High Noon (1952) - film review

Will Kane has been the marshal of Hadleyville, New Mexico, for many years, but now he has finally decided to hand in his badge and settle down as a rancher with his new bride Amy.  Just as Will is preparing to leave the town, he learns that a notorious gunslinger Frank Miller is due to arrive on the noon train.  Will was the man who had Miller arrested and tried for murder, but the judge and jury showed leniency and the killer’s death sentence was commuted to a term in prison.  Now a free man, Miller’s one thought is to take revenge on the man who had him put away.  Ignoring his wife’s protestations, Will picks up his marshal’s badge and begins to scour the town for deputies in the inevitable showdown with Miller and his three associates.  No one is willing to support Will and so the marshal has no choice but to face his nemesis alone...

High Noon is arguably the greatest of the classic Hollywood westerns, the most compelling, most perfectly constructed and lyrical offering in a surprisingly diverse genre.  Screenwriter Carl Foreman intended it to be an allegory of contemporary politics in America, particularly the over-zealous hounding of left-wing sympathisers by McCarthyist anti-Red fanatics.  Foreman was himself suspected of Communist allegiances and was brought before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) whilst working on this film, shortly before he was blacklisted.  Despite director Fred Zinnemann’s claims to the contrary, when the film was released it was seen in some quarters as a direct attack on the HUAC and traditional conservative American values, openly reviled by such high-profile Hollywood notables as John Wayne and Howard Hawks.

Whatever the politics of the film, High Noon is a superlative piece of cinema, a masterfully composed mixture of psychological drama, action film and morality tale which manages to encapsulate the essence of the western genre within its compact 85 minute runtime.   Dialogue is sparse, so that most of the drama is told through images, and the climactic shootout is played out almost as a silent film.  Cinema experiences as nail-bitingly tense, visually rich and dramatically focused as this are hard to come by, which explains why the film is so highly regarded.   Although, at 50, some considered him to be too old for the leading role, Gary Cooper turns in what is probably his greatest performance.  Who else could portray, with such conviction and pathos, the inner anguish of a man who can find no one to fight along side him and take a stand against evil?   The  actor was in very poor shape when he made the film (a bleeding stomach ulcer made the action scenes particularly painful for him), but this adds to the reality of his portrayal of a man who, rejected by all, appears destined to walk down a solitary lane that can only end in his own grave.   

Floyd Crosby’s subtly expressionistic photography and Fred Zinnemann’s economical but effective direction bring a cold realism to the drama, whilst the slick editing gradually builds the tension to an almost unbearable pitch as the film inches, second by second, towards its gory climax.  It helps that the duration of the film matches the duration of the story – this adds to the tightly claustrophobic mood and a sense of inescapable doom.  The film’s striking lyrical quality is emboldened by its haunting ballad, Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin’ (composed by Dimitri Tiomkin and Ned Washington) which went on to become a hit record.  No surprise then that the film was favoured at the 1953 Oscars – it won awards in four categories: Best Actor (Cooper, obviously), Best Editing. Best Score and Best Song.

High Noon is probably the most frequently referenced western, emulated and spoofed so often that the film itself almost appears to be a cliché, and for a good reason.  This is the apotheosis of the genre at its best, a simple good-versus-evil morality play recast to brilliant effect in the most potent art-form of the Twentieth Century.  It is not hard to see why Bill Clinton rates this as his favourite film.  There are times when a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.  Although, given the choice, wouldn’t you rather run off with Grace Kelly?

© Steve Chandler 2010

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