Themes: Sheriffs and Outlaws, Lone Wolves, Vigilantes
Main Cast: Clint Eastwood, Inger Stevens, Ed Begley, Sr., Pat Hingle, Arlene Golonka
Release Year: 1968
Country: US
Run Time: 114 minutes
Plot
Ex-lawman turned rancher Jed Cooper (Clint Eastwood) is moving a small herd of cattle when a group of nine men on horseback, led by Captain Wilson (Ed Begley Sr.), ride up and accuse him of having stolen the cattle and killed their owner. Refusing to believe his account, they string him up by the neck and leave him for dead, but they don't do the job right. Cooper is dangling there, barely alive, a few minutes later when Deputy U.S. Marshal Bliss (Ben Johnson) spots him and cuts him down. He survives the next few days in Bliss' tumbleweed wagon with the other prisoners, and is later cleared of any wrongdoing and released by Judge Fenton (Pat Hingle), just in time to witness the hanging of the man who really murdered the owner of the cattle and took Cooper's money. Cooper still wants revenge on the nine men who tried to hang him, but Fenton insists that he leave the bringing of them to justice to his deputy marshals. As it happens, Fenton is in desperate need of deputy marshals for the territory that he oversees, and he also knows that Cooper was a good lawman. Cooper, in turn, is now broke and in need of a job, and does want to see justice done. They strike an uneasy bargain, Cooper agreeing to wear a badge and bring in the men he's looking for -- alive -- for trial. The latter proves easier said than done, however, when the first of them that he spots tries to draw on him when he makes the arrest. One of the hanging party, Jenkins (Bob Steele), soon turns himself in and provides the names of the others. Cooper takes Stone (Alan Hale Jr.) alive, but the hapless blacksmith is later shot by the local sheriff (Charles McGraw) while trying to escape. The other men, led by Wilson, have no intention of dying, or even being brought to trial, without a fight. Two of them go on the run out of the territory, while Wilson and two of the others decide to take the law into their own hands once again. Meanwhile, Cooper becomes a hero when he single-handedly brings back a trio of rustlers who are also guilty of murder. This leads to Cooper's first confrontation with Judge Fenton, who, in a gripping scene, explains why it is essential that he be as seemingly quick to hang a man as he is. Unless the people are convinced that the law will do its job -- including hanging men who deserve it -- they will keep taking the law into their own hands and there will be more lynch mobs like the one that tried to kill Cooper. In the course of his quest for justice, Cooper also makes the acquaintance of Rachel (Inger Stevens), a young woman with her own search for justice, haunted by her own ghosts, and the two of them are drawn together, no more so than when Wilson and two of the others try to gun Cooper down in cold blood. The final confrontation between Cooper and Wilson escalates in violence to its savage, irony-laced conclusion. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
Review
When Hang 'em High first appeared, it was dismissed by many critics as a pale shadow of the Italian-made Westerns that Clint Eastwood had made with director Sergio Leone during the mid-'60s. In fact, the movie offered far more than was perceived by most reviewers, and a range of virtues that set it apart from the Leone films. Eastwood's portrayal of Jed Cooper, for a start, was a surprisingly subtle and complex performance, displaying a range of varied and conflicted emotions just below the surface that made his character far more fully developed than any of his prior portrayals. Pat Hingle was equally important to the movie's success, bringing a deep and serious interpretive talent to the part of Judge Adam Fenton. He was based on the real-life figure of Isaac Charles Parker (1838-1896), the judge in charge of the U.S. Court for the Western District of Arkansas, based in Fort Smith. In his 21 years on that bench, Parker issued 160 death sentences, resulting in 79 executions. His first week at Fort Smith resulted in rulings leading to a six-man hanging, very much like the one depicted in Hang 'em High, complete with a huge crowd of on-lookers, hymn-singing, and prayers, as well as massive press coverage. Eastwood and Hingle's scenes together are so good that one just wants to replay them, though Hingle's greater experience does show his performance coming from a much deeper place inside of himself than Eastwood's. They get extraordinary support by a uniformly good cast: