The year was 1973. Having starred in well over 150 films at this point (acquiring both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe), 66-year-old iconic Hollywood star John Wayne was well into the process of slowing down his usual acting regimen. He had only two films coming out that year, both being Westerns: The Train Robbers (to be released in February) and Cahill U.S. Marshal (due later in July). As Wayne has become synonymous with that type of genre, it doesn’t come as a surprise that he would keep his eyes peeled for any and all films related to the same gun-slinging, justice-keeping theme. Some even say he was a cowboy through and through, presenting a masculine but honorable bravado on and off the set. Suffice it to say, this bold personality came charging through when a certain up-and-coming actor was attempting to change the landscape of American Westerns forever.
Just in between John Wayne’s two films of that year, 43-year-old Clint Eastwood was set to release his second directorial work, High Plains Drifter. Influenced by some of the filmmakers who he has worked with in the past, such as Sergio Leone and Don Siegel (The Dollars Trilogy and Dirty Harry were some of their hit titles), Eastwood attempted to create his own form of a mysterious but gruff looking protagonist in this movie with The Stranger. Appearing at first as a drifter into the town of Lago, Clint Eastwood’s character is quickly roped in as being the savior for the citizens against the incoming Stacey Bridges and Carlin brothers. Unlike other traditional Westerns, though, it’s hard to root for the protagonist in this ’70s revisionist flick. John Wayne didn’t root for him, or the movie, either.
John Wayne Disapproved of the Revisionist Western
He degrades women both vocally and physically (which can be triggering for some in this day and age), torments the townspeople while preparing for the inevitable showdown, and seems full of otherworldly anger. Just like that, he rides into town — seemingly only filling a certain need, not caring what happens in the process — and then leaves right back into the haze of the mountainous heat. As you can probably tell already (if you haven’t watched High Plains Drifter), there are plenty of reasons why John Wayne didn’t like this movie. But in a surprising move, Wayne let his distaste be heard by sending a letter directly to Clint Eastwood.
Coming right off the mild reception to his 1972 film titled The Cowboys (which some deemed a conservative spiel about the Vietnam War), John Wayne was actually invited by Clint Eastwood to work together on a future project. The Duke had other plans. The rejection was not a total surprise, as John Wayne was not one to star in features inspired by Leone or Siegel-like films (that is, spaghetti westerns or gritty cop ventures), but his actual response to Eastwood was something else entirely. He specifically made it a point to include his hearty disapproval towards High Plains Drifter. Recounting the letter to film critic Kenneth Turan from within the pages of Mary Lea Bandy and Kevin Stoehr’s book Ride, Boldly Ride: The Evolution of the American Western, Eastwood reads Wayne’s specific line from the letter that targeted his 1973 movie:
That isn’t what the West was all about. That isn’t the American people who settled this country.
The Stranger vs John Wayne
As you can see, the True Grit leading man was quite irate. In some way, Wayne was right, though. High Plains Drifter isn’t parallel to the lives and times of Western settlers, and Eastwood’s portrayal of The Stranger is not on the same line as all of Wayne’s heroic characters. But that doesn’t make it a bad movie, either. While he never actually sat down and responded to the letter with any writing of his own, Eastwood had a lot to say to Turan when faced with this high-level criticism. He says it was never meant to be a first-hand account of the hard-working souls who expanded that side of America — better yet, it had nothing to do with the hard times of living in the wild, wild west.
“High Plains Drifter was meant to be a fable: it wasn’t meant to show the hours of pioneering drudgery”.
The then 62-year-old Drifter actor (the interview with Turan took place in 1992 for the Los Angeles Times) also proclaimed that there was a realization to be made here. He and Wayne come from two different generations with different ideals of cinematic needs. In most (if not all of) John Wayne’s films, he plays an upstanding citizen who never crosses any sort of line in the sand. This unwavering trait of his doesn’t have to be assumed either — this also came to a head on the set of 1976’s The Shootist.
Clint Eastwood’s Outlook on Character Work
John Wayne fought with director Don Siegel about his character shooting another man in the back (even though the man he plays does so in the original novel from which the movie is adapted). On the other hand, Clint Eastwood has no problem playing a protagonist with an inner dilemma separate from the issue presented in the story.
“I’ve always liked heroes that’ve had some sort of weakness or problems to overcome besides the problem of the immediate script. That always keeps it much more interesting than doing it the conventional way.”
Even though John Wayne tried to redirect Clint Eastwood away from what seemed to be his most favorable type of character to play, both actors never suffered any stain on their legacy from this little tit-for-tat. Eastwood went on to act and direct in 40 more films (four of those being in the Dirty Harry series, in which John Wayne refused the leading role), and John Wayne himself will live on as one of America’s most stand-up guys (in Hollywood and the real world). As for the movie that started all of this, High Plains Drifter is available to rent on YouTube, Prime Video, and Google Play.