The 1980's was not a great decade for westerns. People were just not making them anymore.
All the great westerns stars of the past were now either too old, too retired or just too dead to make them anymore.
Clint Eastwood is one of just a few actors who's name has become specifically synonymous with the genre, which is strange considering that out of over 70 credited appearances before the camera only a very small number of them have been westerns.
Not counting the TV series Rawhide which aired between 1959 and 1965 and discounting all those pre-stardom pre-Rawhide bit parts in the mid 1950's, Eastwood only made 11 western movies in out of 51 credited movie appearances since 1964 according to IMDb.
There are a few Eastwood movies like Coogans Bluff (1968) Bronco Billy (1980) Honky Tonk Man (1982) Perfect World (1993) and Cry Macho (2021) which it can be argued are modern day westerns, but I think that may be stretching it a bit,
No, The reason Clint Eastwood has become so synonymous with the western genre is not so much based on how many he made, but because they were all so bloody good when he did finally get around to making one,
For instance only three western movies have ever won the Best Picture Oscar and one of them was Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven (1992) This is a man who knows the genre well and knows how to transfer these great stories to the screen better than anybody,
Pale Rider (1985) is no exception. It was the only western he made during the 1980's and it was a long awaited return to the genre after an absence of nearly a decade. Not since The Outlaw Josey Wales in 1976 had Eastwood saddled up his horse, clipped on his spurs and loaded up his six shooter.
Returning to the mysterious unnamed stranger role that had made him so famous in the Sergio Leone Spaghetti westerns of the mid 1960's Eastwood plays a preacher who rides into town to help a small shanty town of Gold prospectors being terrorised by a local business man who wants to steal their land, steal their claims and introduce industrial scale, landscape wrecking hydraulic mining to the area,
He arrives as if almost in answer to a prayer made by a 14 year old girl called Meghan (Sydney Penny) who is praying for a deliverer to protect her little community from the evil it is being subjected to.
"Send us a miracle" she asks, the clouds part and in rides The Preacher. Is he real, or has he been conjured as an avenging angel? We never know for sure.
All we know is he arrives, sorts out the bad guys and rides off at movies end as if he was no more than a wind of retribution blowing through the town. Classic Eastwood.
Watching Pale Rider you can't help but feel that Clint was trying to repopularise the western genre by bringing in and reimagining so many elements from the classic westerns that had so captured the public imagination in the 1950's.
The film can so easily be identified as a remake of Shane (1953) and the final 'showdown' where he stands alone against a whole gang of gunfighters echos the plight of Gary Cooper's character in High Noon (1952)
Eastwood also brings in elements from his own previous westerns, most notably High Plains Drifter (1973) in as much as his character has a supernatural ambiguity attached to it,
The supporting cast includes Michael Moriaty, Carrie Snodgress, Chris Penn, Richard Dysart. Richard Kiel and John Russell..most well known as TV's 'Lawman' who was made his name in TV westerns at the same time as Clint did back in the late 50's and early 60's.
Pale Rider became one of the biggest hits of the year and caused a short lived revival in western movies around the mid 80's but it soon petered out again. It wasn't until the early 90's that westerns were to make a serious comeback.
All the great westerns stars of the past were now either too old, too retired or just too dead to make them anymore.
Clint Eastwood is one of just a few actors who's name has become specifically synonymous with the genre, which is strange considering that out of over 70 credited appearances before the camera only a very small number of them have been westerns.
Not counting the TV series Rawhide which aired between 1959 and 1965 and discounting all those pre-stardom pre-Rawhide bit parts in the mid 1950's, Eastwood only made 11 western movies in out of 51 credited movie appearances since 1964 according to IMDb.
There are a few Eastwood movies like Coogans Bluff (1968) Bronco Billy (1980) Honky Tonk Man (1982) Perfect World (1993) and Cry Macho (2021) which it can be argued are modern day westerns, but I think that may be stretching it a bit,
No, The reason Clint Eastwood has become so synonymous with the western genre is not so much based on how many he made, but because they were all so bloody good when he did finally get around to making one,
For instance only three western movies have ever won the Best Picture Oscar and one of them was Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven (1992) This is a man who knows the genre well and knows how to transfer these great stories to the screen better than anybody,
Pale Rider (1985) is no exception. It was the only western he made during the 1980's and it was a long awaited return to the genre after an absence of nearly a decade. Not since The Outlaw Josey Wales in 1976 had Eastwood saddled up his horse, clipped on his spurs and loaded up his six shooter.
Returning to the mysterious unnamed stranger role that had made him so famous in the Sergio Leone Spaghetti westerns of the mid 1960's Eastwood plays a preacher who rides into town to help a small shanty town of Gold prospectors being terrorised by a local business man who wants to steal their land, steal their claims and introduce industrial scale, landscape wrecking hydraulic mining to the area,
He arrives as if almost in answer to a prayer made by a 14 year old girl called Meghan (Sydney Penny) who is praying for a deliverer to protect her little community from the evil it is being subjected to.
"Send us a miracle" she asks, the clouds part and in rides The Preacher. Is he real, or has he been conjured as an avenging angel? We never know for sure.
All we know is he arrives, sorts out the bad guys and rides off at movies end as if he was no more than a wind of retribution blowing through the town. Classic Eastwood.
Watching Pale Rider you can't help but feel that Clint was trying to repopularise the western genre by bringing in and reimagining so many elements from the classic westerns that had so captured the public imagination in the 1950's.
The film can so easily be identified as a remake of Shane (1953) and the final 'showdown' where he stands alone against a whole gang of gunfighters echos the plight of Gary Cooper's character in High Noon (1952)
Eastwood also brings in elements from his own previous westerns, most notably High Plains Drifter (1973) in as much as his character has a supernatural ambiguity attached to it,
The supporting cast includes Michael Moriaty, Carrie Snodgress, Chris Penn, Richard Dysart. Richard Kiel and John Russell..most well known as TV's 'Lawman' who was made his name in TV westerns at the same time as Clint did back in the late 50's and early 60's.
Pale Rider became one of the biggest hits of the year and caused a short lived revival in western movies around the mid 80's but it soon petered out again. It wasn't until the early 90's that westerns were to make a serious comeback.