Rating: 
Summary: Eastwood, home on the American range
Review: After earning major stardom with Sergio Leone's spaghetti western trilogy, Clint Eastwood turned down both Leone's "Once Upon a Time in the West" and Carl Foreman's "MacKenna's Gold" to star in and co-produce this tightly scripted, well-acted western directed by "Gunsmoke" veteran Ted Post. It proved a good choice. If not a masterpiece on the order of Leone's film, or a star studded spectacular like Foreman's offering, "Hang 'Em High" was something the other two were not: a hit. It's also intelligent and makes some interesting if subtle comments on the meaning of justice. The clean-shaven Eastwood is fine as Jed Cooper, a former marshal who once more wears a badge to hunt down the men who hanged him as an alleged cattle thief, but Pat Hingle as a hanging judge who is even more vengeance minded than Eastwood offers the standout performance. Bruce Dern, Bob Steele, Ben Johnson, Joe Sirola, Dennis Hopper, and Alan Hale, Jr. (yes, the Skipper from "Gilligan's Island") are among the notable character actors who appear throughout, and Dominic Frontiere's music score, including the title theme that would go on to be a hit for Booker T and the MGs, is excellent.
Rating:
Summary: Eastwood, home on the American range
Review: After earning major stardom with Sergio Leone's spaghetti western trilogy, Clint Eastwood turned down both Leone's "Once Upon a Time in the West" and Carl Foreman's "MacKenna's Gold" to star in and co-produce this tightly scripted, well-acted western directed by "Gunsmoke" veteran Ted Post. It proved a good choice. If not a masterpiece on the order of Leone's film, or a star studded spectacular like Foreman's offering, "Hang 'Em High" was something the other two were not: a hit. It's also intelligent and makes some interesting if subtle comments on the meaning of justice. The clean-shaven Eastwood is fine as Jed Cooper, a former marshal who once more wears a badge to hunt down the men who hanged him as an alleged cattle thief, but Pat Hingle as a hanging judge who is even more vengeance minded than Eastwood offers the standout performance. Bruce Dern, Bob Steele, Ben Johnson, Joe Sirola, Dennis Hopper, and Alan Hale, Jr. (yes, the Skipper from "Gilligan's Island") are among the notable character actors who appear throughout, and Dominic Frontiere's music score, including the title theme that would go on to be a hit for Booker T and the MGs, is excellent.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Western!
Review: Along with the Sergio Leone trilogy, this movie helped make the Clint Eastwood legend. It is the simplest story line (after love) - revenge. Eastwood is an everyman, just a rancher. He buys some cattle from a passing drive, only to learn they are stolen. The true owners come along, and hang him before the truth can be ascertained. A passing lawman finds him swinging from a tree, saves his life and puts him in a jail wagon until his story can be figured out. The rest of the movie is Eastwood's tracking down those bad guys (not relevant is the fact that for the most part they are "good and true citizens") and bringing them to justice; either at the jailhouse or by his bullets. And Eastwood revenge is something else - he even shoots the dog!Eastwood's character, Marshall Cooper is another strong and silent type, just like "The Man With No Name" whom we have come to expect in the Leone westerns. Unlike the spaghetti westerns, though, this time while he is again basically a good guy, he is now on the establishment side. Eastwood is joined by a positively fabulous supporting cast: Western veterans Ben Johnson and Ed Begley, Pat Hingle as a true hangin' judge, Dennis Hopper (who is such a psycho even then, we are glad to see that he is the first guy killed in the film), Bruce Dern, L.Q. Jones. Surprising appearances are entered by Gilligan's Skipper, Alan Hale and Steve McGarrett's Five-0 sidekick "Dano", James McArthur. And for the true Star Trek cognoscenti, we have an appearance by Mark Leonard, who gave up his job as Oklahoma Territory Prosecuting Attorney to become Sarek, a/k/a Father of Spock. Unlike some other reviewers, I found the more polished (as opposed to the Leone western trilogy) soundtrack superior to the movies which had preceded it. I also thought the cinematography supeerior here, with some breathtaking vistas.
Lots of reviewers dog this one out for not being up to the standards of the Leone trilogy. However, I think it is their equal, because the characters have more depth. Maybe I am just not the fan of minimalist genre of S. Leone. Nonetheless, I particularly find the bad guys are more complex than any in the spaghetti westerns, and I find this more pleasing. It is one of my very favorite shoot-em-ups. As reviewer L.S.W. says, western fans need this movie.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining
Review: Although not as stylized or polished as Josey Wales, High Plains Drifter, or The Leone trilogy, Hang 'em high still has a lot too offer. For once the villans aren't stereotyped bad guys, they're real people. The film has it's flaws, mainly the over done Pat Hingle charachter who loves the noose, and the seemingly forced romance between Eastwood and Stevens. Still, as most of you know an average Eastwood Western is still better than most. And though, you might not be compelled to buy it, you will at least not kick yourself for watching it.
Rating:
Summary: Clint is the man..
Review: Any great American can like a good western but if it is a Clint western thats even better..
Rating:
Summary: more western than spaghetti
Review: Being a true blue western fan, I find this movie great since it has the elements of style found in the TV westerns and the old westerns of Wayne, Stewart and Fonda. The Sergio Leone spaghettis leave a bad taste in the mouth from the cheapie "For a Few Dollars More" to the expansive and expensive "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly." "Once Upon a Time in the West" was bad but could've been more palatable with Eastwood in it. Although some residue of spaghetti sauce is present in "Hang 'Em High", overall the movie is great. While the ending is a bit tepid and where probably a wild and wooly shoot 'em up finale would have been better, Clint nevertheless made this one a true Western classic. Clint is great in this one. I recoomend this to all Western fans as it is one of the latter date westerns that capture the essence of the golden age westerns.
