Hang 'Em High (1968)

Director:

Ted Post

Writers:

Leonard Freeman (written by) and
Mel Goldberg (written by)

Release Date:

3 August 1968 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Western

Tagline:

The hanging was the best show in town. But they made two mistakes. They hung the wrong man and they didn't finish the job.

Plot:

When an innocent man barely survives a lynching, he returns as a lawman determined to bring the vigilantes to justice.

Plot Keywords:

Judge | Marshal | Rustling | Justice | Murder

Cast

Clint Eastwood	...	Marshal Jed Cooper
Inger Stevens	...	Rachel Warren
Ed Begley	...	Captain Wilson, Cooper Hanging Party
Pat Hingle	...	Judge Fenton
Ben Johnson	...	Marshal Dave Bliss
Charles McGraw	...	Sheriff Ray Calhoun, Red Creek
Ruth White	...	Madame 'Peaches' Sophie
Bruce Dern	...	Miller, One of the 3 rustlers, and murderer
Alan Hale Jr.	...	Matt Stone, Cooper Hanging Party
Arlene Golonka	...	Jennifer, the Prostitute
James Westerfield	...	Prisoner
Dennis Hopper	...	The Prophet
L.Q. Jones	...	Loomis, Cooper Hanging Party
Michael O'Sullivan	...	Francis Elroy Duffy, Prisoner
Joseph Sirola	...	Reno, Cooper Hanging Party

Runtime:

114 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:16 | Spain:18 | UK:X (original rating) | USA:Approved (certificate #21776) | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | Norway:16 | South Korea:15 | Sweden:15 | UK:18 | USA:M (original rating) | USA:PG-13 (re-rating) (1997) | West Germany:16

Filming Locations:

Las Cruces, New Mexico, USA

Company:

Leonard Freeman Production

Trivia:

Reportedly, producer Leonard Freeman clashed with director Ted Post during production. One day Freeman showed up on the set, issuing orders and taking charge. Post wanted to confront him, but Clint Eastwood intervened. Eastwood spoke to Freeman, and Freeman left the set and didn't return. What he said was, "If you show up on this set again, there won't be a set ... won't be a cast, won't be a crew."

Goofs:

Anachronisms: Near the end of the film when Cooper assaults Captain Wilson's house, it is guarded by a German Shepherd which didn't come into existence until 1894-1899 which is well after the time period of this film.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Captain Wilson, Cooper Hanging Party: Alright, drop your gunbelt.
Jed Cooper: What is this all about?
Loomis, Cooper Hanging Party: The captain said to drop your gunbelt.
Captain Wilson, Cooper Hanging Party: Now.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Big Guns Talk: The Story of the Western (1997) (TV)

Deserves got nothin' to do with it...

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...