High Noon

Pop Culture 101 - HIGH NOON In 1980, Lee Majors reprised the Will Kane role for a made-for-TV sequel called High Noon, Part II: The Return of Will Kane. The sequel picks up where the original left off, with Kane having to strap on his guns again to face down the bounty-hunting marshal who replaced him. And in 2000, the TBS Superstation aired a remake of High Noon, starring Tom Skerritt as Will Kane. Actor Lee Van Cleef plays Jack Colby, one of Frank Miller's villainous thugs in the original High Noon. Van Cleef played similar parts in a number of Westerns, including The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) before becoming a popular anti-hero in Spaghetti Westerns of the sixties. Some of his best films in that genre include For a Few Dollars More (1965), Death Rides a Horse (1968), and Sabata (1970). Van Cleef was also memorable in director John Carpenter's Escape From New York (1981). Will Kane's final act of throwing away his marshal's badge is referenced in director Don Siegel's 1971 box office smash, Dirty Harry (1971). But instead of a middle-aged cop trying to enlist help from a cowardly township, Clint Eastwood plays a maverick San Francisco cop - "Dirty Harry" Callahan - who is thwarted at every turn by lawyers, politicians and departmental bureaucracy in his pursuit of a despicable serial killer. It is at the end that Callahan throws away his badge in disgust. The pivotal church scene where Will Kane tries to enlist the help of the congregation was spoofed in director Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles (1974). By Scott McGee

HIGH NOON - Trivia and Other Fun Stuff In an unusual turn of events, Gary Cooper asked John Wayne to accept his Academy Award® - if he should win - for High Noon, since Coop was scheduled to be in Europe at the time of the Oscar ceremony. Wayne gave the following acceptance speech: "Ladies and gentlemen, I'm glad to see they're giving this to a man who is not only most deserving, but has conducted himself throughout the years in our business in a manner that we can all be proud of. Coop and I have been friends hunting and fishing for more years than I like to remember. He's one of the nicest fellows I know. I don't know anybody nicer. And our kinship goes further than that friendship because we both fell off horses in pictures together. Now that I'm through being such a good sport about all this sportsmanship, I'm going back and find my business manager and agent, producer, and three-name writers and find out why I didn't get High Noon instead of Cooper..." This speech is rather odd since Wayne passed on the role, as well as helped force Carl Foreman, the film's screenwriter, out of Hollywood for his suspected Communist Party affiliations. In Monaco, Princess Grace Kelly owned only three prints of her own films: The Country Girl (1954), for which she won an Oscar® for Best Actress, To Catch a Thief (1955), and High Noon. The number of close ups Zinnemann gave Grace Kelly reportedly infuriated co-star Katy Jurado, prompting her to accuse Zinnemann of being "half in love" with Kelly. The climax of High Noon begins with a long pullback from Gary Cooper, walking the dusty streets of the desolate town. Fred Zinnemann achieved this by using a long crane that he borrowed from fellow director George Stevens. If you look closely you can see, in the upper frame, the nearby Warner Brothers studio lot. The same Western set on the Columbia Studios lot was used by Zinnemann the next year as a Hawaiian locale in From Here to Eternity (1953). The theme song to High Noon - "Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin'" - was originally going to be used throughout the picture. Kramer, in his autobiography, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World: A Life in Hollywood, wrote: "I can't begin to calculate how much that song did for the picture, but my admiration for it, at first, led me astray. I became so enamored of the song, I overused it, allowing it to cover some of Cooper's most dramatic moments. When we finally had the picture ready for its first preview, which was to be in Inglewood, the song was everywhere in the movie. By the time we got halfway through the showing, the audience was obviously restless. Before we were three-quarters of the way through, I knew why. At each repetition of the song, they started to laugh and then mockingly follow the lyrics. After the disastrous preview, everyone said I should get rid of "that damned song." That it made a joke of the whole picture. Fortunately I didn't agree. I insisted that the song was great and that I'd simply used it too much. I redid the soundtrack and forsook at least half of the "Do Not Forsake Me's." The result was miraculous." It's a family thing: Singer Tex Ritter, who sings the theme song to High Noon, is the father of actor John Ritter. Lloyd Bridges, who plays Gary Cooper's bitter rival and deputy, is the father of actors Beau and Jeff Bridges. Gary Cooper's Oscar® win for a Best Actor performance in a Western is still a rarity. Warner Baxter won in 1929 for In Old Arizona (1929), Lee Marvin for Cat Ballou (1965), and John Wayne for True Grit (1969). The most recent nominations for actors in a Western include Kevin Costner in Dance With Wolves (1990) and Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven (1992). Famous Quotes from HIGH NOON: Will Kane: I'm tired of people telling me what to do. Helen Ramirez: If Kane was my man, I'd never leave him. I'd get a gun and fight. Judge Percy Mettrick: Have you forgotten what he is, how he promised to come back and kill you? He sat in that chair and said, 'I'll come back, Will Kane. I'll come back and kill you." Martin Howe: The public doesn't give a damn about integrity. A town that won't defend itself deserves no help. Get out, Will. It's all for nothing." Amy Kane: I don't care who's right and who's wrong. There's got to be some better way for people to live. Will Kane: It's no good. I've got to go back, Amy. They're making me run. I've never run before. Compiled by Scott McGee

