Pale Rider (1985)

Brian & Cargill sit atop a pale horse and become death...ly afraid of the notion of a Clint Eastwood ninja turtle in this week's excursion with the Pale Rider!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
And I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder,
one of the four beasts saying, come and see, and
I saw and the hold a white horse.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
All right, this is Dick Miller.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
If you're listening to Junk Food Cinema, who are these guys?

Speaker 3 (00:56):
Junkie on, Come and see and behold a new episode
of Junk Food Cinema, brought to you by Revelations dot.

Speaker 4 (01:02):
Com, dad Cam dot com.

Speaker 3 (01:07):
Nothing like a nice piece of hickory. This is, of course,
the weekly cult exploitation filmcast. So good it just has
to be fattening. I'm your host, Brian Salas Brandam, joined
as per usual by my friend and co host. He
is a novelist, he is a screenwriter, a lieutenant of megaporce.
He's got sand, but he ain't got the sense God
gave a sack of beans, mister c Robert Cargill.

Speaker 4 (01:27):
That's true. Actually, I have plenty of sand.

Speaker 3 (01:31):
Yes, all the sand you could possibly want, but no
sacks of beans. You know, I kind of lost the
thread of the metaphor. But we've got sand.

Speaker 4 (01:38):
It's okay. There's beans in there somewhere.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
There's beans in there somewhere. Don't you worry about it.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
Hey for all the beans, for eleven years of a
podcast that doesn't amount to a hill of beans. You
can go to your favorite podcastch or listen to the
Junk Food Cinema back catalog. You can follow us on
social media at Junk Food Cinema. And if you really
like the show.

Speaker 4 (01:55):
I mean you really like the show, you like it as.

Speaker 3 (01:58):
Much as I hate sand because it's coarse, rough and
it gets everywhere, you can go to Patreon dot com
slash Junk Food Cinema and help financially support this bullshit.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
We greatly appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
Cargil, I think I've just kind of dubbed what we've
been doing this spring as sort of the Disney Fast
Pass version of the Shortlist. Like all these movies that
we'd never really talked about doing episodes on, we'll mention
in an episode, and then by the next week we're
doing an episode on that movie.

Speaker 4 (02:26):
I feel it's very stream of consciousness programming, and I'm
all in for it. Yeah, I'm excited about this week
because when I suggested this, you initially poop pooed it,
and then as a man, she said, you know what
I'm gonna give. I'm gonna for shits and giggles, sit
down and watch it, h and just see. And then
thirty minutes in you're texting me in all caps about

(02:49):
how we're going to cover this, and it made me
so happy.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
The story you just told makes me sound a lot
smarter than I am.

Speaker 3 (02:56):
The real story is one of me being a complete numbskull,
and we will definitely get into that. But yeah, you're right,
it is definitely stream of consciousness. I've also called it
the the human syntipod, where it's just like this episode
dovetails into that episode, dovetails into that episode, and we
really don't know week to week what the next episode's
going to be. We're flying by the seat of our pants,

(03:17):
which I think takes sand.

Speaker 4 (03:19):
Sure also Pantsrundy one pens too.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
I demand more toys? Why do we live online? Why
do we do this tour? So holy crap?

Speaker 3 (03:35):
Hey, do you like the early days of Cartoon Network
interstentential programming?

Speaker 2 (03:39):
Cause we sure do.

Speaker 4 (03:40):
I mean I talked to Brack almost every day on
Blue Sky.

Speaker 3 (03:43):
The reason I know soul coughing is because of the
interstitial programming on Cartoon Network.

Speaker 4 (03:49):
Also true, I'm rolling. Also I saw them live again
a few weeks ago.

Speaker 3 (03:53):
When are you not seeing them live? I'm kind of
surprise you're not seeing them live right now.

Speaker 4 (03:57):
I mean, they only can play so many shows.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
Cargo is at every single one of them.

Speaker 3 (04:02):
But weirdly enough, soul coughing is also not what we're
here to talk about today. Last week we covered a
Western from nineteen eighty five, and just to be different,
we thought we'd pivot this week and cover a Western
from nineteen eighty.

Speaker 4 (04:16):
Five to be really different. One of them is about
a stranger coming to town that is full of good people,
but it being run into the ground by an evil
you know, tycoon.

Speaker 3 (04:29):
And this week I was gonna say, and last week
with Silverado, but this week is nineteen eighty five's Pale Writer.

Speaker 5 (04:37):
Clint Eastwood Pale Writer.

Speaker 6 (04:40):
They came out of the mountains to revage and rape
a small mining village. Suddenly a stranger of you and
hell followed with him. Clint east tours Pale Writer. Grated

(05:02):
r opens Friday, June twenty eight at a theater near you.

Speaker 3 (05:07):
So the story goes that, Cargill said, because we mentioned
it in last week's episode. We were talking about how
Michael Chimino's Heaven's Gate almost killed the American Western. There
was a period of time where studios didn't want to
touch the genre, and then about nineteen eighty five they
started to kind of come out of the gopher holes again,
like maybe if we see a shadow, we'll have you know,
forty more years of this genre. And you know, we

(05:29):
got movies like Silverado, which, while amazing, was not quite
the financial success that you know, everyone involved had had wanted.
But also in that same year, we got a Western
from Clint Eastwood, which is significant because it had been
about nine years up to that point since we had
seen a Western from Clint Eastwood. Of course, the heralded

(05:50):
king of the modern Western, Clin Eastwood, had not made
one in nine years. So when Pale Rider comes out,
that is significant, not only because it had been such
a long time, but it's Clint's only Western of the
nineteen eighties, and it's also the highest grossing.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
Western of the nineteen eighties.

Speaker 3 (06:08):
So whereas Silverado was great and didn't have the financial
return they had hoped for, Pale Rider is also great
but did have that huge financial return, and I think
started to get that ball moving again and we got
you know, a lot of great Westerns from that point forward,
including Clint's very last Western a few years later. This is,
in fact, Clint eastwoods Pins ultimate Western. And I'm super

(06:29):
excited to talk about it because when Cargill suggested we
cover it, I told him no, I am not a
big fan of that movie, and we started batting around
some other ideas, one that was.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
Way way more off the wall than Pale Rider is all.

Speaker 3 (06:44):
I'm gonna fucking say, a movie with two titles, neither
of which really encapsulate the madness of what that movie
really is.

Speaker 4 (06:53):
And maybe and maybe that's next week's maybe the fact
that you've mentioned this has triggered the fact that that's
what we're covering. We don't even know.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
We have no idea, We literally don't know.

Speaker 3 (07:03):
But what was crazy is because that other movie was
getting bad around, I was like, you know what, in
all fairness, it had been a long time since I'd
seen Pale Writer. I need to sit down and give
it another shot, because you know, Cargill and I have
both had cinematic redemptions on this show.

Speaker 2 (07:16):
It does happen. So I sit down.

Speaker 3 (07:19):
I get about ten minutes into Pale Writer, and I
make a startling discovery.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
I have never seen Pale Writer before.

Speaker 4 (07:27):
Which is amazing because to get to sit down and
watch Pale Rider for the first time thinking you'd seen
it and being like, oh, I have no idea, who's
about to get hit in the balls of the sledgehammer.

Speaker 3 (07:39):
Dude, because that is the bet you are so right
about that you've hit the nail on the head. Is
that because I thought I had already seen it before.
Not only did I not look up anything before watching it,
I didn't pay attention to the credits. I had no
idea what I was getting in for, so when people
just start showing up that I recognized, I was already like, oh,
that's awesome. But there's also a reveal about ten minutes

(08:00):
in that was completely spoiled by any of the trailers.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
Reading the poster.

Speaker 3 (08:05):
Reading a plot synopsis would have ruined this really cool,
I don't I think it may have been intended to
be a surprise, but the marketing completely it's kind of
like a terminator too, and knowing you know that Arnold
Schwarzene is actually the good robot in that one. Anyway,
all that to say, I realized that I had confused
Pale Rider with High Planes Drifter. Oh, which, when you

(08:28):
think about it, when you get to the end of
this movie, they're playing with very similar tools, Like, yeah,
create is different, but the tools are very similar.