Rating: 
Summary: Certainly not a "fistful of dollars"
Review: Boring and predictable. A let-down after the trilogy and the High Plains Drifter.
Rating:
Summary: Hanging as Metaphor
Review: Clint Eastwood had just completed perhaps the most successful trifecta in Hollywood western history with his "Man with No Name" trilogy. Those three films were marked by a melding of unforgettable Ennio Morricone music with the grubbiness that seemed to afflict the entire cast. This Eastwood was laconic and possessed of a dry sense of humor. In HANG 'EM HIGH, Eastwood is a preppier, more law abiding loner who has the great bad fortune to purchase rustled cattle from their abductors, and is promptly lynched by a gang of vigilantes who mean well, but in whose disregard for the niceities of law, the focus of the film is squarely placed. The west of this movie, unlike the west of his 'No Name' trilogy, may, in the words of Pat Hingle, the 'hanging judge' be so big that it dwarfs five states put together, yet that does not mean that it is bereft of any law and order. Eastwood, as Jed Cooper, survives the lynching, only to be offered a marshal's badge to bring to justice his lynchers. At the moment that Cooper puts on that badge, director Ted Post indicates that HANG 'EM HIGH is a morality movie disguised as a revenge oater. No one understands this better than Pat Hingle, as the hanging judge, who every day has to balance the expediency involved in hanging condemned criminals with the sobering thought that in his court he is 'the law, all the law.' Unlike Cooper, who has him to answer to, the judge has only his conscience. Because Eastwood presents himself as a transition figure between the ponchoed Man with no Name that he just was and the brute law and order icon that he would shortly morph into as Dirty Harry, he does not dominate each scene. Nor is there a dramatic vacuum when he blends into the background. Into his place swarms a host of a very capable supporting cast. Inger Stevens is particularly appealing as a troubled woman who has survived the physical trauma of rape only to find the emotional aftereffects as far more lingering. For those students of film who are acquainted with the details of Miss Stevens' troubled life that began in depression and ended in real-life suicide, her performance as the tormented victim takes on the hopeless overtones of art imitating life. Her ability to slowly blossom under the healing hand of Cooper is touching. Bruce Dern reprises a role that he has done countless times as both a big and small screen crazy. Dern is the leader of a gang composed of a pair of impressionably young brothers who, under other circumstances, might have turned out as decent citizens. In fact, the primary irony of HANG 'EM HIGH is that with the exception of Dern, who brags that he is 'truly as guilty as sin,' every other character is either good or a flawed version of good. Even Cooper's lynchers thought they were doing society a favor by skipping the cost of a trial. What emerges is a cinematic metaphor that clearly shows what happens even to good people who seek to do society a favor by circumventing the very rights of those charged with truly heinous crimes. The inner debate that Marshal Jed Cooper had to wage during his pursuit of the men who lynched him is shared by an audience who slowly comes to realize that the hanging judge, in all his exhortations about the necessary triumph of written law over vigilante order, was right all along.
Rating:
Summary: Hung at high noon!
Review: Clint Eastwood's movie, Hang 'em High, is very interesting and dramatic. The plot of this movie was predictable but that is quiet alright. The producer and director probably wanted to convey some other message and hence a standard plot was chosen. Clint Eastwood is a rancher who is strung up at high noon by a bunch of thugs from a nearby town. They accuse him of murder and theft of cattle. Eastwood however does not die. A US Marshall recues him and brings him to the judge for trial. Judge aquitts Eastwood. It so happens that Eastwood was a ex-lawman and judge appoints him as a Marshall. Then begins the story of revenge and justice as Eastwood hunts down the vigilante mob that tried to hang him. There are many interesting questions raised in the movie. What is the relationship between Revenge and Justice? How should justice be dealt out? It is a thought-provoking movie although it has somewhat banal action scenes. Regardless, it's a movie worth your money.
Rating:
Summary: Climbing the Rope of Success
Review: Clint Eastwood's performance in this, his first American western, is very good and very Clint, in the sense that he doesn't say much, squints when he gets angry, and is handy with a pistol. The supporting cast is as much to be praised for the film's success as its star. Ed Begley is masterful as the leader of the lynch mob and Bruce Dern is really nasty as Miller, the most evil of the lynch mob's members. The thing that got me most about this film is the "big" hanging scene, wherein several people are hanged at once, much to the mock horror of the many onlookers. I'm typing this just about a month after Timothy McVeigh has been put to death, and I couldn't help but wince a little when the judge (Pat Hingle) gave his reasons to Marshall Jed Cooper (Eastwood) as to why capital punishment was an integral component of justice. Of course, maybe such fierce legal retribution was a needed element during those days portrayed in the film. Perhaps life then was a hard, day-to-day scrabble and folks were thinking of their own and their family's survival and weren't too concerned about the other guy's. I don't know, but the judge's whole idea still made me a bit uncomfortable, especially since two of the people hanged in the film were young boys who possibly deserved a second chance. All of this aside, however, it's a fine piece of work. Clint is great, the supporting cast is great, and it's cool to see Alan Hale as somebody other than the Skipper. Check it out. Only a few years later would Jed Cooper turn into Harry Callahan and really set the box office on fire.
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