Hang 'Em High is a 1968 American DeLuxe Color revisionist Western film directed by Ted Post and written by Leonard Freeman and Mel Goldberg. It stars Clint Eastwood as Jed Cooper, an innocent man who survives a lynching; Inger Stevens as a widow who helps him; Ed Begley as the leader of the gang that lynched Cooper; and Pat Hingle as the federal judge who hires him as a Deputy U.S. Marshal.
Hang 'Em High was the first production of The Malpaso Company, Eastwood's production company.
Hingle portrays a fictional judge who mirrors Judge Isaac Parker, labeled the "Hanging Judge" due to the large number of men he sentenced to be executed during his service in the late 1800s as District Judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Arkansas.
The film also depicts the dangers of serving as a Deputy U.S. Marshal during that period, as many federal marshals were killed while serving under Parker. The fictional Fort Grant, base for operations for that district judge seat, is also a mirror of the factual Fort Smith, Arkansas, where Judge Parker's court was located.
Plot
In Oklahoma Territory in 1889, retired lawman Jed Cooper is surrounded by a posse of nine men: Captain Wilson, Reno, Miller, Jenkins, Stone, Maddow, Tommy, Loomis, and Charlie Blackfoot. They demand the receipt for the cattle Cooper is driving. The cattle seller is a robber who killed the rancher. Cooper explains that he knew nothing about the murder, but only Jenkins expresses doubts about his guilt. After Reno takes Cooper's horse and saddle and Miller takes his wallet, the men hang him from a tree and ride away.
Shortly afterward, Marshal Dave Bliss rescues a half-dead Cooper and takes him to Fort Grant, where the territorial judge, Adam Fenton, determines that Cooper is innocent, sets him free, and warns him not to take his own revenge. As an alternative, Fenton offers Cooper a job as a marshal. Cooper accepts, and Fenton warns him not to kill the lynchers, but to bring them in for trial.
While picking up a prisoner, Cooper sees his horse and saddle in front of a local saloon. He finds Reno inside and tries to arrest him, but Reno draws on him, forcing Cooper to gun him down. Jenkins, learning of Reno's death at the hands of a marshal with a hanging scar, turns himself in and provides the names of the rest of the posse. Cooper finds Stone in the town of Red Creek, arrests him, and has the local sheriff, Ray Calhoun, put him in jail. Most of the men Cooper seeks are respected citizens of Red Creek, but Calhoun honors Cooper's warrants for their arrest.
While en route to arrest the other men, Cooper and Calhoun come across the murder of two men and the rustling of their herd. Cooper forms a posse of his own to pursue the stolen herd, and discovers that the rustlers are Miller and two teenage brothers, Ben and Billy Joe. He prevents the rustlers from being lynched themselves, then takes them to Fort Grant single-handedly when the posse deserts him. He frees Ben and Billy Joe from their bonds after they insist that only Miller committed the murders. Miller attacks Cooper after freeing his hands, but Cooper subdues him and brings all three men in to Fort Grant.
Fenton sentences the three rustlers to be hanged, despite Cooper's defense of the teenagers. Fenton insists that the public will resort to lynching if they see rustlers going unpunished, threatening Oklahoma's bid for statehood. Some time later, Calhoun arrives at Fort Grant and offers to pay Cooper for his lost cattle with money from Captain Wilson and the other lynchers. Cooper makes it clear that while they are alive he still intends to arrest them. With the bribe rejected, Blackfoot and Maddow flee, while Tommy and Loomis remain loyal to Wilson and agree to help him kill Cooper.
During a public hanging for Miller, the brothers, and three other men, the lynchers ambush Cooper in a brothel, seriously wounding him. Cooper survives and is slowly nursed back to health by a widow, Rachel Warren. Rachel reveals she is hunting for the outlaws who killed her husband and raped her. She and Cooper begin an affair; he says that she might never find her rapists. Cooper tries to resign, but Judge Fenton gives him the location of Wilson's ranch, where Wilson, Tommy, and Loomis are hiding.
The three men try to ambush Cooper as he approaches the ranch house. Cooper survives, stabs Loomis to death, and shoots Tommy. He tries but fails to capture Wilson before he hangs himself.