Homage to Shane
And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.
And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.
Revelation 6:8
Pale Rider is either a remake of Shane or Eastwood’s homage to it. Either way, it’s superb. Actually, I think in some ways it’s rather better than Shane (heresy, I know but there we are). It’s as visually stunning as the 1953 picture (Bruce Surtees, a genius behind the lens, doing a Loyal Griggs, even if unOscared) but Clint as the lone gunfighter riding in is ten times better than soft Alan Ladd, the baddies are nastier, the honest folk that the gunfighter protects are more convincing and the kid is older, does not whine and is a girl.
The pale horse
And of course there are seven
And of course it is full of Shane references, such as the attack on the giant rock, standing in
for Van Heflin’s tree stump.
But in other ways Pale Rider is original and different.
The movie has an ecological tinge. The bad guys
are raping the land by using high-pressure hydraulic mining techniques, whereas
the good guys are seeking gold in a more eco-friendly manner.
There are religious overtones (or are they
undertones? I never quite know the difference). The gunfighter turns out to be
a preacher. He arrives on the day the girl has asked God (“if You exist”) for
“just one miracle”. But the preacher has a short way with gunmen and when he
says grace suggests that “for what we are about to receive may we be truly
grateful”: the Lord doesn’t even get a mention.
The Preacher is often backlit, hard to see or with
his face in shadow. It all heightens the mysteriousness of the nameless
stranger.
Shadow
The acting and casting are very good. Eastwood
is magnificent and there isn’t a bad actor in the film. We might single out for
praise Carrie Snodgress and Sydney Penny as the mother and daughter who fall
for the stranger, Doug McGrath in the Elisha Cook Jr. part as the fellow shot
down by the gunman and especially John Russell as Stockburn, the leader of the
killers (there are the mystic Western number seven of them, of course) who is brilliant
as the ruthless gunman in the Lee van Cleef tradition. And we thought Jack Palance was good!
Stockburn
I was pleased to see Fran Ryan in the role of Ma
Blankenship: she was the best Mrs. Samuel (Jesse James’s mother) ever.
Writers Michael Butler and Dennis Shryack were
far from Western experts (Butler had never done one) but the screenplay was
good enough to win them a Spur Award from the Western Writers of America.
If I have a criticism (and I guess I am a critic
really so I’m entitled) I would say that the Preacher is too proficient. You never really think that he might not eliminate
all the gunmen. I’m not saying he ought to have been like the bumbling amateur
but lucky sheriff in Firecreek, or McCabe up there in the cold country
getting the bad guys more by luck than skill. I just think if he hadn’t been
quite such a superman it would have heightened the tension. But then one notion
is that the Preacher is a ghost, a sort of avenging spirit. Stockburn had seen
him die. He is the pale rider whose name is death and Hell follows with him.
I might also add (OK, I know that’s two
criticisms) that the sexual tension was weakened rather than the reverse by the
Preacher sleeping with Sarah. In Shane,
the attraction of Shane to Marian (and vice-versa) is very powerful but always
lies under the surface, unstated and unacted upon. But then that was 1953.
The Sawtooth National Recreation Area in Idaho
made a stunning location. Visually, this film is wonderful – the equal of Shane.
I think it’s the best Eastwood Western apart from Unforgiven, better even than Josey Wales.
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