Speaker 4 (08:38):
Yeah. No, absolutely, And I could see, well, I could
see why you don't like High Planes Drifter. Yeah, I mean,
I love Highplanescrifter, but I could see why that movie
might not work for you. But but yeah, I can
also see how you can mistake that for Pale Writer.

(09:00):
But no, Pale Writer is a very different film. Pale
Writer feel. I mean, the thing about Pale Writer that
I particularly love is it seems to be very much
like Out in the Open, about the fact that this
is the secret man with No Name. Fourth movie, like

(09:24):
it very very much is one of those films where
it plays by all the rules of those old spaghetti westerns,
and it's got that grit and that grime to it.
What I find is so fascinating I mentioned it last week,
was this. Even though the concept is very similar to Silverado,
these two films could not be more diametrically opposed in

(09:46):
their presentation. Where Silverado was all about all these big,
boisterous characters. Everyone has a backstory, We learn all their backstories.
There's all this great dialogue, there's banter. You know, the
villains are likable, you know for a period of time.
You know, there's there. All the characters are complicated. This

(10:07):
is pure arc type. You know, there's characters in this movie.
We don't get much of a backstory on. We get
kind of their story, you know, will you never find
out the real story behind Preacher. You don't find out
his name, you don't know, you don't get to know
much about him. Literally, the most exposition we get about
his past is when somebody goes you yeah, and that's

(10:30):
everything you need to know. Literally, everything you need to
know is in one syllable.

Speaker 3 (10:35):
Look, I appreciate that I can enjoy the ice cream
without having to buy the rock salt.

Speaker 2 (10:40):
Quote to quote Patton Oswell.

Speaker 4 (10:41):
Yeah, no, I mean this is it's it's for these
two films to be playing in the same sandbox, if
you will, and to come out the other side with
very radically different films, you know, the whole This is
a very classic sixties style Italian spaghetti western, whereas Silverado

(11:05):
was a big boisterous sixties style American western, Hollywood western,
and they both hit perfectly. This movie does everything it
wants to do perfectly. There's a few things that don't
age as well as they did with Silverado. That said,
it's still fucking amazing movie, right.

Speaker 3 (11:25):
Yeah, And I actually I'm gonna I'm not gonna say
I'm pushing back, but I had a slightly different read
on this. I think, if this is the Secret Man
with No Name fourth movie, it's a response to not
only The Man with No Name trilogy, but Italian westerns
in general. And that is what I found so fascinating
about it. At this stage in his career, so late

(11:48):
in his Western game, literally the second to last Western
he would ever make, clint E'swood is making a movie
that is so earnest and so morally absolute that it
feels like a pushback.

Speaker 2 (12:01):
Against the spaghetti western.

Speaker 3 (12:03):
The spaghetti western, you know, as many of you know,
that is far more gritty and has characters that are
more complicated, a lot of more anti heroes, you know,
that kind of a thing, whereas this character that he's
playing here could not be more you know, truth justice
in the American way, Like he's basically playing Superman on
a horse, which is so fascinating to me because last

(12:24):
week's movie, which was, as Cargill said in his right,
much more of a classic style Western, a fifties or
sixties style Western, it had less moral absolutism than.

Speaker 4 (12:35):
This one, yep.

Speaker 3 (12:36):
Which is crazy because while Pale Writer is a deliberate
pivot from his especially at the time typical Western fair,
Clint is the guy that typified the Italian Western anti hero,
which you know, way more gritty, way more complicated. In
this he's actually kind of playing against type as much
as yes, he is playing that sort of man with
no name drifter again, he's playing that version that is

(12:57):
so upstanding, Like there are literally so many moments in
this movie where he is tested. There are so many
moments in this movie where if he was the man
with no name, he would have made a different choice.
That lets us know that we are far more along
the lines of the black hats and the white hats
here in a way I was not expecting, and especially

(13:19):
since this gives way to his next film, where he
basically burns the entire genre to the ground with an
overwhelmingly oppressive nihilism that I definitely appreciate, but is very
different from this movie.

Speaker 4 (13:32):
So just to clarify for anyone out there that's not
following what, you know, not picking up what we're putting down.
We're talking about Unforgiven. So he goes from high planes drifter.
Nine years pass and then he makes this, and then
nine more years pass and he makes Unforgiven. And what
I really like about everything you're talking about here, The

(13:54):
thing I like about the movie is it feels like
at this point Clint's only interest in the Western is
to subvert it and to take. And what I like
about like, like I say secret because no one's ever
officially called it a Man with No Name story, but
it's what if the Man with no Name grew a
conscience after all the blood he's filled, And you know,

(14:18):
now he's riding around he you know, trying to make
good in some way, shape or form, find a place
to settle down, find a place that's right for him.
But he just has to keep moving because that's what
life keeps throwing at him. And he wanders into this
town at just the right time to get caught up
in everything. But everything also kind of connects to his

(14:43):
own past at one point, and so I really I
like this redemption thing that that you know he's on
and even though he is has these two characters that
are in some way redeemed, they are both drawn back
into the violence. There's no escaping violence for these characters.
And I love that. That's what interested in him last

(15:06):
in making westerns.

Speaker 3 (15:08):
And I think I was a little obtuse with the timeline,
so just let me clear this up. He does make
Outlaw Josie Wales between High Planes Drifter, and this was
so it's between Outlaw Josie Wales in this movie is
the nine year laps And even within that period he
makes two movies that I would not call westerns but
are playing in the country western arena, which are, of

(15:28):
course Bronco Billy and The Honky Tonk Man.

Speaker 2 (15:30):
Right, that's not the same thing.

Speaker 4 (15:32):
Those are very different movies.

Speaker 2 (15:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (15:34):
The thing is he was making tons of films at
this time. I remember about a decade or so ago
I got sent Oh god, it's even longer than that.
I got sent the Warner Brothers thirty Years of Clint
thirty disc box set, and me and Jess just mainlined them.
We just you know, Cline East to Ad movie after
Cline eastwid movie, because there are a hell of a

(15:55):
lot more hits than there are misses in that in
that body of work. But yeah, he made a lot
of Westerns. But when he slowed down, he was very
mindful about him. And there's the famous story about Unforgiven
that that script was written ages before and Clint bought it,
and the studio is like, we're going to go and

(16:16):
make it and he's like, no, we're not. He's like,
but you bought the script. He goes, yes, there's going
to come a time when people don't want to see
me in movies anymore, and this is the script I'm
going to make. And the minute his star had faded
and he was making movies like the rookie, he pulled
it out, dusted it off, and said it's time for Unforgiven,
And boy, howdy fucking was it.

Speaker 2 (16:38):
I want to take a quick sidebar here.

Speaker 3 (16:46):
Because the whole personal Mandela effect that happened to me
made me realize that I also needed to go back
and revisit Unforgiven, because I think I'd only seen it once.

Speaker 2 (16:55):
And I'll be honest, I was not ready for it.

Speaker 3 (16:57):
I was not in my like just how old I
was in my appreciation of film, Like I just definitely
wasn't ready for I'm not saying I despised it, but
it didn't. It didn't It didn't latch onto me right,
It kind of bounced off me.

Speaker 4 (17:08):
Sometimes there are those movies that everybody sings the praises
of and you sit down and you watch any of
this really like that's when it's it's a good Western,
it's fucking good, but it's not the best Western ever
fucking made. And then of you watch it a few
years later.

