High Plains Drifter
Encyclopedia
High Plains Drifter is a 1973 American Western
film, with a hint of the supernatural
, directed by and starring Clint Eastwood
and produced by Robert Daley
for The Malpaso Company
and Universal Pictures
. Eastwood plays a mysterious gunfighter hired by the residents of a corrupt frontier
mining town to defend them against a group of criminals. The film was influenced by the work of Eastwood's two major collaborators Sergio Leone
and Don Siegel
.
The film was shot on location on the shores of Mono Lake
, California
. The screenplay was written by Ernest Tidyman
and an uncredited Dean Riesner
. Tidyman wrote the novelization. Dee Barton
provided the film's eerie musical score. The film was critically acclaimed at the time of its initial release and still is, holding a score of 96% on Rotten Tomatoes
.
As the film begins, the Stranger rides into the fictional mining town of Lago, in a setting similar to the Arizona territory
. Three gun-toting men follow him into the saloon and then the barber
shop, taunting and ridiculing him, but when one of them swivels him around in the barber's chair, he shoots all three of them dead. Impressed with this performance, a dwarf
named Mordecai befriends the Stranger. Then an attractive townswoman named Callie Travers bumps into him in the street and insults and badgers him. When she slaps him, he drags her into the livery stable and rapes her. Next, he rents a room at the hotel
. When he lies down to sleep, he remembers a scene in which a man is brutally whipped. It is revealed later that Marshal Jim Duncan was whipped to death by gunfighters Stacey Bridges, Dan Carlin, and Cole Carlin while the people of Lago looked on. Only Sarah Belding, wife of hotelier Lewis Belding, made any attempt to rescue Marshal Duncan.
The next day, Sheriff
Shaw tells the stranger he will not be charged
for killing the three men. Meanwhile, the townsmen discuss Bridges and the Carlin brothers, who are due to be released from prison that day. The town double-crossed the three gunfighters after they killed Duncan, who had discovered that the Lago Mining Company was operating on government land, and the men are expected to seek vengeance against the town. Since the men slain by the Stranger were the mining
company's new protectors, the townsmen decide to hire the Stranger as their replacement.
Presenting the job offer to the Stranger, Shaw explains that the three gunfighters were caught stealing gold from the mining company, although he admits the gold was poorly protected, suggesting that the company's managers may have entrapped
the men. The Stranger declines the job until Shaw tells him he can have anything he wants. Accepting these terms, the Stranger indulges in the town's products and services, makes Mordecai both sheriff and mayor, has the entire town painted red, and paints the word "HELL" on the "LAGO" sign just outside of town.
While the Stranger trains the townspeople to defend themselves, Bridges and the Carlin brothers are released from prison and make their way to Lago. They begin on foot but kill three other men on the way and take their horses.
At this point, the townsmen begin quarreling about the Stranger. A group of men try to kill him, but he escapes and kills most of them. After Belding inadvertently divulges his complicity in the attack, the Stranger drags Belding's wife into the Beldings's room and she has sex with him willingly.
In the morning, the Stranger rides out and finds the gunfighters, has a brief shootout with them, and returns to Lago. With the town painted red, townsmen with rifles stationed on rooftops, and a picnic and welcoming banner set up for the gunfighters, the Stranger mounts his horse and rides out the back end of town. When the gunfighters arrive, they encounter almost no resistance at all, and by nightfall they have the townspeople collected in the saloon with the rest of the town in flames. However, the Stranger kills the gunfighters one by one, whipping and strangling Cole Carlin, hanging Dan Carlin with a bullwhip, and gunning down Bridges. In the only act of courage taken by any of the townspeople, Mordecai shoots Belding dead after Belding points his shotgun at the Stranger's back attempting to kill him.
The next day, the Stranger rides out of the ruined town as Mordecai carves a headstone for Duncan's grave.
