I felt this movie had huge potential with the end result turning into a bit of a mixed bag.
Clint Eastwood said he wanted to make a movie that examined the pros and cons of capital punishment and in this respect the movie is very effective. The brutal hanging of Eastwood at the begining of the movie is horrid, visual and very effective. The scenes with the Tumbleweed wagon are eerie and the killing of one would be prisoner by a guard (the ever brilliant Ben Johnson) is dirty, gritty and highly effective. The scenes of Eastwood battling with the judge are like a snapshot of what Eastwood would be doing in a few years time as Harry Callaghan and again in these scenes the movie impresses. The killing of the first lyncher is brilliant, the cattle ruster subplot is very well done as is the town hanging which is really the highlight of the movie.
Where the movie falls apart is the romantic subplot which was a complete misfire and should not have been included, the unfinished business at the end in relation to finding some of the lynchers is unsatisfactory since the movie went to the trouble of including two significant subplots.
Overall it was a good movie which nevertheless had some flaws.
... pretty good analysis.
As you suggest, the core elements are quite strong and the film does a good job with both the visceral, visual dynamics of lynching (and some other matters) and the thematic debate. But I think that the potential was always limited by the television backgrounds of director Ted Post, writer-producer Leonard Freeman, and writer Mel Goldberg. To scrape away some of the episodic television encrustations and give the film a rawer look and a leaner shape, Eastwood may have needed to have been another year or two into his career as a Hollywood star (this film, of course, constituted his first American vehicle as a star). If Eastwood had made this film after beginning his association with Don Siegel (which occurred later in 1967 with
Coogan's Bluff), Siegel may well have directed it and reshaped the script with a writer such as Dean Riesner.
In an ironic, extratextual sense, the romantic subplot proved important because it constituted Eastwood's first as a star. In the three Leone movies, he had had no romantic transactions with women whatsoever and played an essentially asexual character, so here Eastwood was wetting his feet, so to speak. Of course, whether that relationship and its portrayal made for a better film is another question.
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dbeane
9 years ago
In an ironic, extratextual sense, the romantic subplot proved important because it constituted Eastwood's first as a star.
Also it perhaps helped Cooper realize his own quest for revenge was somewhat Quixotic after hearing about her own quest for revenge. And ditto for her.
It was't really much of a "romantic subplot" anyway - Cooper spent more time with Jennifer than he did with Rachel. I thought it was more about a couple of wounded people connecting.
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