The Big Idea Behind HIGH NOON Producer Stanley Kramer and writer Carl Foreman had both read John Cunningham's short story "The Tin Star" in Harper's> magazine and decided to option it for a joint film project. The two men decided to call the film High Noon, which had once been the temporary working title for Home of the Brave (1949), a previous film produced by Kramer with a screenplay by Foreman. But it was the latter, not Kramer, who actually negotiated the screen rights to Cunningham's short story. If Kramer had bought the story, the rights would have undoubtedly cost much more than the $25,000 that Foreman paid because Kramer was a well-known Hollywood producer among publishing circles. Director Fred Zinnemann read the first draft of the script once he was offered the chance to direct. Immediately, he thought it "nothing short of a masterpiece - brilliant, exciting and novel in its approach." The entire script was designed by Carl Foreman and Stanley Kramer to take place in the exact screening time of the film, less than ninety minutes. According to author Anthony Holden in his book, Behind the Oscar, Foreman "was summoned to Washington - where he took the Fifth Amendment - during the filming of his script for High Noon. Knowing that he would be blacklisted as soon as the film was finished, Foreman arrived back on the set 'frightened but inspired;' he proceeded to write in a number of scenes mirroring the witch-hunt, and attacking America's (and Hollywood's) reluctance to stand up to HUAC's bullying tactics. 'Much that was in the script seemed comparable to what was happening,' he said. Friends had dropped him; people would turn away when they saw him in the street. 'My associates were afraid for themselves - I don't blame them - and tried to get me off the film, unsuccessfully. They went to Gary Cooper and he refused (to go along with them). Fred Zinnemann was very staunch and very loyal, and so was our backer, Bruce Church. There are scenes in the film that are taken from life. The scene in the church is a distillation of meetings I had with partners, associates and lawyers. And there's the scene with the man who offers to help and comes back with his gun and asks, 'Where are the others?' And Cooper says, 'There are no others.' 'I became the Cooper character,' said Foreman. High Noon's producer, Stanley Kramer, joined Cooper and Zinnemann in approving what Foreman was up to. Once the news leaked around town, however, John Wayne and Hedda Hopper were among the first to launch public attacks on Foreman, Hopper urging that 'he never be hired again.' Fearing for his production company, Kramer publicly dissociated himself from the writer, causing a rift between the two men that would last into the 1980s.' By Scott McGee & Jeff Stafford

Stanley Kramer was lucky to have secured the services of director Fred Zinnemann for High Noon. Given the film's tight production schedule and a total budget of $750,000, there was no room for extravagance or experimentation. Zinnemann had to memorize every shot and its exact place in the overall picture. As Zinnemann recounted, "Fortunately, from the old days in MGM's Shorts Department, I was used to 'making' the movie in my own head long before the actual shooting." His ability to plan shots prior to shooting saved a great deal of time and money. Zinnemann and company shot a large part of High Noon on the Columbia "ranch", the company's backlot in Burbank, which was right next door to the Warner Brothers studio. By shooting in Burbank and the Los Angeles area, Zinnemann used the L.A. trademark smog to his advantage. For one thing, it made the sky look blindingly white which was just how Zinnemann wanted it to appear in contrast to Will Kane's black clothes. In preparation for the film's visual look, Zinnemann and photographer Floyd Crosby also studied the Civil War photographs by Mathew Brady. This grainy, flat light approach ran counter to how most Westerns were shot, particularly the sagebrush sagas of John Ford (My Darling Clementine, 1946) and Howard Hawks (Red River, 1948). Gary Cooper was not the first choice to play Will Kane. In fact, he was much further down on a list that included Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, Charlton Heston, and Gregory Peck, who turned it down because he did not think the film could match his earlier Western, The Gunfighter (1950). It was even reported that John Wayne was offered the role, although he also nixed it. At the time he was offered the lead in High Noon, Gary Cooper's career was in decline and so was his health. He was plagued with stomach ulcers, lower back troubles, and a recurring hip problem that flared up frequently, impairing his walk. His various ailments made film shooting difficult for him, but he once again proved his professionalism by not allowing his physical hardships to stop him from working long, hard hours. Aside from physical problems, his emotional state was not much better. Separated from his wife, and at the end of a passionate affair with actress Patricia Neal, Cooper looked older than his fifty years. His gaunt and haggard appearance worked to his advantage - he required almost no make up for his role of the beleaguered Will Kane. But one of the reasons Cooper took the part was because it represented what his father, a Montana state Supreme Court justice, had taught him: that law enforcement was everybody's job. Twenty-two year-old novice actress Grace Kelly made her first significant film appearance in High Noon. She disparaged her own performance, feeling that she was too stiff and wooden as Amy Kane. But director Fred Zinnemann thought her inexperience was appropriate for the role that was rather limited in scope. As Zinnemann said, "(Kelly) at the time wasn't equipped to do very much...She was very wooden...which fitted perfectly, and her lack of experience and sort of gauche behavior was to me very touching - to see this prim Easterner