80/80 - Hang em High

Eastwood was returning to the US a superstar for his first home produced movie since the Leone epics - Hang em High starts with a homage to the classic The Ox-Bow Incident in which Jed Cooper is strung up for rustling even although he has been tricked and thought he'd bought the cattle at a good price, not realising that the seller had actually rustled the animals.

However Cooper survives the lynching when he is cut down by a passing lawman and taken to Fort Grant to face trial. Found not guilty Cooper swears revenge on the lynch mob but is persuaded to bring them to justice under the colour of the law.

WILD WEST FACT: Hanging was the preferred method of execution in the Old West - the hangings were often botched leading to prolonged suffering and often decapitation. In 1890 the more humane method of electric chair was introduced.

The Archive's classic westerns - Hang em High (1968)

After the success of the Leone westerns, Eastwood returned Stateside but brought the style and feel of the Dollar films with him - Hang Em High, directed by Ted Post in 1968 is a revenge western.


To make the movie Eastwood set up his own production company, Malpaso, named after a river in his home town. This gave the actor more control over his projects and gave all his films a visual style and unity that continues to this day.

Eastwood plays Jed Cooper, a one time law man, who has bought a herd of cattle and is planning to make it big in the cow business. However unknown the Cooper the cows are stolen and his bill of sale is intended to incriminate him. A posse of nine men catch up with Cooper but they won't listen to him and rather than take him in to stand trial they lynch him there and then. In a grisly scene the men hang Cooper from a tree and then ride off, leaving him to strangle slowly.

However a federal Marshall comes across the scene and cuts Cooper down before he dies. The Marshall takes Cooper into Fort Grant where the judge, based on Judge Issac Parker, decides that Cooper is innocent. And so the scene is set for a bloody showdown in which Eastwood's wronged man goes after the men who lynched him.

Hang em High is a fantastic western and coming fast on the heels of the dollar films it propelled Eastwood into a true movie superstar. Incredibly a position he maintain now more than forty years later.

Essential Eastwood and an essential western for any fan of the genre.