Hang ‘Em High (1968)

Directed by Ted Post. Starring Clint Eastwood, Pat Hingle, Inger Stevens, Ed Begley, Ben Johnson, Charles McGraw, Arlene Golonka, Bruce Dern, Ben Steele, Alan Hale Jr., Ruth White, L. Q. Jones, Joseph Sirola.

Innocent ex-lawman Eastwood survives a lynching at the hands of a posse looking for a killer and cattle rustler, then agrees to act as marshal for territorial judge Hingle so he can track and capture his accosters and bring them to justice. Clint’s first American Western feature headliner utilizes the visual language, exaggerated gestures, and moralistic melodrama of the spaghetti Westerns that made him a star. Though their faces are familiar in these sorts of productions, Begley doesn’t have much to work with as the chief antagonist, and Stevens only gets a tragic confessional to give her character any dimension; Hingle and Johnson fare better in law & order roles, one reasonable and the other dictatorial. Dominic Frontiere provides the Ennio Morricone-esque music, but even though director Post fails to replicate Sergio Leone’s outlandish style, he competently forges the danger, bravado and ambiguity needed to sell the material. Regardless of pale imitative concerns, it’s always watchable and periodically exciting. Dennis Hopper has a small part as a deranged prisoner.

71/100