Clint Eastwood first gained stardom with the role of Rowdy Yates, a former Confederate States Army corporal and veteran of the American Civil War, on the Western television series Rawhide, which aired on CBS between 1959 and 1965, over eight seasons. Eastwood’s contract for Rawhide restricted Eastwood, who stayed with the show throughout its run, from appearing in feature films that were produced in the United States. However, Eastwood’s contract did permit Eastwood to accept film roles in Europe, where he gained film stardom as the Man with no Name in Sergio Leone’s Dollars Trilogy film series, beginning with A Fistful of Dollars, which was released overseas in 1964 but went unreleased in North America until 1967.
While major Hollywood stardom came to Eastwood through the contemporary action genre, beginning with Eastwood’s iconic titular performance in the 1971 action-thriller film Dirty Harry, Eastwood remained attached to the Western genre with the films The Beguiled, High Plains Drifter, Joe Kidd, and The Outlaw Josey Wales, which were released between 1971 and 1976. However, following the release of the 1976 revisionist Western The Outlaw Josey Wales, Eastwood didn’t direct or star in another traditional Western film for nearly a decade, until the 1985 Western film Pale Rider, which also marked Eastwood’s first foray, as director and star, into the supernatural.
Indeed, while several of Eastwood’s previous Western films, most notably High Plains Drifter, explore allegorical and mystical themes, Eastwood’s titular character in Pale Rider appears as a manifestation of Death.
Clint Eastwood Is an Avenging Spirit
Like the 1973 Western film High Plains Drifter, in which Clint Eastwood’s titular character emerges seemingly out of thin air, Eastwood’s character in Pale Rider has a murky history, in which the character, who is referred to as Preacher after being spotted wearing a clerical collar, was seemingly killed, as evidenced by the six bullet wounds in his back. Eastwood’s otherworldly presence in Pale Rider is contained within an otherwise extremely familiar plot structure.
Pale Rider is set in and around an Old West Californian mining town, where independent miners have staked a claim to a promising gold deposit while being continually intimidated by a ruthless mining baron, LaHood, who is determined to drive the miners away from the fertile territory, even if it means killing them. After an attack by a gang of LaHood’s men results in the murder of a teenage girl’s beloved dog, the girl, Megan, prays for salvation. Almost immediately afterward, a man, Preacher, rides into the town, Carbon Canyon, on a pale horse and proceeds to help the miners defend their land against LaHood through a series of violent confrontations.
The basic plot of Pale Rider is very similar to that of High Plains Drifter and the 1953 Western film Shane. But the most interesting aspect of Pale Rider is how Eastwood, as director and star, develops Preacher as an avenging spirit who has returned from the dead not only to answer a prayer but also to exact revenge against his murderer. Pale Rider explores the possibility that Preacher is a ghost. Indeed, while Preacher enters Carbon Canyon as a complete stranger to the miners, Preacher is eventually recognized by LaHood’s top deputy, a corrupt marshal named Stockburn, who recalls having killed a man of Preacher’s description several years earlier.
Pale Rider Was One of the Highest-Grossing 1980s Western Films
Pale Rider was the first Western film to be released by a major studio since the disastrous 1980 epic Western, Heaven’s Gate. Moreover, given Eastwood’s strong identification with the genre and the publicity that accompanied his return to the genre after nearly a decade, Pale Rider was, at the time of its release, heralded as the film that could revitalize interest in the Western genre. It was released approximately two weekends before Lawrence Kasdan’s Western action film Silverado, which grossed $32 million at the domestic box office amid generally positive reviews.
Pale Rider finished first at the domestic box office in its opening weekend of release with a gross of approximately $9.1 million and finished with a domestic total gross of approximately $41.4 million. Moreover, Pale Rider was, at the time of its release, praised for transcending Eastwood’s Western persona by attaching biblical and supernatural subtext to the film’s core themes of forgiveness and redemption. This unconventional approach has enabled Pale Rider, over the ensuing decades, to gain a reputation among audiences and critics for being one of Eastwood’s most mysterious and stylish films.
Pale Rider Is Classic Eastwood With a Twist
Pale Rider represents a definitive example of the essential Clint Eastwood screen persona, in which Eastwood’s mere presence makes Eastwood’s man-of-few-words Preacher character seem more fascinating and mysterious than any amount of dialogue could have. Pale Rider showcases, as much as any other Eastwood film, Eastwood as a star who has long possessed the uncanny ability to dominate a film even when he’s invisible or silent.
Indeed, while Eastwood’s presence dominates Pale Rider, Eastwood, as Preacher, is rarely completely visible throughout the film. Eastwood, as actor and director, makes it seem as if Preacher is present even when he’s gone, through lighting and shadow and the psychic specter of fear. We see his face, his mouth, his shadow. This reflects the subtlety of Eastwood’s direction, in which Eastwood portrays Preacher as being an otherworldly vessel upon which the film’s characters project their emotions.
However, besides the fact that Pale Rider marks Eastwood’s only foray, as director and star, into the supernatural, Pale Rider is also worth seeing in the context of being an exciting, stylish Western film, which serves as an interesting precursor to Eastwood’s similarly-themed Academy Award-winning 1992 Western film Unforgiven. While Pale Rider didn’t win any Academy Awards, Pale Rider is an interesting companion piece to Unforgiven and represents a singular achievement in Eastwood’s career. Rent Pale Rider on Apple TV.