Speaker 3 (17:22):
And well, what is this fifty dollars a night? Everybody
keeps saying it's the best Western? Oh uh no. I
When I watched it this time after Pale Rider, it
played like a concussive fucking firework, like the fact that
Clint isn't just deconstructing the genre, but he's burning down
westerns and laughing at the ashes. Like literally the nihilism

(17:44):
of that movie, I mean to boil it all down.
It's like, it doesn't matter if you're wearing a white hat,
it doesn't matter if you're wearing a black hat. If
you are a man under that hat, you are capable
of being completely despicable. Like that movie really has a
feeling about humanity, but it's also snide in the way
that it delivers that message, like the fact that that man,

(18:06):
this is not really a spoiler, but the fact that
that movie like drags its audience through a prairie's worth
a broken glass and it makes you feel every every
bullet that hits, like you feel it, and it makes
you weep like it's it's just a very different type
of Western. And then at the end, what do we
get a beautiful like violet crown prairie sky at sunset,

(18:29):
almost as if, almost as if Clint Eastood is saying, gotcha, bitch,
like I just love that, he ends it with what
is essentially a fucking Howard Hawk shot. Yeah, at the
end of the movie, where he's basically been saying like
like humanity, like the West is a lie, like humanity
is garbage, Like the movie is so good, I fucking

(18:51):
love it, but I love it on a completely different level,
and watching it right after this, where he's kind of
going the opposite direction and saying like, you know, there
are basic good people and that there can still be
Western heroes, and then one western later going just kidding,
I fucking love that about Clinton.

Speaker 4 (19:08):
Oh yeah, yeah, no, like it. You feel the transition.
Like the thing is is, as he moved from being
a actor to a director and got more in the
directing mindset, you can definitely feel him going, what do
I have to say now? The thing is is as
a director, he's much more missus than hits. But also

(19:32):
that has to do with, you know, the fact that
he's got a very different He's got a very famous
philosophy in Hollywood where he fires and forgets. It's the Hey,
if this movie doesn't work, maybe you like the next one.
And so he literally made a movie because he was

(19:52):
required contractually and famously did one take for every shot.

Speaker 1 (19:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (20:00):
Apparently during that didn't say cutter action. He just said okay,
yeah to start and end a shot.

Speaker 4 (20:05):
He was so bitter. The only way they would let
him make Mystic Rivers if he made blood Work, and
he was just like, fuck it, we'll make blood Work. Here,
have a movie. All right, I'm gonna go make one
of the best movies in my career.

Speaker 2 (20:16):
Now have a movie.

Speaker 4 (20:18):
Have a movie. I'm gonna go make one of the
best movies in my career. Oh what did it get
nominated for? Like all the Oscars? Oh? Maybe should have
made me let that movie first, Like, I mean the
balls of that that guy has sand for real.

Speaker 2 (20:33):
But just I'm sorry.

Speaker 3 (20:34):
I'm scanning the internet right now for any podcast that
speaks lovingly about blood work and zero results. Okay, continue,
Oh it's so bad, it's barely a movie.

Speaker 4 (20:45):
And but he they demanded it, so they got it,
and nobody fucked with Clint again.

Speaker 2 (20:51):
Be careful what you fucking asked for.

Speaker 4 (20:54):
But you know when he hits, Oh boy does he
fucking hit. And but yeah, this this movie is you know,
this movie is a great transition into what would happen
in his career later and also the last time really
when he was fully believable as that young enough strapping guy.

(21:16):
After these messages, We'll be right back. How do you
solve them mine.

Speaker 5 (21:22):
When the only connection to the killer is you? You
and me? Like canaan able munity in Ospital, Clint Eastwood
love work, We did our starts freddy ously.

Speaker 3 (21:34):
We opened this movie in Lohood, California, which is near
Carbon Canyon and Lohood, California is run by a mining
baron named Kroy LaHood and he is at war with
a group of independent prospectors in their families who are
in the canyon trying to make their fortunes. Now, I
want to I want to start here by going back

(21:55):
to a quote from Lawrence Kasin that we talked about
last week. Lawrence Casden talked about the fact that the
reason he likes to make Westerns is that you can
basically tell any story through that genre. And I feel
like that's evident in the opening of Pale Rider, because
you realize that not only do so many westerns begin
the way that Pale Writer does, but so do so

(22:16):
many sword and sandal fantasy epics where the evil marauders
come riding down a peaceful village. I for a moment
thought I was watching the opening a Cone of the Barbarian.

Speaker 4 (22:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (22:26):
Then I realized, like, he's absolutely right. You can tell
basically any story within a Western.

Speaker 4 (22:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (22:32):
So these poor prospectors are being run down by you know,
the roughnecks that are hired by this guy trying to
drive them off their land so that he can can
steal their claims, and they're not having it. Also, Cargil
another weird couplet from last week, What Happened to the Dog?
A line from Silverado basically plays as the label for
the connective tissue for this double feature. Yeah, Like, I

(22:55):
made the joke last week that Kevin Klein's backstory could
work as fodder for an Old West set John Wick prequel. No, no, no, no, no,
this is the John Wilk John Wick and the Old
West prequel. Motherfucks, because the inciting action of this movie,
even more so than the marauders, is the fact that
marauders kill this little girl's dog and she prays for vengeance.

Speaker 4 (23:16):
Yeah, she has a really there's a really great prayer
scene where she is she's uh, reciting a prayer from.

Speaker 2 (23:23):
It's the Lord's Prayer.

Speaker 4 (23:24):
No no, no, that's not It's not the Lord's Prayer. She's
she's it's either way, I walk through the Valley of
Shadow at death.

Speaker 2 (23:29):
That's right, that's right.

Speaker 4 (23:30):
Yeah, And and then she's like, but but but Lord,
I am afraid, and she's like doing a call and
response with it, and she's asking for a miracle. She
wants revenge for her dog. She wants to be her
community to be safe. And as that happens, a pale rider,
uh you know, a man death upon a pale horse

(23:54):
appears during like in Nemos on the nose reading the
Bible scene, Like, this movie is not subtle at all
about what this is.

Speaker 3 (24:04):
It's exactly as subtle as the final shot and High
Planes Drifter, where it's like, yeah, no, we get it,
We're reencouraged, I get it, thank you, thank you so much.
I want to talk for just a moment about the
the other male lead of this movie.

Speaker 4 (24:21):
Yes, the kind of favorite, a.

Speaker 3 (24:24):
Favorite, but playing so against type that it freaked me out.

Speaker 2 (24:28):
Playing good.

Speaker 3 (24:30):
He's so great, but in a way I never have
seen or expected from him. This is Michael Moriarty playing
sort of the leader of this group of independent prospectors. Now,
Michael Moriarty is one of our favorite weirdos, right, That's
that's why we love Michael Moriarty. We expect him to
not only chew the scenery, but to rip it down,
skew it and roast it over a fire in front

(24:51):
of you, and then just start housing it like it's
it's a leg of mutton. Like that's that's what we
know Michael Moriarty do. That is his wheelhouse. Michael more
already in this movie being completely sane and being sort
of the center of the movie is the fact of
the single most insane thing in the movie because.

Speaker 2 (25:09):
It's Michael Moriarty completely sane.

Speaker 4 (25:13):
Yeah, yeah, no, it's I mean. And the thing is
is that Michael Moriarty here plays a very very important
role to the theme of this movie, in which this
movie is very much about manhood. And it feels like
the entire intention of this film and what Clint is
trying to do with this movie is point out that

(25:34):
being a man isn't being the strongest. Being a man
isn't being the alpha, isn't the one who runs the town.
Being a man is about being there and taking care
of the people you care about and being willing to
die for what you believe in, but also being willing
to protect those you love the most. And that is,

(25:55):
you know, that is what he's laying down, and he's
showing what it is to be in alpha because he's
Clint Eastwood and he absolutely has to be fucking alpha.
But having Michael Moriarty play off him as another strong
man who's just not the killer that he is. He's
a good man. He's willing to he's willing to fight,
he's willing to do things. He's got the sand, but

(26:17):
he just doesn't have the skills or the know how
or you know, the the violence in him, and these
two men are juxtaposed, as you know, as strong as
he's been and as good as he is, the town
doesn't side with him until he's got this alpha riding
behind him with the preacher, And that's the character that

(26:38):
they that they feel that's the power behind the throne,
if you will, in this small village. And it's a
really really interesting dichotomy and how it works. And Moriarty
is just acting as fucking ass off here.

Speaker 3 (26:54):
This is the most we've discussed having the right amount
of sand since the last time we talked about writers
of the Lost Dark. This is this is crazy how
much this is coming up. But you're absolutely right. And
not only is Michael Moriarty completely well balanced in this movie,
he's downright lovable. His story will break your heart because
the guy is just an impossible situation and at every

(27:15):
step he tries to make the decision that is the
best for not only his overall you know, independent mining family,
but his small, fictive family as well. And their story
is is so heart renting. But what I do love
Cargill not to jump ahead. I'm watching him act his
ass off. I'm watching him prove that he can literally
play anything. I'm watching him prove that he does not

(27:37):
need the crutch of the crazy to be a great
actor and turn into great performance.

