Clint Eastwood made this film in 1985 and at the time many people said it was the best movie that he had ever made. Some people even went further and said it was the best western ever made. But the raucous shoot-em-up Silverado came out that very same year, basically foisting Kevin Costner onto an unsuspecting world, and it ended up making a bigger splash in 1985 than did Pale Rider. Then, after that, two more things happened: Costner went on to make Dances With Wolves (1990), and Eastwood went on to make The Unforgiven (1992), and with all that Pale Rider slipped into obscurity. The Unforgiven now wears the mantle of being Clint's masterpiece, his finest western, of being maybe the best western ever. And other people marvel much the same way at Dances With Wolves. Meanwhile, nobody thinks about or even remembers Pale Rider, a sorry fate that this fine film doesn't deserve.
There are two distinctly remarkable things about Pale Rider: On the one hand we have a return to The Stranger, the character Eastwood played in High Plains Drifter (1973). But, he's no longer called "The Stranger," maybe because he has evolved in life, and he's now known as "The Preacher." But he seems to be the same guy, at a different place in his life's journey. When you think about it, The Stranger from High Plains Drifter was pretty much just an Americanized presentation of the no-name character Eastwood played in the spaghetti western dollar series for Sergio Leone. And if you're going to categorize it, that's probably where this film belongs, as a part of that Sergio Leone series: A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1967). Add High Plains Drifter and this, Pale Rider, into that mix and you have a complete set. And it's noteworthy that Eastwood never again returned to the character. Eastwood's The Stranger appears to be finito.
All that's on the one hand. On the other hand we unmistakably see Eastwood using Pale Rider to pay homage to what was once regarded by many as being the finest western of all time, Shane (1953). In fact, it's more than mere homage that's being paid here. Pale Rider is really a full-blown retelling of Shane, updated, done in Eastwood's style, and with Eastwood's trademarked mystery man stepping into Alan Ladd's boots for the classic Shane role. Same story. Same plot dynamics. The biggest difference from Shane being that in Pale Rider the young lad is replaced by a blossoming adolescent ingénue, the gender change altering the tensions between the characters. Whereas in Shane the boy compared his father to Shane, and found his father lacking, in Pale Rider the girl competes heads up with her mother for The Preacher's attention.
Another difference from Shane is that here the dirty deed is accomplished. Yes, Mama beds the manly stranger. In Shane's life and times the cowboy way was to resist that temptation --to rise above it-- and walk away. But here The Preacher takes off his boots and drops trousers. I suppose in Eastwood's view the world changed between 1953 and 1985. Of course one aspect of the story was "fixed" to make this "acceptable." While in Shane Mama was ostensibly an otherwise happily married hausfrau, here she was a widow, unremarried, thereby rendering the tryst at least technically non-adulterous, although Mama was in a semi-committed relationship with her intended.
But don't misunderstand. Pale Rider is a fine film. I like it a lot. I like it as much as Shane. I like it almost as much as The Unforgiven. It ought to be remembered. It deserves to be remembered. It is a well-told western from the 1980s, and there weren't many of those made. If you like good westerns, I strongly recommend it.
There are two distinctly remarkable things about Pale Rider: On the one hand we have a return to The Stranger, the character Eastwood played in High Plains Drifter (1973). But, he's no longer called "The Stranger," maybe because he has evolved in life, and he's now known as "The Preacher." But he seems to be the same guy, at a different place in his life's journey. When you think about it, The Stranger from High Plains Drifter was pretty much just an Americanized presentation of the no-name character Eastwood played in the spaghetti western dollar series for Sergio Leone. And if you're going to categorize it, that's probably where this film belongs, as a part of that Sergio Leone series: A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1967). Add High Plains Drifter and this, Pale Rider, into that mix and you have a complete set. And it's noteworthy that Eastwood never again returned to the character. Eastwood's The Stranger appears to be finito.
All that's on the one hand. On the other hand we unmistakably see Eastwood using Pale Rider to pay homage to what was once regarded by many as being the finest western of all time, Shane (1953). In fact, it's more than mere homage that's being paid here. Pale Rider is really a full-blown retelling of Shane, updated, done in Eastwood's style, and with Eastwood's trademarked mystery man stepping into Alan Ladd's boots for the classic Shane role. Same story. Same plot dynamics. The biggest difference from Shane being that in Pale Rider the young lad is replaced by a blossoming adolescent ingénue, the gender change altering the tensions between the characters. Whereas in Shane the boy compared his father to Shane, and found his father lacking, in Pale Rider the girl competes heads up with her mother for The Preacher's attention.
Another difference from Shane is that here the dirty deed is accomplished. Yes, Mama beds the manly stranger. In Shane's life and times the cowboy way was to resist that temptation --to rise above it-- and walk away. But here The Preacher takes off his boots and drops trousers. I suppose in Eastwood's view the world changed between 1953 and 1985. Of course one aspect of the story was "fixed" to make this "acceptable." While in Shane Mama was ostensibly an otherwise happily married hausfrau, here she was a widow, unremarried, thereby rendering the tryst at least technically non-adulterous, although Mama was in a semi-committed relationship with her intended.
But don't misunderstand. Pale Rider is a fine film. I like it a lot. I like it as much as Shane. I like it almost as much as The Unforgiven. It ought to be remembered. It deserves to be remembered. It is a well-told western from the 1980s, and there weren't many of those made. If you like good westerns, I strongly recommend it.