A cowboy (Eastwood in his first American movie after Sergio period) ) is saved from lynching and vows vengeance and to hunt down the band that nearly murdered him . They left him with a scar on his neck and his seeks vendetta on the nine men (Ed Begley , LQ Jones , Bruce Dern, Alan Hale..) men who constituted the lynching gang . Now The Man With No Name is back! . As he is rescued by Marshal Dave Bliss (Ben Johnson) and brought to Fort Smith to the court of Judge Adam Fenton (Pat Hingle) . Appointed as a Deputy , Clint pursues his particular justice at whatever means , including his extreme obsession for revenge . 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. As Eastwood is Judge, Jury and Executioner.
This is Clint first starring character in American Western dealing with a lawman/vigilante scenario, and following his sensational success in Italy with Leone Westerns : A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, The Good the Bad and the Ugly . This is a good film , if uneven , with a lot of action , violence , shootouts and it contains a long as well as eerie hanging of six convicts . Being sometimes quite as violent as its Spaghetti counterparts . But it is more deserving of serious consideration than past times . The flick anticipates the thorny issue about the dichotomy between natural and legal justice . Clint Eastwood gives his ordinary acting as the tough cowboy saved by chance after being summarily strung up as a presumed rustler and left to die . This is a typical Eastwood vehicle and is said to have filmed some of it himself . The movie is more interesting as a way station in Clint career than for anything intrinsic to its Spaghetti style . Awesome , magnificent support cast , such as : Inger Stevens ,Ned Romero , L.Q. Jones , Alan Hale Jr , Ben Johnson , James MacArthur , Bob Steele ,James Westerfield , Mark Lenard , Bert Freed , Ruth White , among others . and Co-stars Charles McGraw, Ed Begley, Bruce Dern and Pat Hingle had all appeared in "Rawhide" episodes directed by Ted Post .
Colorful and burnished color cinematography from Leonard South and Richard H Kline . Special mention for musical score by Dominic Frontiere , it is a catching , moving soundtrack in Spaghetti style . Well made by his own production Company : Malpaso , with an old ¨Rawhide¨filmmaker on board , Ted Post . United Artists executives suggested experienced action film directors like John Sturges and Robert Aldrich, but Clint Eastwood gave the director's reins to Ted Post, who had directed twenty-four episodes of Rawhide (1959) and was very good at dialogue. In the mid- to late 1940s, Post made a name for himself in the theater and then moved into the adventurous arena of early television. He has since directed numerous segments of TV's top series : Gunsmoke (1955), Perry Mason (1957), Twilight zone (1959), Baretta (1975) , "Columbo," many more and feature films ranging from this one : Clint Eastwood's Hang'em high (1968) and Magnum Force (1973) to Retun to Planet of Apes (1970) .He's a Western expert , in fact his best movie is still a Western called ¨The legend of Tom Rooley¨ . Besides , he directed Clint Eastwood many times , starting working on Eastwood's television Western series, ¨Rawhide¨. When Eastwood returned to America after his successful Sergio Leone movies , he called for Post who directed him in Western ¨Hang'Em high¨ and the second entry Dirty Harry pictures : ¨Magnum Force¨. Ted Post also directed notable Sci Fi : Beneath of the planet of apes , Harrard experiment and horror movies : The Baby , Dr Cook's garden . And , finally , Ted Post returning to his theater roots .
This is Clint first starring character in American Western dealing with a lawman/vigilante scenario, and following his sensational success in Italy with Leone Westerns : A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, The Good the Bad and the Ugly . This is a good film , if uneven , with a lot of action , violence , shootouts and it contains a long as well as eerie hanging of six convicts . Being sometimes quite as violent as its Spaghetti counterparts . But it is more deserving of serious consideration than past times . The flick anticipates the thorny issue about the dichotomy between natural and legal justice . Clint Eastwood gives his ordinary acting as the tough cowboy saved by chance after being summarily strung up as a presumed rustler and left to die . This is a typical Eastwood vehicle and is said to have filmed some of it himself . The movie is more interesting as a way station in Clint career than for anything intrinsic to its Spaghetti style . Awesome , magnificent support cast , such as : Inger Stevens ,Ned Romero , L.Q. Jones , Alan Hale Jr , Ben Johnson , James MacArthur , Bob Steele ,James Westerfield , Mark Lenard , Bert Freed , Ruth White , among others . and Co-stars Charles McGraw, Ed Begley, Bruce Dern and Pat Hingle had all appeared in "Rawhide" episodes directed by Ted Post .
Colorful and burnished color cinematography from Leonard South and Richard H Kline . Special mention for musical score by Dominic Frontiere , it is a catching , moving soundtrack in Spaghetti style . Well made by his own production Company : Malpaso , with an old ¨Rawhide¨filmmaker on board , Ted Post . United Artists executives suggested experienced action film directors like John Sturges and Robert Aldrich, but Clint Eastwood gave the director's reins to Ted Post, who had directed twenty-four episodes of Rawhide (1959) and was very good at dialogue. In the mid- to late 1940s, Post made a name for himself in the theater and then moved into the adventurous arena of early television. He has since directed numerous segments of TV's top series : Gunsmoke (1955), Perry Mason (1957), Twilight zone (1959), Baretta (1975) , "Columbo," many more and feature films ranging from this one : Clint Eastwood's Hang'em high (1968) and Magnum Force (1973) to Retun to Planet of Apes (1970) .He's a Western expert , in fact his best movie is still a Western called ¨The legend of Tom Rooley¨ . Besides , he directed Clint Eastwood many times , starting working on Eastwood's television Western series, ¨Rawhide¨. When Eastwood returned to America after his successful Sergio Leone movies , he called for Post who directed him in Western ¨Hang'Em high¨ and the second entry Dirty Harry pictures : ¨Magnum Force¨. Ted Post also directed notable Sci Fi : Beneath of the planet of apes , Harrard experiment and horror movies : The Baby , Dr Cook's garden . And , finally , Ted Post returning to his theater roots .