in the wilds of the Burbank Columbia backlot - it worked very well." Rumors began flying as soon as Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly met on the set of High Noon. The two actors were notorious for enjoying romantic liaisons with their co-stars. In public, Cooper stated his admiration for Kelly's acting when he said, "She was very serious about her work...She was trying to learn, you could see that. You can tell if a person really wants to be an actress. She was one of those people you could get that feeling about." For her part, Kelly was equally complimentary of Cooper. She said in an interview, "He's the one who taught me to relax during a scene and let the camera do some of the work. On the stage you have to emote not only for the front rows, but for the balcony too, and I'm afraid I overdid it. He taught me the camera is always in front row, and how to take it easy..." During production on High Noon, the House Un-American Activities Committee was creating quite a stir in Hollywood. Thousands of actors, writers, directors, and others in the film industry lost their jobs due to real or imagined affiliations - past or present - with the Communist Party. Screenwriter Carl Foreman was subpoenaed before HUAC during the making of High Noon to answer questions about his own past affiliations with the Party. As was his right, Foreman pleaded the Fifth Amendment. But after he returned to the set of High Noon, Foreman knew his days in Hollywood were numbered. Hedda Hopper and John Wayne both launched public attacks on him in the trades, trying to force him out of the industry. Even Foreman's most loyal supporters like Fred Zinnemann were threatened because of their association with him. Just like in the film, Gary Cooper seemed to be the last man standing in supporting Carl Foreman. But once threats ensued from MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer and the powerful independent producer Walter Wanger, even Cooper had to relent, fearing an end to his acting career. When the actor called Foreman with the news, the writer sympathized. "I know. Nobody can hold up against this...not even you." The pressures eventually became too much for Foreman and he moved to England immediately following the completion of High Noon. He would later reemerge with the script for The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), co-written with fellow blacklisted writer Michael Wilson. However, neither of them received screen credit for the Oscar®-winning screenplay. Ironically, Foreman's widow accepted his Academy Award for The Bridge on the River Kwai in 1985, the year after his death. High Noon was almost the last movie for Fred Zinnemann and his cameraman Floyd Crosby. To capture the shot of the faraway approaching train, they had to place the camera flat between the rails. As Fred and Floyd were lying on the tracks, the train was signaled to start rolling, which it did with white smoke billowing. As the train came closer, the white smoke turned to black. The filmmakers were quite pleased with how the black smoke looked in the camera, not realizing that it was a sure sign that the train engine's brakes were failing. The train crept closer and closer, until Zinnemann and Crosby realized the train was not going to stop. Floyd carefully picked the camera up off the tracks, but the tripod got caught on the rail just before the train threatened to overtake them. The director and cameraman escaped, but the camera was smashed to pieces. Fortunately, the film magazine survived, and the shot was used in the final cut. By Scott McGee

The Critics' Corner on HIGH NOON "A basic western formula has been combined with good characterization in High Noon, making it more of a Western drama than the usual outdoor action feature," reported Variety. "With the name of Gary Cooper to help it along, and on the basis of the adult-appealing dramatic content, the business outlook is favorable." Eventually, the film DID become a box office hit but only after it had garnered a number of Academy Award® nominations. "A Western of stark, classical lineaments: Cooper, still mysteriously beautiful in ravaged middle age, plays a small town marshal who lays life and wife on the line to confront a killer set free by liberal abolitionists from the North...Writer Carl Foreman, who fetched up on the HUAC blacklist, leaves it open whether the marshal is making a gesture of sublime, arrogant futility - as his bride (Kelly), a Quaker opposed to violence, believes - or simply doing what a man must. High Noon won a fistful of Oscars but in these days of pasteboard screen machismo, it's worth seeing simply as the anatomy of what it took to make a man before the myth turned sour." - Sheila Johnston, TimeOut Film Guide. "It's a beautifully composed film - courtesy of Floyd Crosby's picturesque sunlight and shadow compositions - which achieves the difficult task of being about morality while avoiding tart sermonizing and hollow admonitions. A film about what it means to be a man that manages to avoid the musk of machismo, "High Noon" is truly a film that improves with each and every viewing." - David Wood, BBCi. "Not a frame is wasted in this taut, superbly directed, masterfully acted film, the first so-called "adult Western," in which the traditional and predictable elements of action, song and minimal romance give way to a swift, intense unraveling of a situation and complex character development...A landmark Western in every sense, High Noon was shot by cinematographer Floyd Crosby in high contrast, an approach director Fred Zinnemann used to bring documentary-like authenticity to the film. Zinnemann's outstanding economical direction is in full force here, every minute pertinent and packed with suspense. Significantly, the film takes almost as much time to unreel as Will Kane takes in the story to prepare for the gun battle. For Cooper, this was a tour de force, a film wherein his mere presence overwhelms the viewer and carries a story that is