To me, this movie is perfection.

As Good As It Gets

Admirable film.

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

This film is a meeting of a lot different productions and it i the first film with credit to the newly formed Malpaso production company by Eastwood. Co-Produced with Leonard Freemans Company, the film has so many folks from the 2 companies that the cast ranges from people from Rawhide through Hawaii Five-O and beyond. The shock of the opening sequence with a Ed Begley led group hanging Eastwood, and then his savior throwing him into a wagon loaded with western dregs is quite a trip. While not as shocking as Eastwood would become later in terms of violence, the gallows domination of the film is firmly established. There are signs of choppy TV production like the opening sequence where Eastwood saves the calf and then the sudden move from a wet horse and Eastwood in the water to being on land and both Clint and his horse being totally dry is a small sign of some of the small screen sequencing that you have to pass over. The quality of the cast helps you do just that.Iger Stevens has quite a role in this one. The prime actress looking for certain deg and revenge, does not really find them. Eventually she helps heal Eastwood after he is shot up again by the Begley led noose party. Eastwood is a lot worse for the wear in this movie.Pat Hingle, an excellent character actor is the hanging judge in this one and he is a major influence on Eastwood's revenge journey which is different in this one because he has not finished his journey and has unfinished business with Stevens when the movie abruptly ends. While the sequencing is a bit choppy in this movie, the effort of the joint production companies is worth viewing.

Hang Em High is a great Eastwood film. This was Clint Eastwoods American Western debut. Clints first film outside of Sergio Leones sensational Dollars trilogy is none other than...a Western. Hang Em High is a rather overlooked entry in Clints long and impressive film wagon. Hang em High was the first production of the Malpaso Company, Eastwoods production company. Viewers may enjoy seeing a lot of familiar faces. Bob Steele (The Big Sleep). Ben Johnson (The wild bunch, the getaway). Bruce Dern ( Black Sunday, Django Unchained, Nebraska, The Hateful Eight). Alan Hale, Jr. ( The Big Trees, Terror Night). L.Q. Jones ( Hell Is for Heroes, The Wild Bunch). Charles McGraw ( Spartacus, A Boy and His Dog). Ed Begley ( Sweet Bird of Youth, 12 Angry Men). Pat Hingle ( Batman, Splendor in the Grass, Batman Returns, Batman Forever, Batman & Robin, Shaft, On the waterfront). N Dennis Hopper in a tiny role. A slow movie but enjoyable.

Hang 'Em High proves to be one Western too many for Clint Eastwood. After the success of the Dollars trilogy he jumps back into the genre with a movie which thoroughly disappoints. This is a slow, dull, quite tedious film. Not much interesting happens. Honestly not much of anything happens. Drama and excitement are in desperately short supply. The big action sequences you expect from such a film never arrive. The characters are not compelling, the story is paper-thin and the supposed climax is totally anticlimactic. Very hard to find anything good to say about this one.In this film Eastwood's character actually has a name. He's Jed Cooper and soon after we meet him Jed finds himself swinging from a tree with a rope around his neck. A posse, thinking him to be a cattle rustler and a murderer, hangs him. They do a rather lousy job of it. A federal Marshal shows up, cuts down the still very much alive Cooper and brings him before a judge. This judge likes to hang pretty much anyone brought before him but he realizes Cooper's innocence and actually makes Cooper a Marshal. And from there things go about as you would expect, Cooper hunting down the men who lynched him, seeking vengeance. Sounds like it could be interesting but it doesn't turn out that way. The fact the bad guys are such bumbling, bungling idiots doesn't help. Given another chance to kill Cooper they fail even more miserably than the first time. They really are quite pathetic. If you can't take the bad guys seriously it's near impossible for this type of movie to succeed. And that's the case here. The film's central conflict is a letdown. And there's nothing else to prop the film up. A tepid love story falls completely flat. The hanging scenes (and with this judge in town there are plenty of opportunities for hanging scenes) are interminable. Eastwood is reasonably decent in his role but no other performer really makes a mark. Some, most notably Ed Begley as the lead bad guy, miss the mark entirely. Getting through this film is really a chore. There's no suspense, the drama drains away all too quickly. This is not a good film. In fact it's quite bad. You might even call it ugly.

When Jed Cooper (Clint Eastwood) is walking along minding his own business when he is stopped by a group of men who accuse him of cattle-rustling. Despite Cooper's protests of innocence, the men decide that he is guilty and sentence him to death by hanging (albeit a private and unsanctioned hanging). However, Cooper survives this hanging and once his innocence has been proved, Judge Fenton (Pat Hingle) makes Cooper a lawmen and tasks him with the job of bringing all the men back to him alive so that they can be brought to justice.Hang 'Em High is another in a long line of Eastwood westerns and to date this is probably the weakest offering that I've seen. The problem I found with this film is that is that the story just wasn't all that engaging. At close to 2 hours it's far too long and I just found that so many elements of the film seemed to be drawn out for no real reason (the scene involving a group of men being hung about halfway through the film is a case in point). It also wasn't particularly exciting or entertaining and Eastwood is saddled here with a character that has no real character - no one-liners or humorous moments. This all just made the film rather dull. Director Ted Post also showed a lot of close-ups of several cast members which may have been the 'in thing' and I suppose it was intended to create suspense and tension, but looking at it today it looks ridiculous and rather cheesy.Where this film does deserve some praise is in the way that the writers expose some of the flaws in the justice system. Cooper is also a man that finds that his heart is telling him to get revenge on the men that left him for dead, but finds his head and conscience is telling him that they should be brought to justice and let the justice system decide their fate. This is an interesting aspect to the story which sadly for me didn't quite get enough focus.What makes this film slightly more disappointing is the final showdown which lacked any sort of intensity and was very anti-climactic.Taking everything into account, Hang 'Em High is an underwhelming and slightly disappointing film that just isn't as compelling or entertaining as many of Eastwood's other westerns.