Dennis Hopper, barely recognizable as a lunatic called "The Prophet," who dies in the opening minutes of the film; James Westerfield in a wryly ironic portrayal of a doomed prisoner; Bob Steele as the conscience-stricken Jenkins; Bruce Dern as the manipulative and bloodthirsty Miller; James MacArthur as the preacher, leading the prayers and hymns at the mass-hanging; Bert Freed as Schmidt, the taciturn hangman; Ben Johnson as Bliss, Fenton's best deputy marshal; and Michael O'Sullivan as the hapless murderer Francis Duffy, leaving this earth after giving a mournful speech, in the kind of scene that could make a career. Director Ted Post pulls all of these elements together into a graceful, compelling, spellbinding whole that's as much a serious drama as a Western, and as much an epic about the settling of the west. Very much in the manner of The Wild Bunch and William S. Hart's Tumbleweeds, among other classics of the genre, it is a personal, character-driven tale of revenge. Eastwood would make more artful and ambitious Westerns in the '70s and beyond, but Hang 'em High -- which was co-produced by his fledgling company, Malpaso -- was an exceptional beginning and his best work in the genre up to that time. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
John B. Goodman - Art Director, Gene Murray - Costume Designer, Glen Wright - Costume Designer, Ted Post - Director, Bill Brame - Editor, Gene Fowler, Jr. - Editor, Dominic Frontiere - Composer (Music Score), John Capter, Jr. - Musical Direction/Supervision, Richard H. Kline - Cinematographer, Leonard J. South - Cinematographer, Leonard Sough - Cinematographer, Leonard Freeman - Producer, Arthur Krams - Set Designer, George Swartz - Special Effects, Leonard Freeman - Screenwriter, Mel Goldberg - Screenwriter
Hang 'Em High is a 1968Western film directed by Ted Post starring Clint Eastwood. It is the story of an innocent man, Jed Cooper (Eastwood), who survives a lynching by nine men, and becomes a US Marshal to see that justice is done.
The movie was the first production of The Malpaso Company, Clint Eastwood's own production company. In the film, actor Pat Hingle portrays a fictional judge who mirrors the true life Judge Isaac Parker, who was labelled "The Hanging Judge" due to the large number of men he had executed during his service as District Judge. The film also depicts the dangers of serving as a US Marshal or Deputy US Marshal during that period, as large numbers of Marshals were killed while serving under Parker. In the film, the fictional Fort Grant, the base for operations for that District Judge seat, is also a mirror of the factual Fort Smith, Arkansas, where Judge Parker's court was located.
Plot
Jed Cooper (Clint Eastwood) is a former lawman who has purchased a small herd of cattle in the Oklahoma Territory. Unknown to him the cattle are stolen, their true owner has been murdered, and the bill of sale for the cattle is intended to incriminate him. A posse of nine men capture Cooper and accuse him of rustling and murder. Rather than arresting Cooper and taking him back to stand trial, they have decided that they will lynch Cooper. Before they carry out the deed, one of the men, Reno (Joseph Sirola), greedily claims Cooper's saddle and another, Miller (Bruce Dern), takes his wallet. A third man, Jenkins (Bob Steele), expresses reservations about whether Cooper is truly guilty, but he is quickly overruled. The men hang Cooper from a tree and then ride off leaving him to slowly strangle to death.
Jed Cooper (Eastwood) with Judge Adam Fenton (Pat Hingle).
Fortunately, a Federal Marshal, Dave Bliss (Ben Johnson) comes across Cooper and cuts him down while he is still alive. The marshal takes Cooper to Fort Grant where the territorial judge, Adam Fenton (Pat Hingle), has the matter investigated and determines that Cooper is innocent. He is set free, but is determined to seek revenge on the men who hanged him.
The judge warns Cooper about taking the law into his own hands, and offers him a job as a marshal, which Cooper accepts. For the judge, this addresses the problem of his being woefully understaffed with regard to the number of marshals he has patrolling the vast Oklahoma Territory. For Cooper, this will allow him to legally go after the men who hanged him — so long as he agrees to bring them in alive for trial. Cooper is sent on an unrelated mission to bring a prisoner to Fort Grant, and while doing so, he finds Reno. Cooper makes an earnest attempt to arrest Reno, but when Reno realizes who Cooper is, Reno draws his gun. Cooper is faster and kills him.
