High Noon
1952
Director: Fred Zinneman
Starring: Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, and many other recognizable faces
I make no bones about the fact that westerns aren’t really my thing. Luckily, High Noon is touted as “the western for people who don’t like westerns.” I don’t know if I would completely agree with that, but I do think that the themes present make it more accessible. For a western made in the fifties, there’s a profound cynicism in High Noon that a modern audience can connect with.
Marshall Will Kane (Cooper) has just married his lovely new Quaker bride Amy (Kelly) when word comes in that an outlaw he put away five years ago has been pardoned and is on his way back for revenge. Amy protests, not believing in guns or violence, but Kane has his principles and must stay in town to fight the gang. Trouble is, Kane runs into massive difficulty in recruiting townspeople who are willing to help him fend off the outlaws.
High Noon is a bit of a loaded film. It was made in the midst of McCarthyism, and screenwriter Carl Foreman was a victim of anti-Communist blacklisting. As such, the idea of Will Kane looking for help but having his friends one by one turn their back on him takes on a powerful allegorical meaning. The film won four Oscars, including Best Actor for Cooper, and was nominated for three other; it did not win in the Best Screenplay category. The weakness of the townspeople also riled up a number of Hollywood’s biggest names, most notably John Wayne and Howard Hawks. Both were so disgusted with the portrayal of classic American Western in High Noon, they teamed up to make its antithesis in Rio Bravo in 1959. All of which makes High Noon have an interesting place in the social fabric of 1950s Americana, but how is it as a film?
