High Noon
High Noon is about a recently freed leader of a gang of bandits in the desert who is looking to get revenge on the Sheriff who put him in jail. A legendary western film from the Austrian director Fred Zinnemann.
Directed by Fred Zinnemann. 85mins. (1952)
Gary Cooper - Marshal Will Kane
Grace Kelly - Amy Fowler Kane
Also starring Thomas Mitchell, Lloyd Bridges, Katy Jurado, Otto Kruger, Harry Morgan and Lon Chaney Jr.
One of the highest rated westerns ever made and an iconic role for Gary Cooper.
The film tells it's story in real time.
High Noon cost $750,000 and went on to gross $8m in the U.S.
Ranked #27 on the AFI's 100 Greatest American Films list (2007).
And #2 on the AFI's 10 Greatest Westerns list (The Searchers is no.1)
Nominated for 7 Oscars including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay, winning 4 - Best Actor (Gary Cooper), Best Music (Dimitri Tiomkin), Best Song and Best Film Editing.
WGA Award winner for Best Written American Drama.
Selected for Preservation by the National Film Registry 1989.
Tagline - The story of a man who was too proud to run.
IMDB rating 8.2
MARIA’s NOTES
Nobody involved in the making of High Noon thought they were making more than just another, hopefully, good little Western which cost all of $750,000. It was not filled with the expected action of cowboys vs. Indians chasing each other across the plains. However, in the talented hands of several artists from the Writer Carl Foreman to Director Fred Zinnemann, to its star, my father, Gary Cooper, the beautiful ladies Grace Kelly and Katy Jurado, the sinister villains including Lee Van Cleef and the wonderful theme song composed by Dimitri Tiomkin, this “little Western” turned into an iconic film that has affected and touched world leaders from Japan to Poland and shook up American politics at the time of one of our more shameful periods – the McCarthy hearings. According to those hearings, there was a Communist under every bed. My father was extremely close to High Noon’s writer Carl Foreman, in fact, he called him Uncle Carl and when the film’s producer Stanley Kramer wanted to take him off the film because of alleged Communist propaganda, my father simply said, “If Foreman goes, Cooper goes.”
Many books and articles have been written about High Noon. The story exposed the cross currents buried in human nature and politics. We see in the film a reflection of our own inner conscience and its struggle between fear and doing what you know is right – to do what you have to do for a greater good, or in the name of justice – concepts which are not limited to any one era. In fact, there’s a very interesting parallel between High Noon and Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea – both challenge our own personal definitions of Honor, Courage, Justice and Fear. My father won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Marshal Kane. It was the first time the “hero” of a film was shown to be human and vulnerable.
I strongly recommend for further reading the recent book,High Noon: The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic by Glenn Frankel.
Maria Cooper Janis