Under a joint production between Malpaso and Universal, the script was created by Ernest Tidyman
, an acclaimed writer who had won an Oscar for Best Screenplay for The French Connection
. Holes in the plot were filled in with black humor and allegory
, influenced by Sergio Leone.
Eastwood scouted locations for filming in a pickup truck while driving alone through Oregon, Nevada, and California. He had an entire town built on the shores of Mono Lake
for the project, as he considered the area "highly photogenic". Over 40 technicians and 10 construction workers built the town in 18 days using 150,000 feet of timber. Additional scenes were filmed at Reno, Nevada
's Winnemucca Lake
and California's Inyo National Forest
. Eastwood filmed High Plains Drifter in sequence. Filming was completed in only six weeks.
Eastwood has noted that the graveyard set featured in the film's finale had tombstones reading "Sergio Leone
" and "Don Siegel
," intended as a humorous tribute to the two directors. The character of Marshal Duncan was played by stuntman Buddy Van Horn
, a long-time stunt coordinator for Clint Eastwood, in order to create some ambiguity as to whether he and the Stranger are one and the same. During an interview on Inside the Actors Studio
, Eastwood commented that earlier versions of the script made the Stranger the dead marshal's brother. He favored a less explicit and more supernatural interpretation, however, and excised the reference , although the Italian
, Spanish
, French
and German
dubbings
restore it.
was offered a role in the film and was sent the script, but replied to Eastwood some weeks after the film was released, expressing disapproval, saying that "the townspeople did not represent the true spirit of the American pioneer, the spirit that made America great". The revisionist film received a mixed reception from critics but was a major box office success. A number of critics thought Eastwood's directing was as derivative as it was expressive with Arthur Knight
in Saturday Review remarking that Eastwood had "absorbed the approaches of Siegel and Leone and fused them with his own paranoid vision of society". Jon Landau
of Rolling Stone
concurred, remarking that it is his thematic shallowness and verbal archness which is where the film fell apart, yet he expressed approval of the dramatic scenery and cinematography.
Eastwood reflected on the film's meaning, indicating "it's just an allegory...a speculation on what happens when they go ahead and kill the sheriff and somebody comes back and calls the town's conscience to bear. There's always retribution for your deeds."
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
film, with a hint of the supernatural
Supernatural
The supernatural or is that which is not subject to the laws of nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature...
, directed by and starring Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood
Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. is an American film actor, director, producer, composer and politician. Eastwood first came to prominence as a supporting cast member in the TV series Rawhide...
and produced by Robert Daley
Robert Daley
Robert Daley , is an American novelist. He is the author of 28 books, five of which have been adapted for film.Daley graduated from Fordham University in 1951 and served in the Air Force during the Korean War...
for The Malpaso Company
Malpaso Productions
Malpaso Productions, originally known as The Malpaso Company, is Clint Eastwood's production company. It was established in 1967 by Eastwood's financial adviser Irving Leonard for the film Hang 'Em High, using finances from the Dollars trilogy...
and Universal Pictures
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
. Eastwood plays a mysterious gunfighter hired by the residents of a corrupt frontier
American Old West
The American Old West, or the Wild West, comprises the history, geography, people, lore, and cultural expression of life in the Western United States, most often referring to the latter half of the 19th century, between the American Civil War and the end of the century...
mining town to defend them against a group of criminals. The film was influenced by the work of Eastwood's two major collaborators Sergio Leone
Sergio Leone
Sergio Leone was an Italian film director, producer and screenwriter most associated with the "Spaghetti Western" genre.Leone's film-making style includes juxtaposing extreme close-up shots with lengthy long shots...
and Don Siegel
Don Siegel
Donald Siegel was an influential American film director and producer. His name variously appeared in the credits of his films as both Don Siegel and Donald Siegel.-Early life:...
.
