Hang Em' High

The movie starts off with a group of men trying to take the law into their own hands. The group of 9 men attempt to hang a man without allowing him to put in hardly any words. This is interesting because in the movie they have what seems to be a stable law system, with an ruling judge. The town that the movie is set (Oklahoma Indian Territory), is very similar to Deadwood. Bars and Whore houses throughout. A particular house called Sophie's Peaches resembles that of Al Swearinger's in Deadwood. Some differences is in ownership gender. It seemed to me that the 'Peaches' were much more respectful both to others and for themselves. This may be due to the fact that they work for a female and that is much different from working for the mischievous Swearinger.
In the film, the main character Jed Cooper was offered to be the Marshall. The judge (who basically runs the town) gives him the opportunity to help and join or completely leave himself out, because if he decided to take the law into his hands, he would be hanged. This is like the Deadwood episode we watched where they basically handed away a high position like Sheriff.
I found it interesting how in the film, if people didn't know how to write they had a mark. Its basically like a symbol or stamp used to acknowledge a signature of an illiterate person. The sheriff or a literate person would write down or read it, and they would place their mark afterward.
In the movie Judged vs. Hanged was brought up. When the judge sentenced anyone after they were in jail, he would hang them in the middle of town. Everyone came to watch, they were celebrating it like it were the Super Bowl. There was a drink vendor and everything. So whats the difference between that and someone being lynched on the spot instead of even going to jail in the first place, if either way their fate was death by noose. I feel that one reason people came to the west, was to be able to get away from they laws and civilization.
This movie had some points that correlate well to our class, as the view the director took on his imagination of the west seems to be a very common perspective.