The Legend of Clint Eastwood
Hang 'Em High, 1968
Back in Hollywood, now as a star, Eastwood naturally made a Western that was less than the Leone films (no artistry here) but proved he was a solid moneymaker in homegrown oaters. He "plays a leathery loner out to clean up a dirty territory," TIME's Stefan Kanfer wrote. "An unauthorized posse mistakes Eastwood for a murderer and decides that he is nooseworthy, but a kindly marshal helps him escape. Clint spends the rest of the picture ricocheting off some loquacious character actors, getting leaky with bullet holes, and running the lynch mob to earth. Along the way, the necrophilic camera lingers lovingly over the dead and dying. With some evocative photography and a touch of gallows humor, Director Ted Post tries to make Hang 'Em High stylish and spirited enough to swing. It swings all right—like a body at the end of a rope."