Speaker 2 (27:42):
And then we get to the third act of this
movie and there.

Speaker 3 (27:45):
Is a moment I screamed Cargill like it was one
of those like I just kind of had to like
be the moment washed over me and I just kind
of had to scream. They're throwing dynamite at this big
mining conglomerate camp and Clint Eastwood drops a stick of dynah.
Moriarty casually picks it up and just leisurely strolls over

(28:05):
to this cliff to toss it with no urgency whatsoever.
It is pure nutball cinema.

Speaker 4 (28:13):
I mean, the thing is, yeah, he lights it, Eastwood
drops it, hits the ground, he goes, oh oh, a
mother like goes the right off. And then Moriarty, who
deals with us all the time because he's a miner,
sees exactly how much time is left, gets off his horse,
grabs it, walks over and throws it because that's what
he knows. And they don't again with the you know,

(28:34):
the way this is as a spaghetti Western and them
not explaining it and needing to have a little one
off joke. He just do it and you just have
to absorb it. And watching him do that so fearlessly
shows you what kind of character Moriarty hit Michael Moriarty
is in this.

Speaker 3 (28:51):
I mean he is a miner, but you could literally
sing the entirety of my Darling Clementine between the time
he picks up this sticke of dynamite and he throws
and he doesn't care. There is just no urgency whatsoever.
He gets to the cliff and he's just like, well, okay,
like literally takes a beat if I'm just like.

Speaker 2 (29:09):
Screaming on my couch, like what is going on?

Speaker 3 (29:12):
That one small moment of insane Moriarty, And it's played
so completely straight faced that I was like, this is
everything I want when I discover movies for the first time.
This is literally everything to me because this one tiny
moment and I fucking love it. Michael Murriorty goes into town,
a town that is once again owned by you know this,
this major industrialist, and he's just trying to pick up

(29:33):
supplies and here he is getting hassled by these goons
and that first encounter when we first meet Clintie Stwood's
character and he sticks up for Michael Moriarty, there is
this fight with axe handles. That encounter with the Hood's
men really makes me understand Clint Eetwood would have been
a great Donatello and teenage meeting Ninja turtles.

Speaker 4 (29:54):
And I know what you're talking about.

Speaker 3 (29:57):
I couldn't get that out of my head for a
ten minutes as I was watching this, just just Clint
Eastwood in green makeup with one of those bandanazon just.

Speaker 2 (30:05):
Like, go ahead, make my pizza, you know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (30:09):
Like I would watch that movie like Clint Eastwood just
saying like go.

Speaker 4 (30:14):
Bunga Clint Eastwood age Ninja Turtle, Clint Eastwood age Ninda
the turtle.

Speaker 3 (30:20):
That's how you get blood work, turtle power. Like absolutely,
like just like do you feel lucky, shredhead. I would
watch that fucking movie.

Speaker 2 (30:32):
All day. I would watch that movie.

Speaker 4 (30:33):
Also, Donatello, Big Big, Clint Eastwood Finn.

Speaker 2 (30:37):
Yeah, it has to be, absolutely has to be.

Speaker 4 (30:39):
But yeah, that fright is great. I mean it's it's great.
Like you know, Michael Moriarty goes into town after these
these Hoods have gone through and trashed their camp. He's like,
I'm gonna go into town and I'm gonna get a
stuff to fix everything up. And everybody knows what's gonna
happen to it, but he's got the again, he's got
the sand. He's riding into town and going to get stuff,

(31:00):
and these guys come out and pull these hickory hags
handles out of the the a barrel right out front
of the general store and just start whooping the shit
out of them. And then a stranger comes to town
and then he beats the shit out of all of
these again. One of those great stories where the hoods

(31:20):
aren't all that bad ass. They're just the local miners
and so you know, you know, they just have the
strength of numbers. Not actually they're not actually good at
what they do. When shit starts going down, they have
to call the real cavalry, and that's where that's where
the scary shit shows up. So these guys get their
asses handed to them, and so they're afraid of this preacher,

(31:43):
but they're trying to deal with it and it's just
not working out.

Speaker 3 (31:48):
So Michael Mory Ingratitude says, you know, come to the
camp I got a I owe you three, three hots
and a cot. He says, I owe you for helping
me out, and so you know, Clint Eastwood reluctantly agrees.
And it's at this point of the movie that we're
introduced well, actually we've met them in the opening, but
Carrie Snodgrass plays a character named Sarah whose husband left

(32:09):
her when she was raising her small child, Megan, played
by Sidney Penny. So now the two of them are
kind of taken in by Michael Moriarty. He considers her
to be his fiance, but they haven't really connected on
that level because understandably, this character, Sarah played by Carry Snodgrass,
is reluctant to trust a man after what happened to her,

(32:30):
and Michael Moriarty is just being as patient as he
possibly can. So they're living together as this sort of,
like I said, fictive family unit, and Sarah is not
happy about the idea of this stranger coming to live
with them, and they have this argument, and it's literally
in the middle of this argument. You have to understand
that up to this point, Clint Eastwood has been decked

(32:51):
out in a tire that is a little bit different
from anything else I've ever seen in a Clint Eastwood Western.
Like the jacket he's wearing is very form fit, almost
kind of ceremonial, a little bit off feminine even, but
he looks great in it, looks great in it. But
then you realize it's because when he walks into this room,
he takes that jacket off.

Speaker 2 (33:10):
He's wearing a collar. He's a fucking preacher.

Speaker 3 (33:13):
The movie actually doesn't reveal that until we've seen him
for about ten minutes, and it is a bit of
a surprise because everybody's that we've seen him take these
dudes out, we've seen him be, you know, proficient with violence,
and yet he is in fact a preacher?

Speaker 4 (33:27):
Or is he?

Speaker 2 (33:28):
Or is we don't fucking know?

Speaker 4 (33:30):
I mean again, man with no name. You know, he
has a collar, and he hears them arguing over him
clearly being a gunfighter, and he comes out in the
collar and that changes everything. So does he just carry
the collar around because it solves a lot of arguments,
or is he actually a reformed preacher?

Speaker 3 (33:48):
I think he has to be his demeanor throughout most
of this movie, and we'll get into it as we
go along here.

Speaker 4 (33:53):
Strike never quotes the Bible. He never handles a Bible.

Speaker 2 (33:58):
That's true. Actually, that's a really a good point.

Speaker 3 (34:00):
But again, because I didn't read the plot synopsis, and
because initially I thought i'd seen this, I had no
inkling that Clint's character was a preacher. So that was
a huge surprise for me. I was just like, wait,
what the fuck's happening?

Speaker 4 (34:15):
Yeah, yeah, no, it's a it's a great moment. When
he walks out with that collar on. It's just like,
oh shit.

Speaker 3 (34:22):
And here, and he's agreed to kind of help them
with their their daily chores. Him and Michael Moriarty. It's
almost this strange collaborative pissing contest that they're in trying
to break this boulder with sledgehammers. And then it's at
this moment that we meet two more of Lohood's men.

Speaker 4 (34:40):
One of them is the legendary. They're both legendary.

Speaker 2 (34:44):
Oh yeah, yeah, let's start with the younger one.

Speaker 4 (34:46):
Here I was, Oh, I was, I'm the legendary Chris Penn.
Chris on too soon him very young. This is this
is footloose time. He's footloose aged. So so that Chris
Penn is the son of the local Tycoon.

Speaker 3 (35:05):
Now Chris penn is all of nineteen years old making
this movie Greener than Goose Shit, and yet by nineteen
eighty five already pretty established m hm, Like he had
already done several films by this point, including Footloose, So
he is on the rise at this point. But he's
fucking nineteen when they're making this movie. Yeah, absolutely insane.

(35:25):
He's great in this and he's riding alongside the other
legendary Richard goddamn Keel.

Speaker 4 (35:31):
Goddamn right, oh my god.

