Netflix Says Goodbye to Clint Eastwood’s Brutal Western Classic

John Wayne saw himself as a custodian of the Western genre, going around wagging his finger at anyone who dared to subvert it. Some would argue that Wayne had earned the honor, given his iconic contributions to the Western genre. However, he was quite rigid in his opinions. He is said to have made Rio Bravo as a response to the classic 1952 film High Noon, which he described in an interview as "the most un-American thing I've ever seen in my whole life." He had a similar reaction to a Western directed by Clint Eastwood following the success of Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy. The movie in question is streaming on Netflix, but only for a little while longer.

It was released in 1973, becoming the first Western that Eastwood directed and starred in. It was his second directorial effort overall, after 1971's thriller Play Misty for Me. By then, Eastwood had become an American icon on par with Wayne, thanks to his earlier success. This was a major creative pivot for him, and not everyone was on board with it. While the Western was well-received, Wayne found it too transgressive. In a letter to Eastwood, he wrote, "That isn't what the West was all about. That isn't the American people who settled this country." The movie follows a mysterious stranger who delivers justice in a town with skeletons in its closet.