My favorite Clint Eastwood movies: #5 "High Plains Drifter" (1973)

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“High Plains Drifter” is a dark and brooding western and director Eastwood’s first excursion into mythical and supernatural elements. Star Eastwood plays a man known only as The Stranger riding into a mining camp and killing three hired guns in a shootout. Town leaders hire him for protection against outlaws just out of prison who are coming for vengeance. The Stranger is no savior but disturbed and vicious. This is the only evil character Eastwood ever played. He rapes the town beauty in nonchalant manner. The town itself is corrupt harboring dirty secrets and The Stranger knows it. He delights in abusing and tormenting townspeople who are gutless in standing up to him or anyone else. The Stranger has his own agenda involving justice for a wrong done to him. The strong script is by Ernest Tidyman who won an Academy Award for “The French Connection.” Photography is superb benefitting from locations in California’s Sierra Nevada’s. “High Plains Drifter” is a brutal take on the darkness of man.