believable only through his actions. He utters no long speeches, yet his expressions and movements are those of a man resolute in his lonely duty and resigned to his own doom." - TV Guide Online (Cinebooks). "The Western form is used for a sneak civics lesson...Much has been made of the film's structure (it runs from 10:40 a.m. to high noon, coinciding with the running time of the film); of the stark settings and the long shadows; of the screenwriter Carl Foreman's psychological insight and his buildup of suspense. When the film came out, there were actually people who said it was a poem of force comparable to The Iliad. But its insights are primer sociology, and the demonstration of the town's cowardice is Q.E.D. It's a tight piece of work, though - well directed by Fred Zinnemann." - Pauline Kael, 5001 Nights at the Movies. Perhaps the most outspoken critic of High Noon was John Wayne, the same actor who wondered why he was not offered the part when accepting the Best Actor Oscar® on Gary Cooper's behalf. Wayne said years later of High Noon: "I'll tell you about Carl Foreman and his rotten old High Noon. Everybody says it was a great picture because Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly were in it. It's the most un-American thing I've seen in my whole life! The last thing in the picture is ol' Coop putting the U.S. marshal's badge under his foot and stepping on it. I'll never regret having helped run Foreman out of this country!" (With all due respect to the Duke, his memory of the ending is inaccurate. At the climax of High Noon, Kane does indeed drop the badge in the dust, but he does not step on it.) Director Howard Hawks did not think too highly of High Noon either. He made Rio Bravo (1959) as a response to the film that he dismissed as unrealistic: no competent marshal should require assistance from the townspeople. AWARDS & HONORS: High Noon was a main challenger at the Academy Awards® showdown in 1953, and walked away a winner. Gary Cooper won his second Best Actor Oscar, the first one being for Sergeant York (1941). The film also won for Best Editing (Elmo Williams, Harry Gerstad), Best Score (Dimitri Tiomkin) and Best Song (Dimitri Tiomkin, music; Ned Washington, lyrics). High Noon also received nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay. High Noon won the New York Film Critics Award for Best Film and Best Direction. It also won the Writers Guild of America award for screenwriter Carl Foreman in 1953 as well as four Golden Globe awards including Best Picture and Best Actor (Cooper). In 1989, High Noon was selected for preservation by the National Film Registry. The city of Reno, Nevada, honored High Noon with their Silver Spurs award for the best Western of the year. Montgomery Clift stood in for Gary Cooper, while the master of ceremonies was some dude named Ronald Reagan. Compiled by Scott McGee & Jeff Stafford

Controversial producer Stanley Kramer had his first blockbuster hit with High Noon, a relatively inexpensive western that became one of the most popular pictures of 1952, took home four Academy Awards and still stands near the top of its genre. Viewers were riveted by Gary Cooper's anguished performance as a Marshall caught between his duty to his badge and to his new bride, played by the new star Grace Kelly. Fred Zinnemann's embellishes his precise direction with powerful wordless scenes and montages that made audiences feel that they were watching an artistic triumph. Carl Foreman's script immediately frames the western as one of producer Kramer's moral and political message pictures. Newly retired Marshall Will Kane (Gary Cooper) marries Quaker Amy Fowler (Grace Kelly) just as news arrives in Hadleyville that criminal Frank Miller (Ian MacDonald) is coming in on the Noon train, hot for revenge. Knowing that the deadly Miller won't go away, Kane resolves to face him. He soon finds himself isolated and under attack from his friends and neighbors. The judge (Otto Kruger) flees without a moment's thought. Amy demands that someone else deal with Miller, now that Kane is no longer Marshall. She threatens to leave if he insists on staying. Bitter that he hasn't been given Kane's job, Deputy Harvey Pell (Lloyd Bridges) refuses to help his former boss. The old Marshall (Lon Chaney Jr.) can't help because he's crippled with arthritis. The boys at the bar are Miller's friends, and cynically welcome a showdown. When Kane appeals for deputies at the local church, a public debate dissolves into a chorus of recriminations and blame passing. Kane must face Miller alone. Foolishly thinking that her husband still yearns for the wealthy Mexican businesswoman Helen Ramirez (Katy Jurado), Amy plans to leave town on the same train bringing Frank Miller. High Noon is one of producer Stanley Kramer's early message pictures, a grand statement about civic responsibility. The producer had been courting a name as a liberal producer with bold movies about the Race issue (Home of the Brave) and disabled veterans (The Men). But Kramer clashed with his equally outspoken screenwriter Carl Foreman. A public flap ensued when Kramer allegedly refused Foreman a co-producing credit. Audiences were more interested in the new star Grace Kelly, and Tex Ritter's hit song Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darlin', which is cleverly used for recurring sequences of Marshall Kane walking through town, looking in vain for help. Most contemporary Hollywood westerns with stars as big as Gary Cooper were being filmed in color, yet this picture plays out on a B-western back lot set with almost no special production. High Noon compensates with expert filmic craftsmanship. Editor Elmo Williams' work is dynamic, almost ostentatiously so. Foreman's shrewd screenplay lends suspense to a series of dialogue scenes through the use of the same 'deadline' device that dominates many new action films. We're told that something dreadful will occur in X minutes -- the Titanic will sink, the bomb will detonate. Time