For many, Gary Cooper was the Westerner par excellencecool, taciturn, courageous and just; skilled with a gun but slow to use it; gentlemanly, generous and shy, appealing to men as much as to women... This image reached its culmination in "High Noon" with his characterization of Marshal Will Kane, the brave and stubborn ex-marshal standing alone against the forces of evil, and the prototype for countless Western heroes ever since...
Highly-stylized, carefully and beautifully shot, "High Noon" possibly owes its great popularity to a combination of three thingsIt's a suspense film in the real sense; the dearly beloved set-piece climax of the gun duel never got better or more thoughtful treatment; it has a theme tune that persistently whines its way into the subconscious... Most people first remember the Dimitri Tiomkin theme tune, then Gary Cooper stalking down the lonely street The bits and pieces gather from there The film also ties a small town of do-nothings showing their cowardice by turning their backs on trouble, integrity, and an elected representative...
"High Noon" is also distinguished by many fine images from the incidental (the brief close-up of the wagon wheel revolving against the town's facades as Cooper and Kelly leave the community); to the poignant ( Zinneman's camera drawing back from Cooper's face to show him standing vulnerable and alone in the dust of a deserted main street); to the deliberately melodramatic (Cooper bitterly grinding his marshal's badge in the dirt before riding away for good ).
By means of rapid cross-cutting, Fred Zinnemann gives shotsrepeatedlyof the pendulum of the clock, of the empty railroad tracks, and in rapid succession, shots of tense facestaken at close rangeof the townsfolk in the church, in the local saloon, then of the worried face of the marshal, his wife, and of the three criminals ready for the approaching train...
"High Noon" is the simple and forceful tale of an aging lawman on his day of retirement and also on his wedding day...
Will Kane, on a blazing June morning in 1875, has just married a pretty young Quaker girl... The bride feels doubly blessed... She's got her man, and this is the day he will hang his guns... She has firm Quaker convictions and never did imagine herself as a lawman's wife...
But, while it's all being celebrated a badly shaken stationmaster (Ted Stanhope) bursts in with quite the wrong kind of wedding telegram... It states that an outlaw Frank Miller (Ian MacDonald) whom Kane had put behind bars six years ago for terrorizing the town has been released... The stationmaster adds that three members of his old gang are already awaiting his arrival at the depottheir object a reunion with the pardoned man who will get off the train at noon, and presumably settle the score with Kane...
The marshal, like a sensible man, does, in fact, put his wife in the buggy, but then like a man of honor but also a sensible man (for the gang will surely hunt them down wherever they go) changes his mind and heads the horses back to town
A bride, especially a Quaker bride, can't quite see it this way on her wedding day so she hands him her own ultimatumif he won't go away with her she'll go alone by trainthe one that leaves at twelve...
Everything on this torrid, dusty morning therefore hinges on middaytherefore Kramer's insistence on his clocks. From this point onwards High Noon, although it remains completely classic in Western terms, faithful to period and concerned with an indicative historical situation, takes on wide and profound implications
It's about group cowardice and short-term interestparticularly the treachery of so-called 'good' people 'Law abiding,' you feel, doesn't mean what it should mean When a group of people decide that they must passively refuse to support the law for reasons of personal preservation, who, in fact, are the outlaws?
Thus the marshal's predicament He is an embarrassment to everyone, from Judge (Otto Kruger)he's leaving townto the humblest citizen of Hadleyville Only one is ready to give assistance and he melts away when he finds there'll be no other volunteers The marshal's immature deputy (Lloyd Bridges) is willing to take over his jobagain, provided Cooper leaves town But this is absolute ambition at work
The build-up of tension as the lawman prepares to meet the four thugs and makes fruitless attempts to recruit help from the cowardly citizens has never been handled better, and it is sustained right up to and through the climactic gunfight as the lawman's bride finds herself trapped in the crossfire...
Filmed in Black and White, "High Noon" is among the ten Best Westerns ever made... The film achieved the shape of a democratic allegory which reached people in much the same way and for the same reasons that "The Best Years of Our Lives" had done... Its cutting suspense was the hallmark of Zinneman's mastery of the movie medium...
