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Hang 'em High Customer Reviews (4 - 6 of 8 Reviews)

More Solid than Ever
HANG 'EM HIGH remains a solid Western to this day. When it was released HANG 'EM HIGH was touted as an American version of the Spaghetti Western. That's interesting since the Spaghetti Western genre was Europe's version of America's Western genre. In this film the viewer gets interpretations of both genres. In fact the film actually looks more inspired by Hollywood Westerns of the 40s with doses of the 60s Spaghetti's influence interspersed throughout. The single constant Spaghetti influence was Dominic Frontiere's score which featured a catchy theme that carried the familiar rhythm and drive created by Ennio Morricone for A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS and FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE to mention a few. The excellent cast, which supported Clint Eastwood, included Pat Hingle, Ben Johnson, Dennis Hopper, L.Q. Jones, Bruce Dern, Ed Begley, Charles McGraw and Inger Stevens. Many of these actors just added to the fact that this was an American Western all the way and a good one at that. HANG 'EM HIGH does not have the flash and stylized violence of the Spaghetti Western. Instead we get a deliberately paced film about revenge and the dichotomy of the meaning of law and order and real justice. By the end of the film the main characters learn and grow through their experiences, as does the audience. The West was not a frontier of just black and white. This is a good film and seems even better today than when it was first released.

Eastwood, home on the American range
After earning major stardom with Sergio Leone's spaghetti western trilogy, Clint Eastwood turned down both Leone's "Once Upon a Time in the West" and Carl Foreman's "MacKenna's Gold" to star in and co-produce this tightly scripted, well-acted western directed by "Gunsmoke" veteran Ted Post. It proved a good choice. If not a masterpiece on the order of Leone's film, or a star studded spectacular like Foreman's offering, "Hang 'Em High" was something the other two were not: a hit. It's also intelligent and makes some interesting if subtle comments on the meaning of justice. The clean-shaven Eastwood is fine as Jed Cooper, a former marshal who once more wears a badge to hunt down the men who hanged him as an alleged cattle thief, but Pat Hingle as a hanging judge who is even more vengeance minded than Eastwood offers the standout performance. Bruce Dern, Bob Steele, Ben Johnson, Joe Sirola, Dennis Hopper, and Alan Hale, Jr. (yes, the Skipper from "Gilligan's Island") are among the notable character actors who appear throughout, and Dominic Frontiere's music score, including the title theme that would go on to be a hit for Booker T and the MGs, is excellent.

Clint is the man..
Any great American can like a good western but if it is a Clint western thats even better..

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