The film was shot on location on the shores of Mono Lake
Mono Lake
Mono Lake is a large, shallow saline lake in Mono County, California, formed at least 760,000 years ago as a terminal lake in a basin that has no outlet to the ocean...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. The screenplay was written by Ernest Tidyman
Ernest Tidyman
Ernest Tidyman was a Cleveland-born American author and screenwriter, best known for his novels featuring the African-American detective John Shaft. He also co-wrote the screenplay for the film version of Shaft with John D.F...
and an uncredited Dean Riesner
Dean Riesner
Dean Riesner was a prolific American film and television writer.Riesner's father was a silent film director, and Dean began acting in films at the age of five. His career at this young age ended because his mother wanted her son to have a real childhood...
. Tidyman wrote the novelization. Dee Barton
Dee Barton
Dee Barton was an American film score composer noted for his horror-esque style of composing in action thriller films...
provided the film's eerie musical score. The film was critically acclaimed at the time of its initial release and still is, holding a score of 96% on Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
.
Plot
The story depicts the efforts of a small mining town to defend itself against a group of rogue gunfighters with the help of a mysterious outsider, referred to as the Stranger. The town reveals its timidity and corruption when they hire the Stranger to protect them.As the film begins, the Stranger rides into the fictional mining town of Lago, in a setting similar to the Arizona territory
Arizona Territory
The Territory of Arizona was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from February 24, 1863 until February 14, 1912, when it was admitted to the Union as the 48th state....
. Three gun-toting men follow him into the saloon and then the barber
Barber
A barber is someone whose occupation is to cut any type of hair, and to shave or trim the beards of men. The place of work of a barber is generally called a barbershop....
shop, taunting and ridiculing him, but when one of them swivels him around in the barber's chair, he shoots all three of them dead. Impressed with this performance, a dwarf
Dwarfism
Dwarfism is short stature resulting from a medical condition. It is sometimes defined as an adult height of less than 4 feet 10 inches , although this definition is problematic because short stature in itself is not a disorder....
named Mordecai befriends the Stranger. Then an attractive townswoman named Callie Travers bumps into him in the street and insults and badgers him. When she slaps him, he drags her into the livery stable and rapes her. Next, he rents a room at the hotel
Hotel
A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. The provision of basic accommodation, in times past, consisting only of a room with a bed, a cupboard, a small table and a washstand has largely been replaced by rooms with modern facilities, including en-suite bathrooms...
. When he lies down to sleep, he remembers a scene in which a man is brutally whipped. It is revealed later that Marshal Jim Duncan was whipped to death by gunfighters Stacey Bridges, Dan Carlin, and Cole Carlin while the people of Lago looked on. Only Sarah Belding, wife of hotelier Lewis Belding, made any attempt to rescue Marshal Duncan.
The next day, Sheriff
Sheriff
A sheriff is in principle a legal official with responsibility for a county. In practice, the specific combination of legal, political, and ceremonial duties of a sheriff varies greatly from country to country....
Shaw tells the stranger he will not be charged
Indictment
An indictment , in the common-law legal system, is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that maintain the concept of felonies, the serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that lack the concept of felonies often use that of an indictable offence—an...
for killing the three men. Meanwhile, the townsmen discuss Bridges and the Carlin brothers, who are due to be released from prison that day. The town double-crossed the three gunfighters after they killed Duncan, who had discovered that the Lago Mining Company was operating on government land, and the men are expected to seek vengeance against the town. Since the men slain by the Stranger were the mining
Mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...
company's new protectors, the townsmen decide to hire the Stranger as their replacement.
Presenting the job offer to the Stranger, Shaw explains that the three gunfighters were caught stealing gold from the mining company, although he admits the gold was poorly protected, suggesting that the company's managers may have entrapped
Entrapment
In criminal law, entrapment is conduct by a law enforcement agent inducing a person to commit an offense that the person would otherwise have been unlikely to commit. In many jurisdictions, entrapment is a possible defense against criminal liability...
the men. The Stranger declines the job until Shaw tells him he can have anything he wants. Accepting these terms, the Stranger indulges in the town's products and services, makes Mordecai both sheriff and mayor, has the entire town painted red, and paints the word "HELL" on the "LAGO" sign just outside of town.
