Pale Rider - 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

For his era as a star and director, Clint Eastwood certainly carved out his own niche within the Western genre. Even for the films he didn’t direct, an Eastwood Western feels like he owns everything about the production. And given it’s the genre where he made a name for himself as a leading man, it’s wild to realize that Eastwood only directed four Westerns himself. And within those four, it’s even more impressive when you have to say a perfectly good and highly entertaining feature like Pale Rider is his “lesser” Western as director and star. Truly, “lesser” is a very loose term, but if you’re going to rank his films, one of them has to pull up the rear, and Pale Rider is that film.

It’s no misgiving to suggest that Pale Rider is a modernized reimagining of George Stevens’ 1953 classic Shane starring Alan Ladd and Jean Arthur. Swap Ladd with Eastwood, Arthur with Snodgress, Van Heflin for Michael Moriarty, Emile Meyer for Richard Dysart, Jack Palance for John Russell, and cattle for gold and you damn well have the same story. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Even through the strikingly obvious similarities, Eastwood takes the story and makes it his own. 

I’ll never take anything away from Shane, it’s a genre classic and a genuine favorite. But what I like about Eastwood’s approach to the material is the ambiguity of Preacher’s origins. Virtually appearing out of nowhere, he carries more similarities to Eastwood’s spectral Stranger from High Plains Drifter than Alan Ladd’s violence-weary gunslinger. Has he always been a drifter? Or was he sent there from powers beyond because it was time for his brand of vengeance? I’ve always taken to this brand of lost souls storytelling and I appreciate that Eastwood doesn’t waste dialog time spelling it out for the audience. All he needs are six bullet scars early in the film and six gunshots at the end to complete the character arc. 

Adding to the Eastwood flair for moody atmospheric films, Pale Rider marks his final collaboration with cinematographer Bruce Surtees. Similar to past efforts, this film offers a striking contrast between light and dark and the hard shadows in between. The scene where Eastwood’s Preacher negotiates with Dysart’s LaHood is a great piece of work with minimal lighting and plenty of moral ambiguity. After this film, it’d be cameraman Jack Green who would stand as cinematographer for Eastwood’s next thirteen features along with Richard Schickel’s documentary Eastwood on Eastwood. 

As I said at the outset, I think Pale Rider is the lesser of Eastwood’s four Westerns as a director. It just doesn’t carry the same weight as High Plains Drifter, The Outlaw Josey Wales, or Unforgiven. But at the time it was made, Pale Rider was Eastwood’s first Western in almost a decade. While there were still some great films made in that decade, the genre had faded from popularity. If nothing else, Pale Rider is a welcome reminder that even if the genre isn’t en vogue a great film can still ride along and deliver on its promise for an exciting adventure. 

While not the best Western Eastwood ever made, there’s plenty to admire about it. It’s beautifully shot. The pace is brisk and to the point. It has a sense of humor and lightheartedness but knows when it’s time to get serious and let the action play out. And with any Eastwood venture, the film is populated by a colorful cast of characters. Chris Penn is a highlight as the arrogant villain's son, Josh LaHood. Richard Kiel (about the only guy taller than Eastwood in this film) gets a couple of fun scenes. Doug McGrath gets a memorable-if-tragic turn. Richard Hamilton stops in as the cantankerous shopkeeper, while Charles Hallahan and Marvin McIntyre get to play two of LaHood’s heavies. And if you squint tighter than Eastwood’s steely stare, you’ll spot the late iconic character actor Billy Drago as one of John Russell’s evil deputies. 

Vital Disc Stats: The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray 
Joining Dirty Harry and The Outlaw Josey Wales for this round of Eastwood releases, Pale Rider saddles up to 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray as a single-disc 4K UHD + Digital release from Warner Bros./SDS. Pressed on a Region Free BD100 disc, the disc is housed in a standard black case with identical slipcover art. The disc loads to a static image main menu with standard navigation options along the bottom of the screen. 

