Pale Rider

Bluesky

Pale Rider was one of the few westerns made during the 1980s. Clint Eastwood starred and directed. In it a group of mom and pop gold prospectors are being run off their claims by ruthless business man Coy LaHood (Richard Dysart). LaHood's thugs attack the prospectors' small shanty village in Carbon Creek. They gallop around on horseback, firing their guns in the air and committing acts of vandalism. During this act of intimidation, a cow and a small dog which belonged to 13-year-old Megan Wheeler (Sydney Penny) are shot dead.

Hull Barret (Michael Moriarty), who lives in a family unit with Megan and her mother Sarah Wheeler (Carrie Snodgress), visits the small town of LaHood. After replacing some of the things destroyed by the thugs, he is set upon by the very same men, who beat him with pickaxe handles. Here, one of Clint Eastwood's unnamed characters intervenes. Afterwards Hull takes his saviour home with him. As Megan is reading the four horsemen passage from Revelations (6:1–8) she sees the stranger, riding a pale horse, arrive. He becomes known as Preacher after he is witnessed wearing a dog collar. Preacher then fosters a sense of community amongst the panhandlers. They decide to stand up to LaHood and his men. In response Coy will call in the corrupt Marshal Stockburn (John Russell) and his men. This is not Seven Samurai or even the magnificent one, Eastwood's Preacher will do most of the killing.

The problem with Pale Rider is that it lacks a centre, being made of too many bits. The film is a conglomerate of Shane, High Plains Drifter, Little House On The Prairie, slapstick comedy, and ghost story affectations. Individually many of these parts are well done but they don't fit together seamlessly. It also lack subtlety, the religious elements being laid on with a ladle. The slapstick is jarring. In the poorly choreographed fight with pickaxe handles, someone should have watched Pinewood before sword fighting with hickory, Preacher repeatedly disarms a thug, sending his handle twirling into the air like a cheerleader's baton, before clonking him on the head. It is overly cartoonish. So is Richard Kiel's character, Club, being hit in the balls with a sledge hammer. Much of the film lack a sense of danger or consequences. People are hit hard with pickaxe shafts or sledgehammers without receiving anything more than a cosmetic injury. The scenes towards the end of the film when Preacher throws numerous sticks of dynamite into LaHood's open cast gold mine feel like a bad episode of The A-Team. Everyone can jump out of the way of the explosions unharmed.

Pale Rider has commendable aspects. Throughout the film all of the acting is of a high standard. As Megan, Sydney Penny's portrayal of teenage infatuation is affecting. The way in which Megan and Preacher are interacting feels creepy. It is intended that way. Eastwood is asking the uncomfortable question: for Hollywood, how young is too young? The imagery used in the final shootout between Preacher, Stockton and his men is effective, drawing from the supernatural horror films of the Sixties and Seventies. The way in which cinematographer Bruce Surtees swaps out some of his trademark use of darkness in favour of pure white of snow and the light bone colour of clay is striking. He still expertly uses darkness, as you would expect, for both the interiors and, in some situations, the lighting of Eastwood's face. As always there are classic western vistas.

When it comes to the westerns that Clint Eastwood is famous for, Pale Rider is one of the weaker ones. That isn't to say its a bad film, despite its flaws it's quite enjoyable. It's just not The Outlaw Josey Wales, Unforgiven or A Fistful Of Dollars.

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