While the Stranger trains the townspeople to defend themselves, Bridges and the Carlin brothers are released from prison and make their way to Lago. They begin on foot but kill three other men on the way and take their horses.
At this point, the townsmen begin quarreling about the Stranger. A group of men try to kill him, but he escapes and kills most of them. After Belding inadvertently divulges his complicity in the attack, the Stranger drags Belding's wife into the Beldings's room and she has sex with him willingly.
In the morning, the Stranger rides out and finds the gunfighters, has a brief shootout with them, and returns to Lago. With the town painted red, townsmen with rifles stationed on rooftops, and a picnic and welcoming banner set up for the gunfighters, the Stranger mounts his horse and rides out the back end of town. When the gunfighters arrive, they encounter almost no resistance at all, and by nightfall they have the townspeople collected in the saloon with the rest of the town in flames. However, the Stranger kills the gunfighters one by one, whipping and strangling Cole Carlin, hanging Dan Carlin with a bullwhip, and gunning down Bridges. In the only act of courage taken by any of the townspeople, Mordecai shoots Belding dead after Belding points his shotgun at the Stranger's back attempting to kill him.
The next day, the Stranger rides out of the ruined town as Mordecai carves a headstone for Duncan's grave.
Cast
- Clint EastwoodClint EastwoodClinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. is an American film actor, director, producer, composer and politician. Eastwood first came to prominence as a supporting cast member in the TV series Rawhide...
as The Stranger - Verna BloomVerna BloomVerna Bloom is an American actress. She co-starred in the 1973 film High Plains Drifter with Clint Eastwood and the 1974 made for TV movie Where Have All The People Gone? with Peter Graves and Kathleen Quinlan...
as Sarah Belding - Marianna HillMarianna HillMarianna Hill , born Mariana Schwarzkopf, in Santa Barbara, California on February 9, 1941 is an American actress mostly working in American television.She has appeared in more than 70 films and television episodes...
as Callie Travers (as Mariana Hill) - Mitch Ryan as Dave Drake (as Mitchell Ryan)
- Jack GingJack GingJack Lee Ging is an American actor best known for his role as General Harlan 'Bull' Fullbright in the NBC television series The A-Team.-Early life:...
as Morgan Allen - Stefan GieraschStefan GieraschStefan Gierasch is an American television and film actor.Stefan Gierasch has made over 100 screen appearances, mostly in American television, beginning in 1951. In the mid-60s, he performed with the Trinity Square Players in Providence, Rhode Island...
as Mayor Jason Hobart - Ted HartleyTed HartleyTed Hartley has been a US Navy fighter pilot, an investment banker, an actor, producer, and is currently CEO of RKO Pictures. He is married to actress Dina Merrill. He has one son, Philippe Hartley .- Early life :...
as Lewis Belding - Billy CurtisBilly CurtisBilly Curtis was an American film and television actor. He was a dwarf who had a 50-year career in a variety of roles...
as Mordecai - William O'Connell as the Barber
- Geoffrey Lewis as Stacey Bridges, outlaw
- Scott Walker as Bill Borders, outlaw
- Dan VadisDan VadisDan Vadis was an actor of Greek descent with lineage tracing back to the infamous island of Chios in the Aegean Sea. This former U.S...
as Dan Carlin, outlaw - Anthony James as Cole Carlin, outlaw
- Walter Barnes (actor) as Sheriff Sam Shaw
- Paul BrinegarPaul BrinegarPaul Brinegar was an American character actor.Brinegar made over 100 appearances between 1946 and 1994, appearing in many western films, and played the barman in Clint Eastwood's High Plains Drifter in 1973...
