High Noon

While not unheard of, it was still relatively novel back in the 1950’s to stage a movie to run in real time. To do so without it feeling like a gimmick is even more impressive. That is exactly what Stanley Kramer’s High Noon did, though, and it paid off in spades as the taught eighty-five minute feature film manages to slowly ratchet up the suspense and the tension as the clock inches its way slowly towards noon. This ticking clock gets figuratively more loud the more desperate the situation gets until the last few seconds leading up to that final hour when all hell will break loose. 

Hadleyville is a small town in New Mexico Territory. The town marshal, Will Kane (Gary Cooper), has traded in his badge for a quieter life with his newly married wife, Amy (Grace Kelly), a Quaker. As the two prepare to leave town word arrives that Frank Miller (Ian MacDonald), a vicious outlaw that Kane sent to prison to be hanged, has been released and will arrive in town on the noon train one day ahead of the replacement marshal. Amy pushes her husband to keep their plans to leave town but he cannot leave it undefended. When she sees he will not go with her she threatens to leave him instead, unwilling to wait around to see if she will soon be a widow. He remains steadfast so she heads to the train station and books a trip on the noon train to leave without him.

Kane, knowing he has very little time to prepare, sets about trying to recruit deputies to help face off with Miller and his gang, three of which are already in town and waiting at the station for their boss to arrive. This time around, though, no one is willing to help fight back. Harvey Pell (Lloyd Bridges), Kane’s young deputy, is unwilling to assist since he was passed over for the marshal position and Kane won’t put in word with the city fathers to help him land the job. Others are fearful of the upcoming shootout or are outright hostile, having lost business thanks to the marshal’s efforts to clean up the town. As the time clicks down it begins to look like Kane will have to face off with the whole Miller gang on his own. 

High Noon was a highly regarded film upon release and it went on to receive seven Academy Award nominations. But not everyone thought it was a great film. Howard Hawks disparaged it, considering the character of Will Kane to be cowardly, spending most of the film running around looking for help rather than making things happen on his own. John Wayne felt the same way and in response to the film they made their own version entitled Rio Bravo which would go on to be a classic in its own right. Aside from Kane trying to raise up deputies, the film also relied on Amy saving him by breaking her pacifism and shooting one of the outlaws in the back as well as being an active participant in the demise of Miller. What these complaints fail to realize is that when cornered sometimes people do choose to defend themselves or their loved ones even if it goes against their beliefs. This was excellently portrayed in Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs. The film also doesn’t stage things in such a way as to suggest there was no way Kane would survive had she not shot and killed one of the men.  She helped, but didn’t necessarily save him from certain death, not in that moment at least.

This was not a traditional western film where the protagonist spends large portions of the film engaged in shootouts and defending the innocents. This is a film about emotional conflicts and human greed and selfishness. Take Harvey Pell for example. This is a man who feels he is owed the position of Marshal of Hadleyville. We do not know the circumstances over why Kane didn’t promote his to the city fathers for the job but we see in his character why it happened. He is a man who thinks primarily for himself and will not defend the townsfolk unless there is something in it for himself. A mindset like that would have frustrated someone like Kane who is willing to sacrifice everything for the people. Others in the town will not lift a finger because profits are down thanks to Kane. It doesn’t matter one bit that crime and murder have been reduced. Many in town were even friends with the outlaw and resent what Kane did to him. 

Others won’t step up because of pure cowardice. The last time Miller was captured there was a large contingent of deputies involved. Now there is just the one and even he steps down when it becomes obvious there will be no more reinforcements. Only a half blind rummy and a young man volunteer and Kane rightfully declines their help. In the end when Miller and his men ride into town the streets are as deserted as a ghost town. After the shootout, magically hundreds of people show up again. Kane, who nearly lost his life defending these cowards and traitors, can only look upon them in disgust as he rides off with Amy, leaving town for good.

There is a little more to the story than just this but what else there is doesn’t amount to a whole lot. Harvey is seeing Helen Ramirez (Katy Jurado), a mexican woman who has a history with both Kane and Miller. This history is only lightly touched on and in no real detail. Whatever that history was it scares her enough to sell her business quickly and leave on the noon train, the same one Amy was intending to leave on. Her primary purpose in the film is to be a sounding board for Amy to vent about why she is willing to leave Kane over the whole affair. Amy’s father and brother were gunned down by criminals, a tragedy that converted her to Quakerism.

There is a lot to digest from such a short film which is one of the reasons this is considered one of the greatest westerns ever made, regardless of what John Wayne thought of it. In rebuttal to the Duke’s opinion, a man must know his limitations and Kane was well aware that to face a full gang of outlaws on his own would be tantamount to suicide. Yet, despite being unable to raise up support from the town, he never flees for his life. He faces them knowing it will probably lead to his death. This is not how The Duke would have done it, nor the likes of Marshal Matt Dillon, but they had loyal followers who were willing to go to their deaths for them. Kane doesn’t have anyone like that in Hadleyville. The first hour of the film is him finding this out and the final twenty minutes are him defending them anyway. It is a hero’s story, even if it is an unconventional one. This film is easily the best of that year’s Best Picture nominees but lost because of a campaign against it and the writer, Carl Foreman, who was accused of being a Communist. He escaped legal ramifications but those accusations cost him a writing Oscar and ultimately ended any chance that High Noon would take the  Best Picture award it so rightfully deserved. 

Academy Award Nominations:

Best Motion Picture: Stanley Kramer

Best Director: Fred Zinnemann

Best Actor: Gary Cooper (won)

Best Adapted Screenplay: Carl Foreman

Best Film Editing: Elmo Williams and Harry W. Gerstad (won)

Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture: Dimitri Tiomkin (won)

Best Song: The Ballad of High Noon - Dimitri Tiomkin and Ned Washington (won)

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Release Date: July 24, 1952

Running Time: 85 Minutes

Not Rated

Starring: Gary Cooper, Thomas Mitchell, Lloyd Bridges, Katy Jurado, Grace Kelly, Otto Kruger, Lon Chaney and Henry Morgan

Directed By: Fred Zinnemann