becomes an automatic suspense machine as the seconds slip away. By the time the noon train carrying Miller arrives, everyone in the story is checking their clocks. A metronome-paced montage kicks in as the hour approaches, recapitulating the forces arrayed against Will Kane. A crane shot finally reveals him standing alone in the dusty street. Much of the power of this sequence derives from Dimitri Tiomkin's insistent music score. Stylistically, High Noon is a triumph of talented filmmaking. Film theory students at UCLA in the early '70s were impressed by the movie's frequent cutaways to clocks: director Zinnemann and editor Williams experimented with the notion of making the film play in real time. In one screening we clocked the clocks, so to speak, and they did indeed stay within a couple of minutes of our "control" clock. So many clock faces are built into dialogue scenes that they must have been part of the original structure during shooting. This observation weighs against the frequent claim that the clocks were an editorial trick imposed later in post-production. The feminists in the critical studies program also lauded the formulation of the film's two female roles. Grace Kelly's Waspish Amy is the "Clementine Carter" character, an unyielding Easterner who does not intend to surrender her refined moral values to the violence of the West. Katy Jurado's Helen Ramirez is the alternative 'dark woman' or 'Mexican girlfriend', usually conceived as "the native" who sacrifices herself to protect a hero who would never stoop to actually marry her. By breaking that unwritten rule, Ramirez is the most independent and sensible character in the show. She tolerates no guff from punk Lloyd Bridges (an excellent jerk) and even tells off La Princess in no uncertain terms. Amy Fowler may be the socially correct choice for a bride, but the smart and worldly-wise Helen Ramirez possesses a real capacity to love. Marriage with Ramirez could be a great adventure, were Will Kane not so conventional in his thinking. Kramer's film still carries a reputation as a courageous liberal statement. Howard Hawks and John Wayne reportedly stated to the press that they made 1959's Rio Bravo to counter High Noon's then-radical image of a Marshall throwing his badge away, in contempt of the town that wouldn't back him up. Wayne's character in Rio Bravo is a professional who would never ask the community for help to do his job. Defending High Noon's political stance isn't easy, as its inconsistent messages are ladled on with the subtlety of a shovel. To develop his social argument, Carl Foreman envisions Hadleyville as a rotten place filled with rotten citizens. This supposedly left-wing film tries to prove that Democracy won't work because people are basically selfish and cowardly. The judge skedaddles, pointedly taking his American flag and scales of justice with him (symbol! symbol!). Frank Miller's return will obviously bring big trouble, yet many of Hadleyville's able-bodied men are firmly on his side. Save for Kane, the only decent citizens in town are either crippled or under-aged. Businessman Harry Morgan is a craven coward, Kane's deputy Lloyd Bridges is concerned only for his hurt feelings, and the church congregation is a worst-case scenario of Bad Civics in Action. Instead of coming to Kane's defense, the preacher condemns him from the pulpit. Kane's best friend Jonas (Thomas Mitchell) uses the lack of consensus to squelch any effort to support Kane in his hour of need. All of these rejections are a ploy to isolate Kane as the only individual in Hadleyville with morals and ethics, the only man who cares enough to stand up for What's Right. But Will meekly accepts little crucifixions in every scene. He gives feeble three-word speeches to the church congregation, like "I need help". How this tough lawman stood up to trigger-happy drunks and dangerous thugs is a big question, when he won't use a simple promise or a bit of intimidation to secure the desperately needed help of his own deputy. When people don't rally to his aid, Kane remains silent, a queer combination of pride and humility. Carl Foreman even turns Helen Ramirez into a martyr-enabler when, for her own reasons, she decides not to come to Will's defense: "He is not my man." For Kane to undergo his ordeal of character and will power, he must face his fate alone. Yet, after all the posturing, Kramer and Foreman make no particular statement beyond a murky, 'A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do'. High Noon is actually a better fit as a conservative fantasy about America fighting Communism in foreign wars. Good ol' Kane (General MacArthur and company) defeated Evil foes five years ago (roughly the end of WW2), but now Evil is back and it's personal. Nobody gives a damn, or worse, they're on the side of the Commies. Kane must go it alone. Poor General MacArthur, stabbed in the back by the politicians. The pacifist argument in High Noon takes a conservative turn as well. Amy Fowler is a pacifist Quaker, yet has married a man whose profession involves gunplay and killing. When Amy blasts bad guy Robert J. Wilke in the back, the movie crudely suggests that Christian pacifism is a myth promoted by people who have never had to fight to protect their loved ones. Amy earns the right to keep her man the American Way, by killing for it. The end of High Noon presents the stickiest puzzle. It plays as emotionally correct yet satisfies neither read of the movie. Kane tosses his star in the dust to show his contempt for the town that comes out to congratulate him only after the fight is won. Perhaps John Wayne and Howard Hawks were correct in interpreting this ending as Kramer and Foreman saying, 'Screw America.' Hadleyville has its share of jerks but also good women and loyal kids like the boy who so badly want to help. Kane is turning his back on all of them. Now he and Amy can open their store somewhere else. Are people in this next town going to be any different? Or will they