as Lutie Naylor - Richard BullRichard Bull (actor)Richard Bull is an American film actor, stage actor and television actor.He is best known for his performance as Nels Oleson, the kindly proprietor of Oleson's Mercantile and the long suffering husband of his wife Harriet on the NBC TV series Little House on the Prairie which aired from 1974 to...
as Asa Goodwin - Robert DonnerRobert DonnerRobert Donner was an American actor who made many appearances in television series and films in a career spanning more than 40 years.-Early life and career:...
as Preacher - John HillermanJohn HillermanJohn Benedict Hillerman is an American actor, known for his starring role on the television show Magnum, P.I.-Early life:...
as Bootmaker - John QuadeJohn QuadeJohn William Saunders , better known by the stage name John Quade, was an American character actor who starred in film and in television...
as Freight Wagon Operator - Buddy Van HornBuddy Van HornBuddy Van Horn is a Hollywood stunt coordinator. A long-time stunt double for Clint Eastwood, he directed such Eastwood films as Any Which Way You Can, The Dead Pool, and Pink Cadillac...
as Marshal Jim Duncan
Production
Ernest Tidyman
Ernest Tidyman was a Cleveland-born American author and screenwriter, best known for his novels featuring the African-American detective John Shaft. He also co-wrote the screenplay for the film version of Shaft with John D.F...
, an acclaimed writer who had won an Oscar for Best Screenplay for The French Connection
The French Connection (film)
This article is about the 1971 film. For the British fashion label, see French Connection .The French Connection is a 1971 American crime film directed by William Friedkin. The film was adapted and fictionalized by Ernest Tidyman from the non-fiction book by Robin Moore...
. Holes in the plot were filled in with black humor and allegory
Allegory
Allegory is a demonstrative form of representation explaining meaning other than the words that are spoken. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation...
, influenced by Sergio Leone.
Eastwood scouted locations for filming in a pickup truck while driving alone through Oregon, Nevada, and California. He had an entire town built on the shores of Mono Lake
Mono Lake
Mono Lake is a large, shallow saline lake in Mono County, California, formed at least 760,000 years ago as a terminal lake in a basin that has no outlet to the ocean...
for the project, as he considered the area "highly photogenic". Over 40 technicians and 10 construction workers built the town in 18 days using 150,000 feet of timber. Additional scenes were filmed at Reno, Nevada
Reno, Nevada
Reno is the county seat of Washoe County, Nevada, United States. The city has a population of about 220,500 and is the most populous Nevada city outside of the Las Vegas metropolitan area...
's Winnemucca Lake
Winnemucca Lake
Winnemucca Lake, just east of Pyramid Lake in the northwestern portion of the U.S. state of Nevada is on the dividing line between Washoe County and Pershing County counties.- Geography :...
and California's Inyo National Forest
Inyo National Forest
Inyo National Forest is a federally administered forest in the United States. The forest covers parts of the eastern Sierra Nevada of California, and the White Mountains of California and Nevada. It contains two wilderness areas: the John Muir Wilderness and the Ansel Adams Wilderness...
. Eastwood filmed High Plains Drifter in sequence. Filming was completed in only six weeks.
Eastwood has noted that the graveyard set featured in the film's finale had tombstones reading "Sergio Leone
Sergio Leone
Sergio Leone was an Italian film director, producer and screenwriter most associated with the "Spaghetti Western" genre.Leone's film-making style includes juxtaposing extreme close-up shots with lengthy long shots...
" and "Don Siegel
Don Siegel
Donald Siegel was an influential American film director and producer. His name variously appeared in the credits of his films as both Don Siegel and Donald Siegel.-Early life:...
," intended as a humorous tribute to the two directors. The character of Marshal Duncan was played by stuntman Buddy Van Horn
Buddy Van Horn
Buddy Van Horn is a Hollywood stunt coordinator. A long-time stunt double for Clint Eastwood, he directed such Eastwood films as Any Which Way You Can, The Dead Pool, and Pink Cadillac...
