Pale Rider, 1985.
Directed by Clint Eastwood.
Starring Clint Eastwood, Michael Moriarty, Carrie Snodgress, Christopher Penn, Richard Dysart, Sydney Penny, Richard Kiel, Doug McGrath, and John Russell.
SYNOPSIS:
Clint Eastwood’s sole 1980s Western, Pale Rider, arrives on 4K Ultra HD courtesy of Warner Bros. It looks great, and the extras found here are just as spectacular. You also get a code for a digital copy.
Warner Bros.’ trio of classic Clint Eastwood films making their debut on 4K Ultra HD concludes with 1985’s Pale Rider, another variation on the mysterious “man with no name” kind of character that he established in Sergio Leone’s spaghetti Westerns.
The titular “pale rider” is a man known only as The Preacher (Eastwood), who arrives in an encampment of gold prospectors sometime in the late 1800s or perhaps very early 1900s. Mining baron Coy LaHood (Richard Dysart) is determined to run the prospectors off their land so he can add it to the territory he’s currently aggressively attacking for its gold.
LaHood’s son, Joshua (Christopher Penn), leads a group of men, including the huge man known as Club (Richard Kiel), who are willing to engage in violence to intimidate the prospectors and their families. Preacher’s arrival stems the tide of violence as he shows himself to be handy with a variety of weapons, but the arrival of Marshal Stockburn (John Russell) and his deputies reveals a tense history between him and Preacher.
Preacher becomes friendly with a small family: Sarah Wheeler (Carrie Snodgress), her daughter Megan (Sydney Penny), and her perhaps-to-be second husband, Hull Barrett (Michael Moriarty). He inadvertently drives a wedge into the family as he emboldens Hull to resist LaHood’s men while Sarah would prefer that they cut their losses and leave. Teenage Megan professes her love for Preacher, which he thankfully declines because, yes, that kind of relationship wasn’t a big deal back then, but it’s hard to see it as anything but predatory today.
This was the only Western Eastwood was involved with during the 1980s, a time when the box office was dominated by science-fiction and fantasy films, along with raunchy comedies. It certainly ranks near the top of his list of Westerns, even if it does tread some familiar territory along the way. The Biblical aspect, however, sets it apart from Eastwood’s other Westerns, making it a commentary on the end of the Old West and the men who tried to fend off complete submission to capitalism.
As you might imagine, the film looks great in 4K, thanks to Warner Bros’ decision to use a 100GB disc that leaves plenty of breathing room for the movie and the excellent bonus features found here. As always, you get a code for a digital copy too.
The extras lead off with a pair of new featurettes that run about 16 minutes total: The Diary of Sydney Penny: Lessons From the Set, in which the actor looks back on a role that helped establish her career as a teenager, and Painting the Preacher: The Cinematography of Pale Rider, a tribute to the late cinematographer Bruce Surtees and his excellent work capturing everything from breathtaking vistas to close-ups full of emotion.
As with the other recent Eastwood 4Ks, you also get an episode from the 2021 series Clint Eastwood: A Cinematic Legacy. Running about 17.5 minutes, it’s titled Reinventing Westerns and it focuses, as you’d imagine, on the actor/director’s extensive contributions to the genre.
Finally, Warner Bros. also included a pair of meaty documentaries previously found in the Clint Eastwood 20-Film Collection Blu-ray set. The first one, Eastwood Directs: The Untold Story, runs just over an hour and serves up a long list of notable people to talk about his work, including Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Meryl Streep, Kevin Costner, Morgan Freeman, Gene Hackman, Tommy Lee Jones, and many others.
The other documentary is The Eastwood Factor (98:27), which hails from 2010 and focuses on his lengthy, varied career from its earliest days to what was then the present state of it. He’s the sole interviewee, with Morgan Freeman providing the narration and film critic and Eastwood biographer Richard Schickel handling the directorial duties. As such, it steers clear of any controversies from his past, but it’s still an enlightening piece of work. And given Eastwood’s non-stop work ethic, even at the age of 94, I imagine the definitive documentary of his life won’t be possible after after he passes.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Brad Cook
