Hang 'Em High (1968)

Eastwood, as Jed Cooper, sits on both sides of the fence in American criminal jurisprudence. First, he is hung (although they didn't get the job done) in a deputized mob lynching. After he recuperates (the first time), he returns to his career as lawman to help a "hangin' judge" grease the wheels of justice. Of course all that Cooper really wants is to see justice done to the mob that lynched him. He soon finds out that his transgressors were "men of the community" or leading town folk.

The irony is plentiful in this film. For example, the two young men who go peacefully in an impossible 3 day ride, submit completely to the new Marshall. How are they rewarded? Well, they are hung of course! This really sets the tone of the film. The audience quickly recognizes that the "hangin' judge" just might me a bit too effective in his role of "statemaker."

While the movie does get a bit tedious, the story is razor sharp, the soundtrack is good although a bit epic, and the acting is very well done.

One is left with a sympathy for the men Cooper is hunting. Of course, this is a deliberate result of the filmmakers who meant this to be a commentary on capital punishment. Well, I enjoyed the film despite the deeply woven propaganda.

Fmovies: It was in the mid-90s when I first saw Hang 'Em High. I was new to Eastwood's westerns, having just seen the Leone films for the first time. All I knew of this one was a scene that I had seen in television commercials, where Clint says the movie's most famous line "When you hang a man you better look at him." So needless to say I was excited. The movie starts off well enough as innocent Eastwood is lynched by a group of men for cattle rustling, only he survives. From here you have a plot that Anthony Mann or Sergio Leone would have made into a masterpiece.

Instead, what you get is a slow meandering film that fixates on and preaches about law & order, the dangers of vigilantism, etc. These kinds of plots were commonplace in virtually every western TV show from the 1950s and 60s. Hang 'Em High offers nothing new to a discussion that was already old by the time the film came out. Although I came into the movie predisposed to root for Clint, after awhile his character's lack of motivation at wanting revenge made me wish the lynch mob had done a better job and spared us an unfulfilling two hours.

Like I said I first saw it in the 90s and was disappointed. I just recently rewatched it for the first time since then, hoping to see it with fresh eyes and enjoy it more. But I found myself feeling the same sense of disappointment and boredom I did all those years ago. As a western drama it's watchable and competently put together. As a western action revenge movie it's weak and should be avoided.

Hang 'Em High is directed by ted Post and written by Leonard Freeman and Mel Goldberg. It stars Clint Eastwood, Inger Stevens, Pat Hingle, Ed Begley, Ben Johnson, Charles McGraw, Ruth White and Bruce Dern. Music is by Dominic Frontiere and cinematography is shared by Richard H. Kline and Leonard J. South.

An innocent man survives a lynching and returns as a lawman and sets about bringing the vigilantes to justice.

After making a name in Leone's Dollars Trilogy, Eastwood returned to America and began cementing his name in the genre of film that would come to define him. Though very much an American Western, this does have Spaghetti Western tonal splinters. Story is derivative and safe, however the characterisations are not and are pungent enough to warrant viewing investment.

Unfortunately director Ted Post often lets the pace sag to unbearable levels - especially in the last third of film, it's a shame that the mooted Robert Aldrich didn't get the gig. There simply is not enough on the page to sustain the near two hour running time, with the finale proving to be a rather flat experience. The liberal stance on the death penalty is a touch heavy handed, but not so as to kill the picture since the thought process of the complexities of justice holds high interest values. Then of course there is Eastwood to lure one in.

He's not the best actor in the film, though the amorality of character he plays makes him the fascinating centre piece. Hingle steals the acting honours as the stoically forthright Judge Fenton, while Stevens also shines as Rachael Warren, a character who like Eastwood's Jed Cooper has an obsessional motive for capturing criminals in her heart. All told the perfs across the board are pitched right and good value.

I'm not sure if the fact two cinematographers were used was a job for mates scenario? Whatever though, for there's nice work here, the New Mexico locations pleasing and at the same time mood compliant for the harsher edges of the story. Frontiers's music is interesting, full of ebullience - sometimes overbearing, it strangely at times sounds familiar to some of Herrmann's compositions in the fantasy genre...

Hang 'Em High is an important entry in the Western genre library, though neither great or bad, it's still a must see for genre enthusiasts. 7/10

Hang 'Em High fmovies. A rather unusual western movie for its period, with interesting ideas on the practice of justice and death punishment, not consistent with the myth of the frontier as always portraited in such kind of cinema. Even though Eastwood only appears as an actor, a good preview of what was about to happen in his career as a director, with The outlaw Josey Wales and, above all, The unforgiven. Rated 7.

This was Clint Eastwood's American Western debut that I had never really seen all the way through until now. At first I thought it would be another ride 'em high, cowboys n' indians flick that was popular in America those days... before Sergio Leone shook the genre down to its raw and merciless possibilities.

The film was pretty good, and the moral undercurrent of justice "by a dirty rope on the plain, or a judge in a robe standing before the American flag" is rather striking. The Federal judge is by far one of the most interesting characters I have seen yet in a Western.

Indeed, the grittiest and most barbaric scene is not the lynching of an innocent man, but the public hanging on the eve of statehood... to prove that Oklahoma Territory executed the sort of justice required of a "civilized" state of the Union. It is made a public spectacle with beautiful hymns and cold beer. And just the way each of the condemned faces his execution is tongue in cheek.

Then there was the campfire scene where Captain Wilson confers with his employees regarding their options: irony, fear and desperation. They put a human face on their culpability, similiarly echoed decades later by Little Bill's "I don't deserve this, I was building house." And the few who chose not to run chose a desperate and violent option.

A dillemic "no one wins" justice spiralling into graphic violence... and ultimately an undiginified and graceless death. What was perfected into poignant brevity by Unforgiven was born in Hang Em High's exploration of two men's differing approaches to an unforgiving justice... a justice that led either to the end of a noose, or the end of a gun.

Not bad at all...

Ex-lawman turned cattle rancher Jed Cooper is taken newly purchased cattle back home when he is caught by a posse who accuse him of murder and lynch him. They ride off to leave him to die, however he is cut down by a group of marshals who add him to their prisoners and take him to the judge. Having had his story cleared Cooper is offered a job as a marshal and agrees to do it. However when his first task is to arrest the men who hung him can he take the stand away from revenge and on the side of the law.

I watched this cause I do like a good western every now and again. The actual plot is quite simple on the surface – man out for revenge, but it uses it quite well. It makes some interesting parallels between the hanging of men by the lynch parties and the hanging of men by a judge. It doesn't fully make it's point but it is good to have something to think about in a western. Outside of this the film has some good drama even if the end feels more like the conclusion of an episode in a TV series rather than the finale of a film.

Of course the reason for this may be Post's involvement as director. He used to direct Rawhide with Eastwood and was picked for this film to support Eastwood. This was his first American film after doing all those spaghetti westerns and I assume he wanted a familiar hand on the tiller. He does well here as he always did with his western characters, I read that he also directed some of it. The rest of the cast are made up of a few famous names (Bruce Dern, LQ Jones for example) but regardless everyone does well in their roles.

It's not a classic western but it rises above the average by having a good lead in the shape of Eastwood and some plot strands that go beyond the revenge storyline and encourage you to think of deeper issues.