Hang 'Em High

directed by Ted Post
Category: "Western"
Year of Release:1968
Date Added:01/10/2008
Date Watched:05/06/2005
Description:The hanging was the best show in town. But they made two mistakes. They hung the wrong man and they didn't finish the job.
My Rating:8

Reviews for Hang 'Em High

Review - Hang 'Em High

Ex-lawman Jed Cooper buys some cattle from a rancher. He’s driving them across Oklahoma Territory when he’s captured by a posse. It turns out the man he bought the cattle from had killed the rancher and rustled the cattle. The posse doesn’t believe his story and hang him from a tree. Marshall Bliss happens by just in time and cuts him down. He’s taken to the capital where Judge Fenton presides over the whole Territory. Cooper’s story checks out, and he’s released. He becomes a marshal to track down the men who hung him. He kills or captures several of them. Posse leader Wilson and two of his men travel to the capital and shoot Cooper in an ambush. He’s nursed back to health by Rachel Warren, and the two fall in love. Cooper goes to Wilson’s ranch and kills his two men, but Wilson hangs himself before Cooper can get to him. Cooper returns to town and turns in his badge, planning on marrying Rachel and settling down, but Judge Fenton convinces him to continue as a marshal. His first job is to track down the two remaining members of the posse that capture him.

• Inger Stevens, who played Rachel Warren, died of a drug overdose, presumably suicide, in 1970, two years after this movie was made.

I liked it. It isn’t a great story, but there were a whole bunch of familiar actors and actresses and they all played their roles fine. It was a bit unsettling to see Skipper from Gilligan’s Island playing a member of the hanging posse. Rachel’s care for Cooper and their subsequent love don’t make a lot of sense in the context of the story, but so what.
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