Speaker 3 (35:34):
Massive Richard Keel, who apparently injured horses on this movie
because he would try to ride them and because of
his size, the horse would just buckle. Like it's a
kind of like it's not really funny, because like, you
don't want animals to get hurt on a movie. But
apparently that was a problem they had making this movie,
is that they couldn't find a lot of horses to
support the weight of someone as massive as Richard Keel.

Speaker 2 (35:56):
I am so happy he's in this movie.

Speaker 3 (36:00):
I am also I feel like Clint Eastwood knows that
people remember Richard Keel from from the Bond movies because
Richard Keel's character has a fucking about face in this movie,
much like Jaws does in Moonraker, where his allegiance shifts.

Speaker 4 (36:21):
And yeah, and his allegiance shifts for good reason. Yeah,
like he's got he's got a a. This is such
a smart movie. Even the small arcs like this carry
real weight. You know, when he rides up, he gets
off to beat the shit out of out of Preacher
and Preacher does what.

Speaker 3 (36:39):
Sir well, much like that first Hoart, this change does
carry real weight. Uh but yeah, so Preacher, he's coming.
Richard Kiel's coming down to intimidate Preacher, and you know
he's got this hammer, and Clint Eastwood just fucking rakes
him in the balls with his sledgehammer, greets him with
a sledgehammer to the nuts like an inhospitable Peter Gabriel, at.

Speaker 4 (37:01):
Which point you paused the movie and texted me in
all caps.

Speaker 2 (37:06):
I did.

Speaker 3 (37:07):
I believe this is the first time that I texted
you in all caps while watching this movie. And my
exact my exact line was Clint Eastwood just torch Richard
Keel's bean bag with a sledgehammer. Yeah, it turns out
I've never seen Pale Rider. That was the text that
I sent to you when I realized.

Speaker 4 (37:24):
Ye, and that's how I knew we were gonna end
up recording it.

Speaker 2 (37:27):
Yeah, that's how. That's the behind the scenes of Junk
Food Cinema.

Speaker 3 (37:29):
If you ever wonder how the sausage was made, it
turns out to make the sausage you have to hit
Richard Keel the nuts with a sledgehammer.

Speaker 4 (37:35):
You have to hit the sausage with a sledgehammer.

Speaker 2 (37:36):
I have to hit it with his let.

Speaker 3 (37:37):
My favorite part about that, though, is as soon as
it happens, the fight is over and Clint just helps
him back onto his horse.

Speaker 4 (37:43):
Yeah, he just helps it. And that's the beginning of
the Richard Keel art because at that point he couldn't did.
Richard Keel was down, He's on the ground, He's got
a sledgehammer in his hand. That could be the end
of Richard Keel. But he's like, no, no, no, I'm
not killing anybody here today. You guys came out here
to intimidate me. I made my point. You guys can
go home now.

Speaker 3 (38:04):
Yeah, and just and but again, that's part of the
behavior that I'm talking about. That a makes me think
he might actually be a preacher because he seems to
be really trying to maintain some pacifism, but also this
character is flying like so much moral north that it
feels like a response to this The Man with No Name,

(38:25):
which is a really interesting facet of this movie. And
it's at this point that the man himself, Lohood, comes
back to town and we realize Cargill that Pale Ryder
is a secret thing Reunion, because earlier in the movie,
one of the one of Lohood's goons is a character

(38:48):
McGill played by Charles Hallahan, who most of you will
know from The Thing, And then when Lohood himself steps
off that train, it's Richard Goddamn dice.

Speaker 2 (38:56):
Art, also from the Thing.

Speaker 4 (38:58):
Yeah, it is.

Speaker 3 (38:59):
All I'm saying is if this town gets snowed in,
I don't want to be anywhere near it.

Speaker 4 (39:02):
It was snowed in, didn't you see the snow?

Speaker 2 (39:04):
Goddamn it.

Speaker 4 (39:05):
That's one of the things I like about this movie
that I remember most is it's got that great old
school Western cinematography. Yeah, but does so in a part
of the country where they let it snow as you
get up into the elevation, and so you know it's
not snowing. You know, it's not a snow a movie,
but you get that plain snow and it's such a

(39:26):
great look and looks so great, and you know we
have it, you know, early on in the movie, and
then at the end, the very end, with that great
final shot, it lets it feel like lived in, in
real and not just another somewhere in the desert.

Speaker 3 (39:44):
Shot by Bruce Sertiz, who was the son of an
Oscar winning DP but was given his first DP gig
by Clint Easwood, his buddy on The Big Guiled, and
then ended up shooting a total of fourteen of Clint's movies.
He also shot Conquest of the Planet of the Apes,
which is my favorite of those movies.

Speaker 2 (40:00):
I shot the outfit and night moves the movie.

Speaker 3 (40:02):
I absolutely fucking adore, fucking take a drink, Big Wednesday,
Beverly Hills, cop and Ladies and Gentlemen.

Speaker 2 (40:09):
The Fabulous Stains.

Speaker 4 (40:11):
You love that movie.

Speaker 2 (40:12):
And he shoots these vistas.

Speaker 3 (40:13):
You're right, they're so mountainous and they're so cold, and
not to go all Robert Frost, but there's a little
bit of a tie in with the snow and the
purity and depth and a lot of the thematic things
that we're dealing with here, so it's not just gorgeous
vistas for the sake of gorgeous vistas. Yeah, and he
shoots the hell out of this movie and I love it.
I also want to shout out Lenny Nihas, who did

(40:36):
the score for this movie, which I think is absolutely lovely,
and it was funny to juxtapose that against the score
for High Planes Drifter, which feels like a sonic attack
on the audience, not dissimilar to you know, what Kubrick's
composer did on The Shining, where it's like there's discordant
voices and instruments sound like the falling downstairs and it's

(40:58):
really like upsetting.

Speaker 2 (41:00):
And this is just like, you know, you got.

Speaker 3 (41:02):
Your your fiddles and your steel guitars, almost like we're
putting a country album together. Like it's just a really
lovely score. And he did fourteen scores for Eastwood, but
not the same fourteen that's her tee shot, which is interesting.
He also did the score for Unforgiving Bridges of Madison
County and Absolute Power, not to mention car Gill. He

(41:23):
did the score for Follow That Bird and Never Too
Young to Mother fucking die.

Speaker 4 (41:28):
Oh nice.

Speaker 3 (41:29):
He is in the Junk Food Cinema Hall of Fame
for sure. And while we're behind the camera here Cargo,
speaking of absolute fucking junk food cinema legends, can we
talk about the writers of this movie?

Speaker 4 (41:44):
Oh? Gee, did they? Did they write one of your
favorite movies of all time?

Speaker 3 (41:48):
I was just sitting there minding my own business. Probably
thirty minutes into the movie. I open up IMDb. Oh,
I'm wondering who wrote this movie. Turns out it was
written by a team of Michael Butler and Dennish uh Shirack,
who wrote The Car. I'm watching a cline Easewood fucking
Western written by the duo behind the Car, and again

(42:13):
letting out a shriek, like this movie. There is no
way in hell I wasn't going to love this movie.

Speaker 4 (42:19):
Yeah no, I mean that's what's That's what surprised me. Like,
when you're like, I'm not into it, I was like,
oh god, yeah, all right, I guess you could not
be into Pale Rider. I guess that could be a
thing that could happen. But but yeah, it turns out
you had just never seen it.

Speaker 3 (42:36):
Yeah, if it if it seems like my shit, and
I'm telling you I don't like it. Instantly question whether
I'm having a Mandela effect moment, because it's probably what's.

Speaker 4 (42:44):
Really do you really want me to go? Wait? Have
you seen it?

Speaker 3 (42:47):
Yeah you can, of course I've seen it. Hey, no,
I'm I won't even get offended. Clearly, I've done this
enough times by now that I can't.

Speaker 2 (42:54):
I can't take.

Speaker 3 (42:55):
Umbradge with that question. It's an absolutely legitimate question to
ask at this point. Okay, and then you can ask
did you stay for the ending? Because these are two
things that I seem to have a problem with when
I watch movies. So these are questions I will never
get upset if you ask. But yeah, it needs to
be just part and parcel with getting ready for episodes
anymore is have you met this movie?