Gary Cooper's performance, as the very vulnerable, worried man, won him the year's Oscar...
Highly-stylized, carefully and beautifully shot, "High Noon" possibly owes its great popularity to a combination of three thingsIt's a suspense film in the real sense; the dearly beloved set-piece climax of the gun duel never got better or more thoughtful treatment; it has a theme tune that persistently whines its way into the subconscious... Most people first remember the Dimitri Tiomkin theme tune, then Gary Cooper stalking down the lonely street The bits and pieces gather from there The film also ties a small town of do-nothings showing their cowardice by turning their backs on trouble, integrity, and an elected representative...
"High Noon" is also distinguished by many fine images from the incidental (the brief close-up of the wagon wheel revolving against the town's facades as Cooper and Kelly leave the community); to the poignant ( Zinneman's camera drawing back from Cooper's face to show him standing vulnerable and alone in the dust of a deserted main street); to the deliberately melodramatic (Cooper bitterly grinding his marshal's badge in the dirt before riding away for good ).
By means of rapid cross-cutting, Fred Zinnemann gives shotsrepeatedlyof the pendulum of the clock, of the empty railroad tracks, and in rapid succession, shots of tense facestaken at close rangeof the townsfolk in the church, in the local saloon, then of the worried face of the marshal, his wife, and of the three criminals ready for the approaching train...
"High Noon" is the simple and forceful tale of an aging lawman on his day of retirement and also on his wedding day...
Will Kane, on a blazing June morning in 1875, has just married a pretty young Quaker girl... The bride feels doubly blessed... She's got her man, and this is the day he will hang his guns... She has firm Quaker convictions and never did imagine herself as a lawman's wife...
But, while it's all being celebrated a badly shaken stationmaster (Ted Stanhope) bursts in with quite the wrong kind of wedding telegram... It states that an outlaw Frank Miller (Ian MacDonald) whom Kane had put behind bars six years ago for terrorizing the town has been released... The stationmaster adds that three members of his old gang are already awaiting his arrival at the depottheir object a reunion with the pardoned man who will get off the train at noon, and presumably settle the score with Kane...
The marshal, like a sensible man, does, in fact, put his wife in the buggy, but then like a man of honor but also a sensible man (for the gang will surely hunt them down wherever they go) changes his mind and heads the horses back to town
A bride, especially a Quaker bride, can't quite see it this way on her wedding day so she hands him her own ultimatumif he won't go away with her she'll go alone by trainthe one that leaves at twelve...
Everything on this torrid, dusty morning therefore hinges on middaytherefore Kramer's insistence on his clocks. From this point onwards High Noon, although it remains completely classic in Western terms, faithful to period and concerned with an indicative historical situation, takes on wide and profound implications
It's about group cowardice and short-term interestparticularly the treachery of so-called 'good' people 'Law abiding,' you feel, doesn't mean what it should mean When a group of people decide that they must passively refuse to support the law for reasons of personal preservation, who, in fact, are the outlaws?
Thus the marshal's predicament He is an embarrassment to everyone, from Judge (Otto Kruger)he's leaving townto the humblest citizen of Hadleyville Only one is ready to give assistance and he melts away when he finds there'll be no other volunteers The marshal's immature deputy (Lloyd Bridges) is willing to take over his jobagain, provided Cooper leaves town But this is absolute ambition at work
The build-up of tension as the lawman prepares to meet the four thugs and makes fruitless attempts to recruit help from the cowardly citizens has never been handled better, and it is sustained right up to and through the climactic gunfight as the lawman's bride finds herself trapped in the crossfire...
Filmed in Black and White, "High Noon" is among the ten Best Westerns ever made... The film achieved the shape of a democratic allegory which reached people in much the same way and for the same reasons that "The Best Years of Our Lives" had done... Its cutting suspense was the hallmark of Zinneman's mastery of the movie medium...
Gary Cooper's performance, as the very vulnerable, worried man, won him the year's Oscar...