A Clint Eastwood Western Has An Easter Egg Paying Homage To His Two Best Directors

From securing an uncredited part in "Revenge of the Creature" to directing his 40th feature film at the age of 93, Clint Eastwood has had a long and storied career that's taken him to so many places within the industry. Scrolling through his filmography shows an artist whose talents have traversed across just about every genre there is. Eastwood's associated himself with musicals ("Pain Your Wagon"), cop thrillers ("Dirty Harry"), war movies ("Where Eagles Dare"), romance dramas ("The Bridges of Madison County") and road trip comedies with an Orangutan buddy ("Every Which Way But Loose"), but few genres hold as much of a claim on the actor-director than that of the western.

For eight seasons of television, Eastwood was a popular mainstay on the CBS western series "Rawhide" as ramrod Rowdy Yates. The career-making role not only led him to arguably his most memorable screen role in Sergio Leone's Man With No Name trilogy, but it also ignited his interest in directing. Eastwood's directorial debut would end up being the 1971 psychological thriller "Play Misty for Me," which features a terrifying performance from Jessica Walter. His sophomore feature "High Plains Drifter," however, would see Eastwood depicting the oaters that made him through a much darker lens by way of an unforgettable horror western that still stands as one of his best films.

The mysterious stranger is asked by the scared townsfolk of Lago to protect their home, but he's certainly no angel. In "High Plains Drifter," communal apathy makes friends with a demon in plain clothes whose very presence makes them feel even more empty and helpless. It's a phenomenal film that doesn't pull its punches with some striking visual imagery, such as Lago being covered entirely in red paint to symbolize the hellscape Eastwood's stranger rules over. Additionally, there are some other nods featured in the background if you're paying real close attention.

In Eastwood's 2003 appearance on "Inside the Actor's Studio," host James Lipton brought up the appearance of some tombstones that featured abbreviated names of Don Siegel and Sergio Leone, of which the director was amused by:

"I was having a little fun with those guys. I wasn't wishing anything on them. I think some people tried to draw the significance that I was burying my past or something like that, people who were mentors and helped me out. That wasn't the case. It was, just, you had to put some name on there."

Whether it be usurping Philip Kaufman from directing the rest of "The Outlaw Josey Wales" or ghost directing Richard Tuggle's "Tightrope," Eastwood is a notorious stickler for doing things the way he wants. The fact that he planted the names of two great filmmakers he had previously worked with in his picture shows how much he honored the experience. He never worked on another movie with Leone after the highly influential bundle of "A Fistful of Dollars," "For a Few Dollars More," and "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly." When it came to Siegel, however, Eastwood kept up his professional and personal friendship across five films ("The Beguiled," "Coogan's Bluff," "Dirty Harry," "Two Mules For Sister Sara," and "Escape From Alcatraz"). The pair even shared the screen, with Siegel in a small role in "Play Misty For Me" as Murphy, Dave's bartender buddy.

The worst ones call attention to themselves, while the best are found by eagle-eyed viewers. Tombstones are among the best ways to throw a bone to someone the filmmaker likes or worked with because they don't have to be distractingly prominent. Eastwood got a little clever with it, as they're marked as S. Leone and Donald Siegel.

It's fitting that the graveyard with them in it precedes the entrance to Lago, as the fictional western town is an apt metaphor for death enveloping it like a disease. The funniest thing about Lipton calling out the tombstones is that they're barely in the movie, if at all. Your best glimpse can be found in both a behind-the-scenes photograph of the set, in addition to a still photograph on a lobby card. Still, it's a nice gesture that allowed a then-blossoming filmmaker to pay his respects to the men who gave him some of the best movies of his career.