Trivia / High Plains Drifter

• Beam Me Up, Scotty!: The Stranger doesn't say, "I'm faster than you'll ever live to be." He actually says, "A lot faster than you'll ever live to be".
• Completely Different Title:
  • In Poland, the film became simply Mściciel (The Avenger).
  • In Sweden, it was called "Mannen med oxpiskan", meaning "The Man with the Bullwhip".
• Production Posse: In his second film as director, Clint Eastwood brought back several cast members from his debut Play Misty for Me, plus composer Dee Barton and cinematographer Bruce Surtees. In fact, the cast is full of a bunch of familiar faces from all phases of Eastwood's career. Of particular note are Paul Brinegar (Wishbone on Rawhide) as Naylor the bar owner, and Geoffrey Lewis (Stacey Bridges) in his first of seven films with Eastwood.
• Separated-at-Birth Casting: Deliberately invoked by Clint Eastwood. He had one of his main stunt doubles who worked on many projects with him, Buddy Van Horn, play the marshal in the flashback. The strong resemblance between helps to lend credence to the various theories about just who the Stranger is.
• Shrug of God: Invoked by Clint Eastwood. He had always intended that the mysterious stranger was the murdered sheriff's brother, but he liked the fan theories about who or what he was so much that he went on to make Pale Rider and deliberately avoid any clues as to the preacher's true identity.
• Those Two Actors: For the second time in their career, after Medium Cool, Marianna Hill (Callie) and Verna Bloom (Sarah) play, respectively, a loose woman and an admirable woman who becomes something of a Morality Pet for the protagonist.

---