When word gets out that a marshal with a lynching scar has killed Reno, Jenkins realizes that Cooper must have indeed been innocent and turns himself in. He provides the names of the rest of the posse and Cooper sets out to arrest them.
Cooper locates and arrests one of the men, Stone (Alan Hale, Jr.), placing him in the temporary custody of a local sheriff, Ray Calhoun (Charles McGraw), while Cooper goes after the rest. The sheriff knows the men whom Cooper is seeking and vouches for most of them as upstanding citizens and, indeed, his friends. Nevertheless, he is duty bound to honor the warrants for the men's arrest. Cooper and the sheriff set off after the remaining men, but they are sidetracked when they encounter the survivors of a new rustling/murder. Cooper reluctantly postpones his quest for the remaining men who hanged him to form a posse and go after the rustlers. When they find the rustlers, the leader turns out to be Miller. In addition, there are two teenage brothers, Ben (Richard Gates) and Billy Joe (Bruce Scott). Miller had witnessed Cooper's arrest of Stone and decided to immediately flee the territory, picking up his young partners and rustling cattle along the way.
The posse wants to lynch the three men. Cooper refuses to agree to their demands for vigilante justice, so the posse members leave him to take the prisoners back to Fort Grant single-handedly. Ben and Billy Joe confess to rustling, but claim that the older, more vicious and ruthless Miller was the only one guilty of murder. As Cooper transports the three of them back to Fort Grant, Miller jumps him. Miller momentarily gets the upper hand, but Ben and Billy Joe stay out of the fight, and without assistance Miller is eventually overcome and subdued by Cooper.
The judge sentences all three to be hanged, despite Cooper's protestations on the brothers' behalf. The judge argues that the public perceives all three as killers, and therefore, if he does not hang them, it will generate a perception that there is no justice in the territory. And that perception, in turn, will prevent the territory from achieving statehood. Cooper rejects that explanation and is angered at the judge's decision to hang the two teenagers, but since he wants to continue his search for the other men who lynched him he agrees to continue serving as a marshal.
Sheriff Calhoun approaches Cooper with an offer to reimburse him the money he lost in buying the cattle he was accused of rustling. Cooper understands that Calhoun is acting as an emissary on behalf of the five remaining members of the group that lynched him, and the money is being offered as a bribe for him to leave them alone. He takes the money but makes clear to the sheriff that he will still be coming after the men.
With their offer rejected, the remaining members of the group realize that Cooper intends to arrest them all. Two decide to flee the area. However, the leader of the group, Captain Wilson (Ed Begley), is unwilling to give up everything that he's worked for all of his life to flee, and feels that he is too old to be faced with a long jail sentence. Two of his hired hands also are willing neither to face jail, nor to live their lives on the run. The three decide that if they can't buy Cooper off, then their only hope is to kill him.
The three men go to Fort Grant. While most of the town is watching the hanging of Miller, Ben, and Billy Joe, along with several other condemned men, they ambush Cooper and shoot him several times. He survives, and after a long period of convalescence, nursed back to health by Rachel Warren (Inger Stevens), he hunts them down in a final standoff at Wilson's ranch. Cooper kills the two hired hands during the battle. He stalks Wilson through the house, but when he finally finds him, it is only to discover that Wilson has hanged himself.
Cooper returns to Fort Grant where he goes to the jail to see Jenkins again. Jenkins is contrite for his part in Cooper's lynching and is now seriously ill. Cooper tells Jenkins that he forgives him and then goes to the judge to turn in his badge. Cooper angrily agitates to the judge for Jenkins's release, but the judge does not intend to do so. He acknowledges that ideally, no one man should have such final and authoritative powers of life and death over all of the defendants in the huge territory. But he points out that the reality of the situation is that there is no other justice system in the territory, nor will there be until the territory achieves statehood and thus gains the true court system which would accompany that status. He suggests that rather than be angry with judge over the situation, Cooper would do better to continue serving as marshal. In that way, he can help bring the statehood goal to fruition, and in so doing, bring true justice to the area.
Cooper is persuaded, but only on the condition that Jenkins be pardoned. The judge agrees, and the movie ends with Marshal Cooper planning to go after the last two men who hanged him.[1]