Speaker 2 (43:16):
It needs to be something you ask.

Speaker 4 (43:18):
And by the way, this isn't the first Clint Eastwood
movie that they wrote.

Speaker 2 (43:22):
That is correct.

Speaker 4 (43:23):
They worked on The Gauntlet.

Speaker 3 (43:24):
The Gauntlet him and Sandra Locke very very much in
the action. The action Clint Era.

Speaker 4 (43:30):
A good movie, not never as good as its poster. No, no,
that is one of the greatest posters for a movie
that doesn't live up to its poster of all time
because that poster motherfucker, and the movie's good. It's a
good movie. I'm not gonna shit on on that movie,
but uh, but that poster sells an even better movie.

(43:52):
After these messages, we'll be right back on.

Speaker 5 (43:55):
Drifter came riding out of the west. You know him
as Clint Eastwood. The citizens of Lago didn't know him
at all. Fear was in their greeting, murder was in
their minds.

Speaker 1 (44:14):
You don't want to get shut, don't want your shops
or your house is burned, don't want your women touched.

Speaker 2 (44:21):
You don't want anything to happen.

Speaker 1 (44:24):
Would be afraid to do anything about it.

Speaker 2 (44:32):
This strangers got everybody in this town.

Speaker 1 (44:33):
He got his rug.

Speaker 5 (44:40):
I think Eastwood high planes. Drifter rated R.

Speaker 3 (44:46):
So to this point that yeah, Cooy's heard about. You know,
there's this preacher that's helping the miners. I'm trying to
chase off of here, like I may have to enlist
this marshal that I know named Stockburn to come down
here and finally clear the mouth. Because it turns out
the miners, the individual the uh independent prospectors, they have
the claims legally so the only way that LaHood can

(45:07):
take those claims is if they abandon them. So he's
doing everything he can to get them to leave, and
he's got this corrupt martial named Stockburn who might have
to come in and help. So again we have a
very magnificent seven or high noon plot device here where
ticking clock of this this real bad egg is gonna
come to town at some point, so we got to
watch out for that, and in the meantime, we're just

(45:29):
trying to make our fortune. Now it's at this point
I want to point out that the biggest difference between
Clintie Swood's character, this preacher character here and his character
from something like High Planes Drifter is, like I said,
there's so many moments in this movie where his devotion
is tested, not necessarily his devotion to his religion, but

(45:49):
his devotion to just being a good person. Like you know,
Lohood tries to bribe him, like, hey, come, come be
my preacher in this town. I'll build you a church,
basically like go away from the the prospectors so I
can drive him off. He won't do it. He absolutely
tells me to go fuck himself. And then there's another
point where this young character, Meg, who is almost fifteen
years old.

Speaker 4 (46:10):
Pro which is when her mother got married, which.

Speaker 3 (46:12):
Is when her mother got married, professes her love to Clint.
And I feel like if this was two thousands Clint,
this scene might have gone differently.

Speaker 4 (46:22):
You mean, in the Everybody wants to Pluck Fuck Clint Eastwood.

Speaker 2 (46:25):
Era, I'm talking about ninety year old.

Speaker 4 (46:27):
Clint Eastwood has a threesome with two nineteen year old girls, Cargo.

Speaker 3 (46:31):
I'm just saying there's a precedent for me to be
concerned when I see this scene for the first time.

Speaker 4 (46:35):
I mean, I don't disagree like my when I said
certain elements don't age well. I think the one element
of this movie that doesn't age well is mother and
daughter both throwing themselves at Clint Eastwood. And for the
only reason that now I do like the subtext of it.
You know, they're in a mining town. You know they're
dealing with a good man, but he's you know, he's
not a strong man. And then this strong, silent man,

(46:58):
you know, with a glint in his eye comes to
town and all of a sudden, ladies are a little
who you know, fan yourself, and you get especially why
Megan is like falls for him immediately because not only
does she feel safe around him, but she's a religious person.
She's sitting there reading the Bible to her mom. The

(47:19):
Bible means something to her. She had just you know,
recited from memory, you know, a section of the Bible
in praying over her dead dog. So she definitely has
some religion in her. And then this single preacher comes
to town, and man does he make her feel safe
and like a woman, And all of a sudden she
just decides I love you and yeah, and there's that

(47:42):
great scene where he's like, you know, you know, ma'am,
ninety nine out of one hundred men would take you
up on your offer. And that's a really it's a
really kind thing to say in the moment when you're like,
you're fourteen years old and I'm fifty, so this is
not gonna happen.

Speaker 2 (48:01):
Yeah. It just his his absolute.

Speaker 3 (48:04):
Dedication to the straight and narrow in this movie was
not only refreshing, but I was like flabbergasted by it,
knowing the types of Western, spaghetti Western characters that he
plays and just watching him be like, no, I am
absolutely you know again, truth justice, the American way I'm
going to not only like reject her, but like politely
and sweetly and tell her, you know, somebody's gonna come

(48:25):
along for you, and like really like trying to guide
her towards the right decision. And I was really taken
aback by that, because again, there are eight movies in
which eighty year old Clinice Wood would make a different choice.

Speaker 2 (48:37):
So I do appreciate that. I also want to talk
for just a second.

Speaker 3 (48:41):
I know Clinice would have said in the past that
he makes his films a politically, like I know what
Clint Eastwood's politics are, but in terms of his movies,
he always says that he doesn't give any thought to
the message or the social subtext. But it does strike
me how staunchly anti capitalist the Western genre inherently is.

Speaker 4 (49:02):
Well, yeah, because the whole idea of you know, the
core of most Western antagonists isn't a killer comes to
town and just starts killing people. It's all about the
guy you can't fight, you know, you can't fight city hall.
You know, it's the guy who owns the town and
owns the sheriff, and you know, and yeah, and how

(49:23):
bad capitalism was at that time, and it feels so
relevant today, you know exactly where we are at this
moment where it's a discussion on what manhood really is
while also being a movie about you know, the tycoons
coming and ruining things. You know, we literally have that
going on with Texas with a certain spacefaring gentleman who

(49:48):
is ruining the town of Brownsville right now, and Brownsville's
trying to fight back and instead he's going off to
off to Washington to go ahead and be regular relate
the hell out of his own industry, so nobody gets
in his way, and how do you stop that guy?

Speaker 3 (50:05):
Do you ever think about how much better it would
be for Texas if Marvin the Martian landed here instead
of Elon Musk.

Speaker 4 (50:09):
Like and just hit us with his pre.

Speaker 3 (50:14):
Yeah, I'd be so much happier with someone just claiming
Texas for Mars.

Speaker 2 (50:17):
I'd be fine with that.

Speaker 4 (50:19):
I mean, yeah, occupy Texas.

Speaker 3 (50:22):
Instead of trying to take Texas to Mars. I just
wish Mars would come here, I guess, is what I'm
trying to say.

Speaker 4 (50:27):
But so it did hit me as particularly relevant at
the moment that this is very much you know, what
we're going through right now you know, he made this
movie in the era of deregulation. You know, one of
the big things is, you know, when when our tycoon
gets back to town, he's like, oh, hey, this city's great,

(50:49):
YadA YadA, and then he hears from his men how
things are going and things aren't going bad, and so
they change the subject and said, well, did what happened
in Sacramento? Do you get Sacramento? Is no use that
they're all worthless?

Speaker 2 (51:02):
There?

Speaker 4 (51:03):
Like, he completely changes tune because it turns out he
was hoping that the problem was solved when he got back,
and it wasn't because he wasn't able to solve it.
And so it's starting to come to a head that
he really can't get them out legally, and so he's
going to have to do it illegally. And then the
wrong man wandered into town, and that's going to make
things complicated.

Speaker 3 (51:24):
The villains so often are greedy businessmen or landowners trying
to take everything like a real zero sum type of entrepreneur.

Speaker 2 (51:32):
Right, And who are the put upon? Who are the victims?
It's the homesteaders.

Speaker 3 (51:37):
It's the folks literally just trying to carve out their
little spot and be left alone.

