FAQ

Lago is a mining town, so presumably the stores are making money selling things to the miners. That being said, we never see any miners. From a moviemaker's point of view, they're not necessary to drive the plot. Clint Eastwood brought the movie in on time and under budget, so he must have concentrated on the town's businessmen and a few choice townspeople to tell the story efficiently.

If it helps from the viewpoint of telling the story, keep in mind that most of the scenes were shot in daylight. Think of the miners as working in the mines and therefore unseen during the day.

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It was actually "Four-Bit Fancy House". Basically it is a brothel where the prositutes cost $.50.

A stranger (Clint Eastwood) rides his horse out of the hot undulating waves of the desert and into the mining town of Lago and asks for a beer, a bath, a shave, and a haircut. After being shot at by the town's three hired gunmen, the stranger shoots all three and then asks for a room for the night. Because of the stranger's expertise with a gun, the town votes to hire him at any cost to protect Lago from three outlaws—Stacey Bridges (Geoffrey Lewis), Bill Borders (Scott Walker), and Cole Carlin (Anthony James)—who have just been released from jail after they brutally whipped to death Lago's previous Marshal Jim Duncan (Buddy Van Horn) and who are believed to be on their way back to Lago.

American screenwriter Ernest Tidyman wrote the screenplay for High Plains Drifter and followed it up with a 1973 novelization of the film.

One gravestone shown in the intro is dated to 1882, so this movie most likely takes place in the mid-1880s.

After having the townfolk paint the entire town red, rename it "Hell", and set up a picnic and welcoming banner for the outlaws' return, the Stranger rides out of town, leaving them to fight their own battle against the three outlaws that brutally whipped Duncan to death while the townies stood and watched. As night falls and the town burns, it looks like the outlaws are getting the better hand. The Stranger suddenly returns and kills the outlaws one by one, whipping Cole to death, hanging Dan with another whip, and shooting Stacey. The Stranger is almost shot by Lewis Belding (Ted Hartley), but Mordecai (Billy Curtis) shoots Belding first. The next morning, as the Stranger rides out of town, he passes Mordecai carving a fresh grave marker. Mordecai says, "I never did know your name," to which the Stranger replies, "Yes, you do." The camera then reveals the name on the grave marker to read "Marshall Jim Duncan, Rest In Peace." In the final scene, the Stranger rides his horse out of town into the hot undulating waves of the desert and disappears.

It appears to have been cut at around 45 minutes into the film, when someone yells, "What the ... you doin' to my father's house?" This is even true for the DVD version. A film version broadcast on the Sundance Channel in 2020 has a few words noticeably cut out.