from a pair of vengeful outlaws. The Stranger soon becomes entangled in the town's dark secret: they previously hired the outlaws to kill the sheriff, only to frame them and send them to prison.
What sets "High Plains Drifter" apart is its pervasive sense of mystery and its unsettling tone. Eastwood deliberately made the Stranger's true identity ambiguous, leaving audiences to speculate whether he is a supernatural entity, the ghost of the murdered sheriff, or simply the sheriff's mortal brother seeking vengeance. This ambiguity, coupled with the film's unsettling score by Dee Barton, contributes to a mood more akin to a horror film than a typical Western.
Despite its artistic merits and Eastwood's compelling performance, "High Plains Drifter" contains a deeply problematic element: an early scene depicting the Stranger raping a local woman. The film's suggestion that the victim may have enjoyed the assault is a jarring and disturbing aspect that has aged particularly poorly. While this scene serves to establish the Stranger's ruthless nature and subvert expectations of a heroic protagonist, it presents a significant hurdle for modern viewers. Eastwood himself, in a 2003 interview for "Inside the Actors Studio," noted that the original script by Ernest Tidyman was more explicit about the Stranger's identity, but he chose to maintain the ambiguity in the final film, a decision that contributes to its enduring, albeit controversial, mystique.