Speaker 4 (51:41):
Not afraid of a hard day's work, not asking for
anything more than they've already paid for, you know, just good, honest,
decent living, and the billionaires won't let you have.

Speaker 2 (51:53):
And that's not just this movie. That's not movies.

Speaker 3 (51:56):
That's not westerns in eighty five, that's not just westerns
currently made. That's not just westerns in the fifties. Like
literally since the inception of the genre, westerns have positioned
industry as being antithetical to the American dream, which is
fascinating to be. Like, look at the Magnificent Seven remake.
The greedy mining and railroad magnate played by Peter Sarsgard

(52:18):
multiple times in that movie.

Speaker 2 (52:20):
States allowed his contempt for homesteaders. Did you hire renegade
Grays Pillage stew Land in Kansas?

Speaker 5 (52:31):
Homesteaders? Good people gotta make a life for themselves, like
these people here. God didn't want him shared, he wouldn't
have made him sheep.

Speaker 4 (52:43):
It's something everyone can appreciate. And one of the great
things about the Western is that pretty much, you know,
the capitalist doesn't make it out alive.

Speaker 3 (52:52):
Yeah, And this movie goes so far as to insinuate
that God has represented by his vengeful agent Clint. He
is aligned with the homesteaders, which says even more about
how the genre us capitalism. Yep, like exactly, greed is
not a wrongheaded indulgence. It's downright sinful and like that's
how this movie positions it, which is why having this

(53:14):
character be so much on the straight and narrow, so
much so that he has to basically be pushed by
the villains into going into town, going to Wells Fargo,
to his safe deposit box and getting his guns. He
had proven himself so formidable and so dangerous without a
weapon that they finally pushed him far enough that he

(53:37):
had to go take his guns out of out of
fucking hawk and put them back on. And from that
point forward, he's like the movie escalates that much more.

Speaker 4 (53:47):
And that's because the bad guys have called in John Russell.

Speaker 3 (53:52):
Oh Marshall Stockburn, John Russell, classic arrow Western actor. He's
been like literally in Western since that was a thing.
The guy looks like he was carved out of a
redwood tree growing in John Ford's ranch, right yeah, Like,
and his voice sounds like Tom Mix poured it out
of a buffalo hide flask.

Speaker 2 (54:12):
Like he is indelible to this genre.

Speaker 4 (54:15):
He is, and he rolls into town with his six
stunt men. Dude, one of them, one of them Billy
Eugene Burrows aka the legendary Billy Drago.

Speaker 3 (54:27):
Billy Drago from the at Touchables, from Vamp, from a
hundred other things. Dude, this army of identically clad silent
deputies is straight up comic book fair and I'm fucking
here for it.

Speaker 4 (54:40):
And that leads us to one of Cargill's favorite tropes.
Oh yeah, Oh, I wrote action cinema.

Speaker 2 (54:46):
I wrote it down.

Speaker 3 (54:46):
Our particular flavor of cinemata catnip, a band of villain
systematically hunted down by the hero.

Speaker 4 (54:52):
When we shift perspective from our protagonist and our protagonist
becomes the serial killer.

Speaker 3 (55:00):
Trapped in here with you, You're trapped in here with me.
And to hear in this case is an entire fucking town.

Speaker 4 (55:06):
And by entire town, it's like seven buildings. And yet
he has it down enough that because he walks, he
walks in here, they're all inside. He walks out, he
puts his hat on the ground, and then he meanders
off and they go out after him, and one by one,
Clint Eastwood systematically kills them all until he walks out,

(55:28):
picks his hat up again, and we get the final
showed out.

Speaker 3 (55:31):
Billy Drago's death, by the way, I chie wah wah.

Speaker 4 (55:35):
Yes, it's so good, like it's one of those, it's
just one of those. This is how clever our hero
is and uh and it's such a it's such a
good death.

Speaker 3 (55:46):
Like think about the juxtaposition though, just watching this and
then watching Unforgiven, where Billy Drago looks down into a
horse trough Clint he's what is lying next to the
horstrop puts the gun up right under his jaw and fires.

Speaker 2 (56:00):
There is not a drop of blood.

Speaker 4 (56:02):
You're not missing that jaw. Let's be honest here, that's
true Billy Vego's jawn. That's a you couldn't hit the
broad side of Billy Drago's jaw.

Speaker 2 (56:11):
Yeah, the only jaw easier to hit is Robert Zadar.

Speaker 4 (56:14):
Exactly like that man went was the definition of strong
John But yeah, not a not a line of dialogue.
But but he has a few moments of screen time
that are absolutely magical.

Speaker 2 (56:27):
But there's no blood even in that horrific kill, whereas
like Unforgiven, you shoot someone in the arm. They bleed
out slowly and cry for their mother the entire time.
Like he really is fucking saying something about the Western
and how he romanticized violence through that jet, Like Glynn
is so much to fucking say in that movie, and
I absolutely love it. But here we're just we're going
through that that that wheelhouse, that cargo that I have

(56:49):
where the hero starts to hunt down the bad guys,
and it's at this point I feel like we need
to talk about this theory. Cargo. Is Clint a ghost
in this movie? No, you don't think he's a ghost.

Speaker 4 (57:02):
I do not think he's a ghost.

Speaker 3 (57:03):
Okay, so that's your position. Here's the evidence. I'll just
lay it out on the table.

Speaker 4 (57:07):
Let's do it.

Speaker 3 (57:08):
Early in the movie, when Clint Eastwood takes his well,
first of all, he appears to have been summoned by
a little girl's prayer, so that's people's exhibit A. And
then later when he takes his shirt off, Michael MORI
already notice he's got bullet scars all up and down
his back. So he's clearly been in a gun fight.
Circle in a circle. He's been shot several times. Of course,
the multiple Pale Horse Bible references the fact that Stockburn

(57:31):
knows him but says it can't be the guy I know,
because that guy is dead. There's another little little hint, right,
And then it's at this point in this showdown where
he's hunting all of the bad guys. Right, there's a
moment where he goes into this saloon and he's sitting
at a table by himself, and all the guys come
in and they're standing right behind him, and then they

(57:54):
open fire and they just keep firing.

Speaker 4 (57:57):
No, they never see him. They see him through the
wind and then they jump through an open fire. He
wasn't still sitting there.

Speaker 2 (58:04):
I'm just saying, you take all these things together.

Speaker 3 (58:07):
You take the fact that at one point, at one point,
you know, he's been called out by by Stockburn, he
kills this poor prospector who found a giant nugget of
gold and is mouthing off, and he, like Stockburn and
his deputies make him dance to the bullets and then
just they fucking annihilate this guy.

Speaker 2 (58:24):
Right.

Speaker 3 (58:25):
His kids say they shot him forever, They hit him
with bullets forever. It's like a really heartbreaking scene. So
it's at this point he's been called out. As he's
in the mining camp, he keeps hearing this voice that
says Preacher over and over and over again, and he says,
it's a voice from my past. Like there's there's so
much about this relationship that screams something supernatural that I

(58:50):
I feel like I buy into the theory that Preacher
is some kind of wraith.

Speaker 2 (58:56):
But you, you, you take the opposite position.

Speaker 4 (58:58):
I do do. I think in terms of his human interactions,
there's nothing divine about him. You know, he never does
anything particularly supernatural, and he has all the earmarks of
somebody who was shot and left for dead and is
now on his own trying to find a place in

(59:20):
the world. And then when he hears about a very
particular character, that person's coming and he goes and gets
the physical he goes to a place that is not
in town to get his guns. So everything about it
to me reads as it is a physical He is

(59:41):
a physical, tangible man who merely died but didn't die.
And in true, you know, a man with no name fashion,
you know, one of the things I love about the
whole concept of the man with no name isn't just
that well, nobody ever says his name. The idea is
that they might not all be the same guy. Maybe

(01:00:02):
they're the same guy, but they're probably not. They're just
that mysterious stranger that came into town that people whisper
legends about, and they're all kind of rolled into this
one dude the way that a lot of myths collect.
And that's what I I why I feel this is
kind of a you know, secret man with no name.
Is it the actual man with no name or is
it just another man with no name that we speak

(01:00:24):
legends about and we tell the myths of that preacher
that rolled into town that nobody knows his name, that
killed eleven men in one day.

