Certification. U
Running Time. 1 hour 25 mins
Director. Fred Zinnemann
Cast. Lloyd Bridges, Lon Chaney Jr, Gary Cooper, Katy Jurado, Grace Kelly, Thomas Mitchell, Lee Van Cleef.
Rating. 75%
"The judge has left town, Harvey's quit and I'm having trouble getting deputies."
This is the backdrop to High Noon. It is a simple and effective plot. On what is supposed to be a joyous day, a day where retiring Marshal Will Kane (Gary Cooper) is to marry his young Quaker bride, Amy Fowler (Grace Kelly), he learns that gunslinger Frank Miller (Ian MacDonald) has been pardoned by the governor, released from prison and is due to arrive on the 12 o'clock train to shoot him dead.
Gary Cooper delivers a standout performance as the laconic marshal haunted by an inner conflict. In most westerns of this era, the main protagonist would never entertain doubts about standing against the villains, but a terrified Marshal Kane admits that he was tempted to run. Gary Cooper deservedly received the Academy Award for Best Actor for his tortured portrayal of Marshal Kane.
Whilst the quality of acting is impressive, the casting of the film leaves a lot to be desired. Gary Cooper was 50 years old at the time of filming, whilst his bride (Grace Kelly) was 21. More troubling is that the Marshal's mentor, Martin Howe, played by Lon Chaney Jr, was only 45 years old, five years younger than Cooper despite the character clearly being a much older, veteran lawman.
Much of the film takes place in real-time, or near enough real-time. Director Fred Zinnemann cranks up the tension by using a repetitive image of the railway tracks at Hadleyville Station and repeatedly cutting to various clocks as noon approaches. The director skillfully creates a sense of anxiety as each man declines to help the Marshal and he slowly realises he will have to face Miller's gang alone. High Noon is a directorial masterclass in creating suspense.
John Wayne once said, "High Noon was the most un-American thing I have ever seen in my whole life. The last thing in the picture is ol' Coop putting the United States marshal's badge under his foot and stepping on it." Wayne's dislike of the film is attributed to the portrayal of the Hadleyville townsfolk as cowards, but many others cite the film's allegory of the toxic politics of the time as the reason. At the time of release in the United States, there was a climate of fear and suspicion prevailing during the McCarthyism era.
Whilst the film is most certainly a seminal western, High Noon is not a traditional western. There are no sweeping vistas of Monument Valley, a trademark of the likes of John Ford in My Darling Clementine or She Wore A Yellow Ribbon. There are no epic battle sequences or prolonged shoot em' ups. Instead, High Noon is a western that epitomises John Steinbeck's much-corrupted quote from The Grapes Of Wrath, "A man got to do what he got to do." This is a film where the main character must demonstrate moral courage, fortitude and integrity in the face of the insurmountable pressure to yield.
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