Pale Rider is an American western fantasy film directed, produced and starred by Clint Eastwood.
The film was released back in 26 June 1985 inside the United States with a budget of $6.9 Million and became one of the highest grossing Western movies of 80s era with a box office collection of $41.4 M, as per the report of Box Office Mojo.
It follows the story of Preacher who comes as a savior in a small town where goons are taking over gold from miners and pestering them.
The title of the film is a reference to The 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse where pale horse ghost rider is Eastwood that represents the death. It has received 93% freshness score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Pale Rider Filming Locations
Pale Rider was filmed in various locations at Idaho and California inside the United States.
Director of photography Bruce Surtees shared that the primary filming took place in 17 Sep 1984 and wrapped up within the same year in November.
Idaho
According to a report, Eastwood movie was primarily filmed at the Boulder Creek area of Central Idaho.
Sawtooth National Area featured in the film during opening credits scene while the train station scenes were shot at Tuolumne Country near Jamestown.
The crew shot for five weeks at the Boulder mountains, then moved to the Sun Valley Resort City of Idaho to cover the summer climate of Sun Valley area that has been featured in various western films of that time.
California
Other than that, Pale Rider filming team moved to Sonora, California to film the scenes of Gold Rush Town, banks, and several interior scenes. The railway station scenes were also filmed in Sonora, California as per the report of AFI Catalog.
Columbia State Historic Park situated at 11255 Jackson Street, Columbia, is a great gold-rush experience era for the family. If you want to show your kids how life was like in the 1800s and 1900s then this town is good to begin with.
See Also: Where was Open Range and Jeremiah Johnson filmed?
Pale Rider Cast
- Clint Eastwood asThe Preacher
- John Russell as Marshal Stockburn
- Michael Moriarty as Hull Barret
- Richard Dysart as Coy LaHood
- Terrence Evans as Jake Henderson
- Chris Penn as Josh LaHood
- Carrie Snodgress as Sarah Wheeler
- Richard Hamilton as Pa Blankenship
- Sydney Penny as Megan Wheeler
- Richard Kiel as Club
- Jeffrey Weissman as Teddy Conway
- Charles Hallahan as McGill
- Chuck Lafont as Eddie Conway
- Marvin J. McIntyre as Jagou
- Fran Ryan as Ma Blankenship
- Doug McGrath as Spider Conway
Pale Rider Movie Review
Pale Rider movies movie follows a group of goons are harassing and killing the gold miners to make their territory, a mysterious preacher come to the miners rescue. The preacher no other than Eastwood himself.
You will find different questions while viewing the movie and is quite common regarding preachers, you can’t really understand what are they up to and this arise our curiosity to learn more about them.
It totally depends on the perspective of critics or viewers who are watching the movie, how they want the story to progress.
The scenes were beautifully filmed and the characters seem to have a certain kind of loneliness and a feeling to get together with the preacher.
Supporting cast has done an excellent job especially the scene when the town decided to chose between staying at their place or selling the land.
If you are in the mood of watching action films of Golden era then you should definitely checkout Clint Eastwood’s Every Which Way But Loose, Kevin Costner’s Open Range, Silverado, Robin Hood, The Gunrunner, Message in a Bottle, 3 Days to Kill, and Clint Walker’s Night of the Grizzly movie, all are available to purchase on VOD platforms like Amazon, VUDU, Redbox, Apple TV, and Microsoft Store.