Speaker 2 (01:00:33):
Yeah, I feel like my read on this movie.

Speaker 3 (01:00:37):
Is that this is a character that did what was murdered,
that has crossed into some sort of limbo and the
only way for him to fully cross over is to
basically basically do enough good that he's finally allowed entrance,

(01:00:57):
which is why in this mission that he has to
protect these prospectors, he is really like he's avoiding the bribes,
he's avoiding the sexual events of the year. He's really
trying to maintain this high level of good and altruism,
because that's the thing that's finally going to allow him
to ascend. And honestly, what I find interesting about the

(01:01:18):
credits of this movie is we watch him right off
into the mountains, and then they're just showing us mountains.

Speaker 2 (01:01:24):
He's long gone and we're just looking at these mountains.

Speaker 3 (01:01:27):
Which I think is a very old testament sort of
metaphor for ascending to heaven. So I don't know, I
feel like you could read it either way. For me,
it's far more interesting to look at this as the
counterweight to something like High Planes Drifter, where it's somebody
who's been given a second chance but isn't here to

(01:01:48):
avenge their own death or get some kind of satisfaction.
Because Clint Eastmann doesn't even know that this marshal is
going to be there until dice Heart talks about him.
So this is not a person Vendeta quest. This is
I have read in my ledger, you know, in terms
of my my life, my life moral balance, that I
need to make sure that I wipe clean before I'm

(01:02:11):
allowed to ascend. So my my charge is to protect
these prospectors. I'm going to complete this mission and then
I get to ascend. I think it's just a really
interesting read of the movie, and there is some evidence
to support it. But yeah, obviously it works either way,
but that's just the way I prefer to read it.

Speaker 4 (01:02:27):
And and hey, it's by the writers of the Car,
so maybe.

Speaker 3 (01:02:32):
You want to talk about supernatural shit coming back after
it's dead. He could have either coming back as a
preacher or he could have come back as a buick.
Like there's that's that's basically the two options he had.
Either one would have worked for me. That's all I'm
gonna say, because then it's pale writer writing in the car.
Come on, it's a white buick, guys. Yeah, figure it out,
Star Grove, Star Grope. I fucking adore this movie, absolutely

(01:02:57):
fucking I watched it twice, Like after I watched it
the first I'm realized it was not High Planes Drifter.
Then I watched it, I watched Unforgiven again, then I
watched this again, then I rewatched High Planes Drifter, and
High Planes Drifter is still a movie doesn't work for me,
but I don't dislike it as much as I did
the first viewing. It still doesn't work for me because
it's a little too ugly for my taste. But I'm

(01:03:19):
glad that I've kind of like immersed myself in all
of this now. And I'm really happy to add this
to my film discoveries of the Year because I think
it's an absolutely amazing, beautiful, wonderful film that has a
lot to say, works a lot against type, has a
lot of interesting pivots, and yet at the end of
the day, delivers all of the satisfying trappings that we

(01:03:42):
expect from a Western.

Speaker 4 (01:03:44):
Yeah, and we got this and Silverado in the same year, crazy,
isn't it Yep? And I saw them both when they
came out, like this was this was my ten year
old me's introduction to the modern Western, and it really
really fucking worked for me.

Speaker 3 (01:04:03):
And not to belabor the point, but I love that
we get no further information about who Klant was, who
this preacher was, where it came from. What the reason
we're having to have this, you know, metaphorical discussion right now,
Cargill is because the movie is not spoon feeding us shit.

Speaker 4 (01:04:17):
No, No, I appreciate that. Like I said, like the
last week's movie, Silverado, brilliantly constructed, where everyone has a
backstory and you know, everyone's story. Here is a movie
where you know everyone's story without them telling you and
like that great. Like I said, when we get to
that final shootout and he is eye to eye with

(01:04:38):
the marshal that it's come and hunting him, and he
just he just goes you. Yeah, And that's all you
need to know. It is him. It is the legend
that he is following that he thought was dead. And uh,
and that's all you need to know. That they've got
history and that history ends brutally.

Speaker 2 (01:04:57):
It's so good.

Speaker 3 (01:04:58):
I highly recommend if you haven't seen it, or if
you think you've seen it but you've actually seen a
different movie, definitely jump on the pale Rider train because
there's so much to love about this movie.

Speaker 4 (01:05:07):
Yeah, yeah, it's It's a great one.

Speaker 1 (01:05:11):
And that's his feet. They'll cash the golden crowned. The
man comes well.

Speaker 2 (01:05:21):
And that brings us to the junk food pairing in
this week, Cargill.

Speaker 3 (01:05:23):
Because of all the prospecting going on in this movie,
I decided to go with a big bowl of Hershey's
nuggets and mister Goodbars, how about.

Speaker 5 (01:05:30):
A reward for not compromising nuggets from Hershey.

Speaker 3 (01:05:33):
Really feel like you're digging for gold as you well,
that's probably not the greatest way to phrase it, but
the Hershey's nuggets were always a favorite of mine. They're
just kind of bigger, thicker versions of the especially the
ones with almonds, but just kind of in bite size form.
And then mister goodbar, I feel a very underrated candy
bar and one that literally looks like a bar of

(01:05:54):
gold in the miniature package format.

Speaker 4 (01:05:57):
I would go with a nice chicken frickacy, chicken fricacy.
That's an awful, good looking fricacy there, ma'am. And uh yeah,
there's a pivotal scene around a nice what assume is
a chicken fricacy, because that is typically what eat fricacy,
But a good chicken fricacy's delicious. In fact, chicken fricacy

(01:06:19):
the favorite meal of one of our presidents, Abraham Lincoln.

Speaker 2 (01:06:24):
Well, there you have it. Absolutely loved the.

Speaker 4 (01:06:26):
Good chicken fricacy, and as do I. I love a
good chicken fricacy, and this movie and chicken fricacy would
pair well.

Speaker 3 (01:06:33):
Togain, have a chicken fricacy for dinner and for dessert,
have yourself some Hershey's nuggets and feel like you just
struck gold.

Speaker 6 (01:06:39):
One of life's little rewards.

Speaker 3 (01:06:41):
Thank you so much for joining us for this Pale
Rider episode as we pail ride off into the sunset.
You can always find Junk Food Cinema on your favorite
podcastcher that's eleven years worth of shows, so good, goddamn.
You can pay in for some gold there as well.
You can follow us on social media at Junk Food Cinema.
And if you really like.

Speaker 4 (01:06:57):
The show, I mean you really like the show, you.

Speaker 3 (01:07:00):
Like it as much as I am not giving up
on this Clinteatwood Ninja Turtles movie, you can go to
Patreon dot com slash Jungfit Cinema and help financially support
the show. We greatly appreciate that. Cargill, where can people
find you on the interwebs?

Speaker 4 (01:07:11):
You can find me on Blue Sky at Sea Robertcargil
dot Blue Sky at Social You find my latest movie,
The Gorge streaming on Apple Plus. You can find the
pre order for my latest book, All the Ash We
Leave Behind over on Subterranean Press. If you're more of
a listener than a reader, I've got some news coming up,
but it looks like we're going to have an audio
edition of that that you can pick up and yeah,

(01:07:33):
and you can find me in the back catalog, hiding
amidst the dust and references to the boyfriend School.

Speaker 3 (01:07:39):
Oh Jesus Christ, So Cargil is all the ash we
leave behind just about that time you had to be
torn away from your night of drinking with Bruce Campbell.

Speaker 4 (01:07:48):
No, it's another sea of rust.

Speaker 2 (01:07:50):
Book, got it?

Speaker 3 (01:07:51):
Okay, Well, if you ever decide to write that other book,
let me know. Yeah, we're gonna get out of here, guys.
Just remember, there's plain few problems that can't be solved
with a little sweat and hard work. That's how I
know I'll eventually get to every film on my letterbox
watch list.

Speaker 1 (01:08:11):
And I heard a voice in the midst of the
four beasts, and I looked and behold a pale horse,
And his name that sat on him was Death, and
Hell followed with him.