Clint Eastwood rides into town and may, or may not be, the ghost of the Sherriff murdered when the cowardly townsfolk stood by and watched him whipped to death by three gunslingers, who incidentally are out of jail and coming back to take their revenge.
He is hired to protect the town, but not before he gets revenge of his own on those he feels are responsible for his own past trauma.
This was the first Western Eastwood directed and is a stylistic homage to Sergio Leone. It is also indebted to Don Siegel, who directed him in The Beguiled (1971), Coogan’s Bluff, and Dirty Harry (1971).
