Clint Eastwood has never done a real straight horror movie. His first movie as a lab tech in one single scene Return of the Creature was more of a monster movie. Play Misty for Me and Tightrope are more erotic psychological thrillers. And even the Dirty Harry movies are more focused on action thrills than regular horror even though most of the series has the San Francisco Police Inspector searching for cold-blooded killers.
However, in High Plains Drifter, he managed to play what could be a supernatural stranger who returns to an Old West town to exact revenge on those that might have led to his death. Pale Rider, released in 1985 as his penultimate Western is almost a spiritual sequel, no pun intended, as a western that blends elements of Drifter and Shane. Eastwood here plays another man with no name who just goes by Preacher because of his clerical collar he wears. But is he really a preacher or just pretending to be one because he knows the people of the small mining community will accept him more?
Set in the Carbon Canyon area of the Old West California, a small band of independent prospectors including Hull Barrett (Michael Moriarty) and his live-in girlfriend, Sarah Wheeler (Carrie Snodgrass), and her teenage daughter, Megan (Sydney Penny), are terrorized by marauders working for mining baron Coy LaHood (Richard Dysert). They cause a lot of destruction and one of them, Jagou (Marvin J. McIntyre), even shoots her dog dead. Upset, Megan who is religious prays for a miracle after burying him.
When Hull goes into the fictional town of LaHood as the prospectors have basically been forced into semi-isolation, Jagou and other members of LaHood’s men including the older McGill (Charles Halahan) harass Hull. McGill is first to see the preacher hiding a pale horse off toward the edge of town but he disappears. As they continue to harass Hull, the preacher arrives and manages to beat them off of Hull with hickory wood cut into axe handles.
For his gratitude, Hull invites the preacher back to their community. At first Sarah is skeptical of inviting a stranger in. But when she sees his clerical collar, she apologizes and accepts him. When she first sees the preacher riding into the area, Megan is reading from the Book of Revelations about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse as one rode a pale horse with the rider is named Death “And Hell followed with him.”
Preacher shows great resilience to any intimidation especially when LaHood’s son, Josh (Chris Penn), brings a muscle man “Club” (Richard Kiel), who towers over everyone to scare the prospectors. “Club” shows his strength by splitting a huge boulder with a sledgehammer. But Preacher uses his wits and manages to knock “Club” silly with the head getting the admiration of a fellow prospector “Spider” Conway (Douglas McGrath) who thinks there’s more to the preacher than what they see.
Preacher manages to show the prospectors they can’t be intimidated by goons or even LaHood’s false assertion that he rightfully owns the deeds to their land. However, he offers a $1,000 buyout to each prospector which they refuse. This leads Preacher to know LaHood’s next tactic is to turn more violent by bringing the corrupt Marshal Stockburn (John Russell) and six deputies who are hired killers. Eventually, this all leads to Preacher having a shoot-out with LaHood’s men as well as Stockburn’s deputies.
But because Preacher may be a ghost, a supernatural deity sent from beyond, there’s a way he seems to move around the town in a way that the bad guys can’t tell where he is or where he will be next. Normally, this is terrible plotting by a filmmaker. Yet, Preacher may know he can’t be killed. It’s the air of mystery surrounding the movie that makes Pale Rider worth watching. I’ve always liked that Preacher has a key to a lock box at a bank in a nearby town that has two revolvers, but only one, a Remington 1859 New Army .45 caliber, has a holster. The other, a Remington 1858 pocket .31 caliber, the preacher puts in the waistband of his pants. Is Preacher really one of the Four Horseman and the revolvers are used by them all?
No time frame is given for the era but both of the pistols Preacher carries are from 1858 and there’s a mention of Sacramento which became California’s Capital in 1854 and the railroad system opened in the same decade, it’s probably in the 1870s or 1880s as Preacher and Stockburn are much older men who moved west following the end of the American Civil War. Eastwood was in his mid-50s when the movie was released while Russell was in his mid-60s.
Eastwood has admitted that Preacher is an “out-and-out ghost.” In Drifter, there are flashbacks that add to the theory the stranger may have died and returned for revenge. This movie adds more ambiguity as Stockburn tells LaHood that the preacher sounds like someone he knew who is dead. Later when Preacher and Stockburn meet face-to-face, Stockburn recognizes him and just screams, “You!” Preacher may be a ghost returning from the grave to help people in their time of need. He only appears after Megan prays for a miracle and leaves once LaHood and his regiment are defeated.
But it’s also quite possible Preacher is actually a man of the cloth who used to be part of Stockburn’s army of deputies who they thought died. Yet he survived and reformed his ways. I tend to steer more to Eastwood’s idea Preacher is actually some form of supernatural being that travels the Old West righting wrongs. It’s possible he’s having to do it as penance for his evil ways when he was alive.
Despite appearing to be a clergyman, he is never really shown performing a sermon, even though he helps rally the independent prospectors to stand up to LaHood and his regiment. After he defeats “Club,” the hulking man ends up doing good things such as saving Megan from being sexually assaulted by Josh and later stopping Josh from shooting Preacher. With an R-rating, mostly for violence, there’s little profanity. Preacher doesn’t ever swear and even though both Sarah and Megan seem attracted to him, he doesn’t share the same sentiments.
The script was written by Michael Butler and Dennis Shryack, who also wrote Code of Silence, quite possibly Chuck Norris’ best movie, and was also released in 1985 earlier in the year. Eastwood, known for his love of jazz music, has jazz musician Lennie Niehaus provide an eerie score with ominous tones. Niehaus also did the musical for Unforgiven. And just like that movie, Preacher doesn’t ride away into the sunset. He instead rides away at dusk through a dark, gloomy snow-covered terrain also adding to the elements Preacher is from the afterlife as Niehuas’ score plays over the closing credits.
Pale Rider would be the first mainstream Western produced since the failure of Heaven’s Gate in 1980. With only a budget of $6.9 million, it made over $41 million at the box office, not one of the biggest blockbusters of the year. However, its critical praise as well as the themes have made it one of the best Westerns of the time. Even if Eastwood never did make Unforgiven, this still would’ve been a wonderful swan song to his career in the genre.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 