be more scum unworthy of the ethically superior Mr. and Mrs. Kane? Is Will going to sit behind his notions counter when troublemakers terrorize his neighbors? The message is confused, to say the least. Viewers report being moved by its message, yet often can't come up with a coherent answer for what that message is. As a drama without symbolic significance, High Noon is very satisfying. I like to read nuances into the Kane-Ramirez relationship, and criticize Amy's lack of real commitment to the husband she expects to turn from hawk to dove overnight. The Dimitri Tiomkin music is always a kick, as is the dry Tex Ritter song that opens the plain-wrap film so perfectly. It's also fun to see eternal bad guys Lee Van Cleef and Robert J. Wilke near the beginning of a career that mostly consisted of being gunned down by the hero, in picture after picture. High Noon has been a profound influence on the western genre. The old Gunsmoke TV series was basically a spinoff, and eclectic-minded directors have frequently revisited its situations. Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch riffed on the kids whose play shows the influence of the violence in the streets: "Bang! You're dead, Kane!" Sam Fuller's Forty Guns did a wild and wooly number on the final 'Drop yer gun or she's dead' situation. Sheriff Barry Sullivan resolves the standoff by purposely shooting hostage Barbara Stanwyck so he can get a clean shot at her captor. Sergio Leone turned the first ten minutes of his Once Upon a Time In the West into an extended parody of Zinnemann's opening scene, as three gunmen wait at a train station, intimidating the telegraph clerk to pass the time. Olive Films' 60th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray of High Noon will be a revelation to western fans familiar only with older 16mm prints that circulated for TV use. The B&W Hi-Def transfer lends new clarity and detail that restore visual interest to the mostly flat-lit show. The beefy Blu-ray soundtrack heightens the dynamic Dimitri Tiomkin music score. What we notice more about High Noon this go-round is director Zinnemann's precise visual control, especially in the wordless montages, the 'waiting' sequences at the train station, and the concluding shoot-out. Olive usually doesn't include extras but this special edition contains an original trailer, along with the best making-of documentary from earlier DVD versions. Hosted by Leonard Maltin, the show features interviews with Lloyd Bridges, Stanley Kramer, Fred Zinnemann, the late John Ritter (Tex Ritter's son) and musician David Crosby (son of cameraman Floyd Crosby). For more information about High Noon, visit Olive Films. To order High Noon, go to TCM Shopping. by Glenn Erickson

Marshall Will Kane (Gary Cooper) is looking forward to his honeymoon with his new bride Amy (Grace Kelly). But as he and his wife prepare to leave town, Kane is informed that Frank Miller (Ian MacDonald), his former nemesis, is out of jail and on the way to Hadleyville for a showdown with him. Not one to back down from a confrontation, Kane decides to postpone his honeymoon and face the murderous outlaw and his gang. However, as the lone sheriff attempts to enlist some of the townspeople to help him, he quickly discovers that no one is willing to risk their life beside him. As the minutes tick away toward the final showdown, Kane prepares to meet his fate alone. In his biography, A Life in the Movies, director Fred Zinnemann noted that High Noon "seems to mean different things to different people. (Some speculate that it is an allegory on the Korean War!) [Stanley] Kramer, who had worked closely with [Carl] Foreman on the script, said it was about 'a town that died because no one there had the guts to defend it.' Somehow this seemed to be an incomplete explanation. Foreman saw it as an allegory on his own experience of political pesecution in the McCarthy era. With due respect I felt this to be a narrow point of view. First of all I saw it simply as a great movie yarn, full of enormously interesting people. I vaguely sensed deeper meanings in it; but only later did it dawn on me that this was not a regular Western myth....To me it was the story of a man who must make a decision according to his conscience. His town - symbol of a democracy gone soft - faces a horrendous threat to its people's way of life....It is a story that still happens everywhere, every day....The entire action was designed by Foreman and Kramer to take place in the exact screening time of the film - less than ninety minutes." High Noon proved to be a huge critical and popular success when released and garnered seven Oscar nominations including Best Picture prior to the 1953 Academy Awards ceremony that year (It won statues for Gary Cooper (Best Actor), Best Film Editing, Best Music Score and Best Song ("Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin'"), which was performed in the film by Tex Ritter (It also became a hit for Western balladeer Frankie Laine). Kramer noted in his biography, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World: A Life in Hollywood, "that High Noon's defeat in the Oscar race by Cecil B. DeMille's circus picture, The Greatest Show on Earth, had to be largely political, and I'm not referring to the unspoken old-boy politics of Hollywood's inner circle. I still believe High Noon was the best picture of 1952, but the political climate of the nation and the right-wing campaigns after High Noon had enough effect to relegate it to an also-ran status. Popular as it was, it could not overcome the climate in which it was released. Carl Foreman, who wrote it, had by then taken off for England under a cloud of accusations as a result of his political beliefs. Between the time he turned in the script and the time the Academy voted, we all learned that he had been a member of the Communist Party, but anyone who has seen the picture knows that he put no Communist propaganda into the story. If he had tried to do so, I would have taken it out." Producer: Stanley Kramer, Carl Foreman Director: Fred Zinnemann Screenplay: Carl Foreman, based on the story "The Tin Star" by John W. Cunningham Cinematography: Floyd Crosby Editing: Elmo Williams Music: Dimitri Tiomkin Art Direction: Ben Hayne Cast: Gary Cooper (Marshal Will Kane), Grace Kelly (Amy Kane), Thomas Mitchell (Jonas Henderson), Lloyd Bridges (Harvey Pell), Katy Jurado (Helen Ramirez), Otto Kruger (Judge Percy Mettrick), Lon Chaney, Jr. (Martin Howe), Harry Morgan (Sam Fuller), Ian MacDonald (Frank Miller), Lee Van Cleef (Jack Colby), Sheb Wooley (Ben Miller). BW-85m. Closed captioning. by Scott McGee

