Clint Eastwood in the 1970s would be widely screened in France later and is considered one of Eastwood's finest works by the French. According to Eastwood and Lang, the film, aside from being poorly publicized, flopped due to Clint being "emasculated in the film". Eastwood said about his role: 1971 was a professional turning point in Eastwood's career. Before his professional financial adviser and president of Malpaso Productions Irving Leonard died, the last film they discussed was "Play Misty for Me". The goal was to give Eastwood the artistic control that he desired and make it his directorial debut. The rights to the song "Misty"
Clint Eastwood in the 1970s shores of Mono Lake, Bruce Sartees as the cinematographer and Dee Barton composing the equally eerie score which ranged from typical Morricone type grandeur to horror-esque shrilling. "High Plains Drifter" would be the first of six movies Eastwood made with friend Geoffrey Lewis. The revisionist film received a mixed reception from critics but was a major box office success. A number of critics thought Eastwood's directing was as a derivative as it was expressive with Arthur Knight in "Saturday Review" remarking that Clint had "absorbed the approaches of Siegel and Leone and fused them with his own paranoid vision of