‘Hang ‘Em High‘, made in 1968 and directed by Ted Post, marks the return of Clint Eastwood to the United States after becoming an international star in the series of three famous spaghetti westerns made by Sergio Leone. Most film historians today consider Leone to have saved the genre, or, if not saved it, at least revolutionized it, adding realism and color, alternating slow cinematic exposition with bursts of lightning-quick action, creating memorable lead and supporting characters and soundtracks that entered in every film score charts of all time. American critics and viewers of the time were not convinced and considered European Westerns to be violent vulgarizations, detached from the historical background that represents one of the fundamental myths of American nation building. The screenplay of ‘Hang ‘Em High‘ tries to use Eastwood‘s success but compensate for the lack of authenticity of films made overseas. I think it succeeds quite well in this regard, setting the story in a historical moment known to Americans and raising some moral and legal issues worthy of being addressed on screen. Eastwood‘s character is basically a continuation of the one in Leone’s films. Eastwood really wanted and recommended the Italian director for this film, but he was already busy with the casting of ‘Once Upon the Time in the West’ and would not make a film in America until 16 years later. Ted Post was eventually chosen to direct the film. The result is not without qualities but leaves the impression that it could have been a great film under the guidance of another director.
‘Hang ‘Em High‘ is a revenge movie. The story takes place in Oklahoma, which was one of the last US states to join the Union, in 1907. During the long transition period that preceded this act, the power of the judges was extremely high and they were assisted by armed federal officers called ‘marshals’. The frail institutions of the law could not cope in a huge territory, and often the population did its own justice. Or injustice. One such incident triggers the story in the film, when ex-cop Jed Cooper is wrongly accused of stealing a herd of cows and murdering their owners. He is condemned on the spot and hanged in the middle of the prairie by a group of men who were on his trail. They don’t do their job well and Jed is rescued by a lawman and brought before Judge Fenton, who understands the situation and releases him, proposing that he become a ‘marshal’ under his comand. Jed accepts, with the goal of using his newfound powers as a lawman to catch and punish those who had wrongfully convicted and nearly killed him. The balance between justice and revenge, between the need for order and the avoidance of unjust punishment, will be tested several times in the events that follow.
The script has a fairly solid historical basis and raises interesting issues related to the power of justice, crowd psychology, and the irreversibility of the death penalty. Eastwood brings back to the American historical background the character created for him by Sergio Leone. As a vengeful gunslinger he is flawless. The problem is that the group of ‘bad guys’ he faces is kind of undifferentiated, none of these characters give us, viewers, time and enough reason to hate him. There is also a romantic sub-conflict, a rather thin one, the only point of interest here being the presence of Inger Stevens, a beautiful actress of Swedish origin, with a tragic destiny (she would die two years later). A very interesting character could also have been that of the all-powerful Judge Fenton, but unfortunately Pat Hingle plays him rather without nuances and the expositions of his motivations are too rhetorical. I found the public execution scene exceptional. Dominic Frontiere‘s music tries to emulate Ennio Morricone’s, but it’s far from adapting to the story as it happened in the European films. To create good film music, it’s not just the sound that matters, but also the sync with what we see on the screen. ‘Hang ‘Em High‘ seems to have aspired to match Sergio Leone’s westerns and be as captivating as them, but Sergio Leone is missing.