, a long-time stunt coordinator for Clint Eastwood, in order to create some ambiguity as to whether he and the Stranger are one and the same. During an interview on Inside the Actors Studio
Inside the Actors Studio
Inside the Actors Studio is a series on the Bravo cable television channel, hosted by James Lipton. It is produced and directed by Jeff Wurtz; the executive producer is James Lipton. The program, which premiered in 1994, is distributed internationally by CABLEready and is broadcast in 125 countries...
, Eastwood commented that earlier versions of the script made the Stranger the dead marshal's brother. He favored a less explicit and more supernatural interpretation, however, and excised the reference , although the Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
and German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
dubbings
Dubbing (filmmaking)
Dubbing is the post-production process of recording and replacing voices on a motion picture or television soundtrack subsequent to the original shooting. The term most commonly refers to the substitution of the voices of the actors shown on the screen by those of different performers, who may be...
restore it.
Reception
High Plains Drifter was released in the United States in August 1973 and eventually grossed $8 million, landing it at the 11th position of the highest grossing 1970s westerns. John WayneJohn Wayne
Marion Mitchell Morrison , better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height...
was offered a role in the film and was sent the script, but replied to Eastwood some weeks after the film was released, expressing disapproval, saying that "the townspeople did not represent the true spirit of the American pioneer, the spirit that made America great". The revisionist film received a mixed reception from critics but was a major box office success. A number of critics thought Eastwood's directing was as derivative as it was expressive with Arthur Knight
Arthur Knight (film critic)
Arthur Knight was a movie critic, film historian, professor and TV host.His book The Liveliest Art, first published in 1957, is a history of the cinema used as a text book at colleges and universities throughout the world.-Early life:...
in Saturday Review remarking that Eastwood had "absorbed the approaches of Siegel and Leone and fused them with his own paranoid vision of society". Jon Landau
Jon Landau
Jon Landau is an American music critic, manager and record producer, most known for his association in all three capacities with Bruce Springsteen.He is currently the head of the nominating committee for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame....
of Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
concurred, remarking that it is his thematic shallowness and verbal archness which is where the film fell apart, yet he expressed approval of the dramatic scenery and cinematography.
Eastwood reflected on the film's meaning, indicating "it's just an allegory...a speculation on what happens when they go ahead and kill the sheriff and somebody comes back and calls the town's conscience to bear. There's always retribution for your deeds."
In popular culture
- In the 1974 film EarthquakeEarthquake (film)Earthquake is a 1974 American disaster film that achieved huge box-office success, continuing the disaster film genre of the 1970s where recognizable all-star casts attempt to survive life or death situations...
, Rosa Amici (Victoria PrincipalVictoria PrincipalVictoria Principal is an American actress, best known for her role as Pamela Barnes Ewing on the CBS nighttime drama Dallas from 1978 to 1987.-Early life:...
) is in a showing of High Plains Drifter when the main earthquake strikes. The tremors begin right as Eastwood spins around in the barber's chair to kill his attackers. - The Beastie Boys recorded a song called "High Plains Drifter"High Plains Drifter (song)High Plains Drifter is the 5th track on the album Paul's Boutique by American hip hop group the Beastie Boys, released on July 26, 1989.* Produced & written by the Beastie Boys and the Dust Brothers.* Engineered by Mario Caldato & Allen Abrahamson....
on their 1989 album Paul's BoutiquePaul's BoutiquePaul's Boutique is the second studio album by American hip hop group Beastie Boys, released on July 25, 1989, on Capitol Records. Featuring production by the Dust Brothers, the recording sessions for the album took place in Matt Dike's Apartment and the Record Plant in Los Angeles from 1988 to...
. - In the Undead Nightmare Downloadable Content pack for the video game Red Dead Redemption, a level was named "High Brains Drifter".
- Brisbane Heavy rock band High Plains Drifter are named after the film.