KATY JURADO, 1924 - 2002 Katy Jurado, an Oscar nominee and major actress in Westerns, died July 5th at the age of 78. She was born in Guadalajara, Mexico on January 16th 1924 as Maria Cristina Estella Marcela Jurado Garcia, daughter of a cattle rancher and an opera singer. Jurado started to appear in Mexican films in 1943. After 15 films in her native country, director Budd Boetticher saw Jurado attending a bullfight (Jurado wrote about the subject for Mexican newspapers) and cast her in his Bullfighter and the Lady (1952), her Hollywood debut. For much of her career Jurado alternated between the two film industries. In the US, she was memorable for the sensual energy she brought to roles in High Noon (1952), One-Eyed Jacks (1961) which was directed by Marlon Brando, Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973) and John Huston's Under the Volcano (1984). She was nominated for an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress for Broken Lance (1954). Jurado's Mexican films were in a broader range of genres and included Luis Bunuel's El Bruto (1952), Ismael Rodriguez's We the Poor and Miguel Littin's The Widow Montiel (1979). She won three Ariel Awards (Mexican equivalent to the Oscars) and one special award. She was married to Ernest Borgnine from the end of 1959 to summer 1963. One of her final films was The Hi-Lo Country (1998), a contemporary Western directed by Stephen Frears and co-starring Woody Harrelson, Billy Crudup and Penelope Cruz. by Lang Thompson DOLORES GRAY, 1924 - 2002 Broadway and nightclub star Dolores Gray died June 26th at the age of 78. Her movie career was brief but consisted of high-profile MGM musicals which guaranteed her a place in film history. Gray was born in Chicago on June 7th, 1924 (and where, according to a common story, she was accidentally shot by a gangster as a child and had a bullet in her lung her entire life). As a teenager she began singing in California until Rudy Vallee featured her on his radio show. Gray moved to Broadway in 1944 and then to the London stage in 1947, solidifying her reputation as a singer/actress while constantly giving the gossip columnists plenty to write about. She had two small singing roles in Lady for a Night (1941) and Mr. Skeffington (1944) but didn't really light up the big screen until It's Always Fair Weather (1955) even though Gray reportedly didn't much care for the role. Her rendition of "Thanks a Lot, But No Thanks," which has her gunning down a slew of male dancers on-stage and kicking them through trap doors, is a genuine showstopper. Three more unforgettable musical roles quickly followed: Kismet (1955), The Opposite Sex (1956, which Gray turned down Funny Face to do) and Designing Women (1957). That was it for Gray's film career. She kept busy with TV appearances (mostly singing though she did one 1988 episode of the cult show Dr. Who) and a busy recording and nightclub schedule. In 1987, she appeared in a British production of Follies at Stephen Sondheim's request. by Lang Thompson ROD STEIGER, 1925 - 2002 From the docks of New York to the rural back roads of Mississippi to the war torn Russian steppes, Rod Steiger reveled in creating some of the most overpowering and difficult men on the screen. He could be a total scoundrel, embodying Machiavelli's idiom that "it's better to be feared than loved" in the movies. But as an actor he refused to be typecast and his wide range included characters who were secretly tormented (The Pawnbroker, 1965) or loners (Run of the Arrow, 1965) or eccentrics (The Loved One, 1965). Along with Marlon Brando, Steiger helped bring the 'Method School' from the Group Theater and Actors Studio in New York to the screens of Hollywood. The Method technique, taught by Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg, insisted on complete immersion into the character's psyche and resulted in intense, dramatic performances and performers. Steiger made his first significant screen appearance as Brando's older brother in On the Waterfront (1954). Their climatic scene together in a taxicab is one of the great moments in American cinema. It was a short leap from playing a crooked lawyer in On the Waterfront to playing the shady boxing promoter in The Harder They Fall (1956). Based on the tragic tale of true-life fighter Primo Carnera, The Harder They Fall details the corruption behind the scenes of professional boxing bouts. Steiger is a fight manager named Nick Benko who enlists newspaperman Eddie Willis (Humphrey Bogart in his final screen appearance) to drum up publicity for a fixed prizefight. While the boxing scenes were often brutally realistic, the most powerful dramatic moments took place between Steiger and Bogart on the sidelines. As mob boss Al Capone (1959), Steiger got to play another man you loved to hate. He vividly depicted the criminal from his swaggering early days to his pathetic demise from syphilis. In Doctor Zhivago (1965), Steiger was the only American in the international cast, playing the hateful and perverse Komarovsky. During the production of Dr. Zhivago, Steiger often found himself at odds with director David Lean. Schooled in the British tradition, Lean valued the integrity of the script and demanded that actors remain faithful to the script. Steiger, on the other hand, relied on improvisation and spontaneity. When kissing the lovely Lara (played