Once again, as has been the case with the two previous Eastwood catalog titles I’ve reviewed this week, Pale Rider is treated to another excellent 2160p HDR10 upgrade. Pale Rider hit 1080p Blu-ray some seventeen years ago, and the results were, well… pale. The VC-1 encoded disc certainly held strong details, but the contrast was notched up a bit too high, killing a lot of the moody shadows and visual atmosphere while also flattening the image. There was also some slight edge enhancement that led to some other slight abnormalities. Not a terrible disc for its era, but it hasn’t aged well, and this new 4K disc easily leaves it in the dammed creek. 

From the outset, the initial raid scene on the mining camp during the credits no longer has that odd strobing effect. Film grain might be a tad more noticeable during this moment but that’s largely because of the optical titles. Once that’s out of the way, the image settles in beautifully. Details are tight and crisp without that edginess. Facial features, beards, hats, and the excellent set design are all on display in full glory. The HDR10 grade is judiciously applied letting primaries pop naturally with healthy, human skin tones. And because this is a film shot by Surtees, those dark shadows are wonderfully distinctive and captured here. Again another excellent and worthy upgrade.

Following the past two Eastwood releases, fans can enjoy a robust and active Dolby Atmos mix, or the film’s original theatrical audio in DTS-HD MA 2.0. Similar to Josey Wales I don’t really have much of a preference between the two, they’re both great audio options for what they accomplish. Starting with the 2.0 mix, I like that purists can enjoy this robust track. When the Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix came out in 2008, it was an okay track, but it didn’t really do anything as a surround mix beyond spreading the audio elements a bit thinly along the front/center channels. This original 2.0 audio mix is robust, active, and easily stands on its own as a great listening option. Dialog is clean without issue, gunshots and other key sound effects sound a bit more authentic and not so overworked as the 5.1. The Lennie Niehaus score is another fantastic brooding piece of work.

Now the Atmos mix sounds to be another rejiggered effort of the 5.1 track, but it’s pleasingly active and more workable. The altered/enhanced audio effects aren’t so distracting you can’t enjoy the film. The heavy LFE of horse riders storming the good guys or the hydro-mining camp really thunders away at those low tones. The surround spread is much better handled than the only 5.1 track. There are still a number of moments where it still feels like a Front/Center affair, but the imaging into the sides, rears, and height channels is a bit more purposeful and effective. Going forward I probably will keep to the 2.0 original audio for future viewings, but if you’re a fan of having everything in Atmos, that track doesn’t disappoint.

On the side of bonus features, this release of Pale Rider actually has some genuine extra features. The previous 2008 disc only had SD trailers for this film and Unforgiven. Hardly anything to write home about. In terms of Brand NEW extras, we have a very nice featurette with star Sydney Penny discussing her time making the film and then we have another excellent look at the working relationship between Eastwood and Surtees for this film. The three remaining featurettes and documentaries appeared on past Eastwood collections but they’re excellent archival materials worth taking the time for if you haven’t seen them. 

• NEW The Diary of Sydney Penny: Lessons from the Set (HD 7:26)
• NEW Painting the Preacher: The Cinematography of Pale Rider (HD 8:36)
• Clint Eastwood: A Cinematic Legacy - Reinventing Westerns (HD 17:36)
• Eastwood Directs: The Untold Story (HD 1:01:41)
• The Eastwood Factor (HD 1:28:27)

While Pale Rider pulls up the rear in the line of Eastwood-directed Westerns, it’s still a great film. Even if it’s a near play-by-play retelling of Shane, Eastwood gives it his unique spin to keep the material feeling fresh and exciting. On 2160p HDR10, the film joins its Eastwood siblings for another fantastic transfer upgrade. Gone are the days of poor encodes and other unsightly visual artifacts for another beautiful-looking film. Keeping with the other Eastwood releases, the Atmos audio and original theatrical audio package are excellent and should please both camps of physical media collectors. Adding some extra flavor, the bonus features package is a robust assortment of new and archival extras, all worth looking at. It may not be Eastwood’s greatest Western, but it’s still a damn fine film to pass the time with. Highly Recommended