Every day, AlloCiné recommends a film to (re)watch on TV. Tonight: a western worn by Clint Eastwood.
After collaborating with Sergio Leone on the Man With No Name trilogy (For a Fistful of Dollars, And for a Few Dollars More, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly), Clint Eastwood has achieved a certain notoriety in Europe.
Preparing for his return to the United States, he founded his own production company (Malpaso Company) and joined forces with United Artists to produce the western Hang them high and short. Clint Eastwood first offered it to Sergio Leone, who declined it to devote himself to Once Upon a Time in the West. If Robert Aldrich and John Sturges are considered, Clint Eastwood decides to hire Ted Post, prolific director of television series with whom he sympathized during the filming of Rawhide.
It is therefore under his direction that the actor lends his features to Jed Cooper, a young man responsible for bringing back alive those responsible for the lynching he wrongly suffered, so that they are judged in good and due form.
The hanging scene at the beginning of the film foreshadows all its brutality. Harsh and violent, Hang ’em high and short benefits from a powerful scenario and an impeccable interpretation, which underline the difficult establishment of a judicial system in a country without faith or law.
In the skin of the tormented, inflexible protagonist, determined to satisfy his revenge, Clint Eastwood excels, already presenting the beginnings of the solitary of The Man of the High Plains, but also the questions of Inspector Harry, around individual revenge against the law.
When it was released in 1968, Hang ’em high and short definitively launched his career in the United States. Critically acclaimed, the film was also a box office success. In two weeks, it is already making its budget of 1.6 million dollars profitable, before completing its operation with 6.8 million dollars in revenue earned on American territory.
Hang ’em high and short by Ted Post with Clint Eastwood, Inger Stevens, Ed Begley…
From 10 years old
Tonight on Arte at 9 p.m.