by Julie Christie), Steiger jammed his tongue into Christie's mouth to produce the desired reaction - disgust. It worked! While it might not have been Lean's approach, it brought a grittier edge to the prestige production and made Komarovsky is a detestable but truly memorable figure. Steiger dared audiences to dislike him. As the smalltown southern Sheriff Gillespie in In The Heat of the Night (1967), Steiger embodied all the prejudices and suspicions of a racist. When a black northern lawyer, played by Sidney Poitier, arrives on the crime scene, Gillespie is forced to recognize his fellow man as an equal despite skin color. Here, Steiger's character started as a bigot and developed into a better man. He finally claimed a Best Actor Academy Award for his performance as Sheriff Gillespie. Steiger was an actor's actor. A chameleon who didn't think twice about diving into challenging roles that others would shy away from. In the Private Screenings interview he did with host Robert Osborne he admitted that Paul Muni was one of his idols because of his total immersion into his roles. Steiger said, "I believe actors are supposed to create different human beings." And Steiger showed us a rich and diverse cross section of them. by Jeremy Geltzer & Jeff Stafford

HIGH NOON (1952), Fred Zinnemann's landmark, Oscar®-winning Western, will have a one-week engagement in a new 35mm restoration Friday, April 30 through Thursday, May 6 at New York City's Film Forum. Starring Gary Cooper "at his most iconic" as a small-town sheriff who must face down a band of outlaws, HIGH NOON will screen daily at 1:20, 3:10, 5:30, 7:20, and 9:10. "Do not forsake me, oh, my darlin', on this, our weddin' day" - but there's more than nuptials ahead for retiring sheriff Gary Cooper: the noon train's bringing revenge-minded Ian MacDonald back from the pen, with three gun-packing henchmen - including Spaghetti Western star-to-be Lee Van Cleef - as his welcoming committee. But of course his Quaker bride Grace Kelly knows he's got to stay and fight it out, and the townspeople will stand with him at the showdown - or will they? On just about everybody's checklist for Greatest Western Ever Made (and #1 of all time for presidents Reagan, Bush II... and Clinton), at the same time a biting metaphorical indictment of McCarthyism (screenwriter Carl Foreman was blacklisted soon after). It's also a scintillatingly suspenseful screen experiment in "real time" (the screen story spanning only the same 85 minutes as the film, the effect reinforced by repeated close-ups of inexorably ticking clocks), and, in the cold sweat forming on the hero's haggard face (Cooper used the bleeding ulcer he suffered during the shoot to help him win his second Academy Award®), one of the screen's starkest portraits of fear and loneliness. Seven Oscar® nominations, including Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay, winning for Cooper, Editing (Harry Gerstad and Elmo Williams), the legendary score by Russian expat Dimitri Tiomkin, and the Tiomkin/Ned Washington theme song warbled by Tex Ritter. This new 35mm print has been struck directly from the original negative, giving a look distinctly superior to any previous prints, including those of the original release. (Normal release prints are struck from an intermediate negative to avoid wear and tear on the original.) In other words: we always knew Cooper was sweating - now you can count the drops! Produced by Stanley Kramer and photographed by Floyd Crosby, father of rock legend David.

"Much has been written about the Western film, but Blake's focus and combination of passion and scholarship make this title truly unique." - Library Journal Cinema westerns won film audiences over during the first years of the silent era, and continue to do so today. The appeal of the cowboy, with his unfettered life, straight talk, and unflagging bravery, has elevated the genre to the status of national myth. In Code of Honor: The Making of Three Great American Westerns, film historian and Hollywood insider Michael F. Blake takes a look at three Westerns that galvanized the image of the heroic cowboy in the American conciousness-High Noon (wherein Gary Cooper refuses to save his neck by fleeing from an old enemy), Shane (featuring Alan Ladd's eponymous hero riding into a beleaguered town and righting wrongs) and The Searchers (in which John Wayne hunts the West for his abducted daughter). Blake focuses on how these films were made, who was involved, and what each movie added to the legend of the fearless gunslinger. Blake (whose father was an actor in High Noon) goes behind the scenes at the making of each film, covering the battles fought by directors, the casting choices, the script changes, and more. He also looks at the code of honor exemplified by each of the three protagonists; commenting on the heroes' actions in each story, Blake gives insight into the moral battle that lends greater resonance to the films. Throughout Code of Honor, Blake reveals remarkable details about each film. Gary Cooper's performance in High Noon mirrored his refusal to back down from the HUAC on behalf of blacklisted producer Carl Foreman. Shane director George Stevens drew from his experiences in World War II in presenting film violence. Legendary filmmaker John Ford denied any artistic aspirations, even when critics praised the beauty and craftsmanship of The Searchers. Blake's examination of these three Westerns provides a greater understanding of their lasting popularity and their deserved reputations as classics. Michael F. Blake is the author of three books on Lon Chaney: The Films of Lon Chaney, A Thousand Faces: Lon Chaney's Unique Artistry in Motion Pictures, anLon Chaney: Man behind the Thousand Faces. An Emmy award-winning makeup artist himself, Blake was raised and continues to live in Los Angeles. B>Code of Honor: The Making of Three Great American Westerns is currently available from most major book store chains and specialty book shops everywhere.