High Noon (1952)

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  • HIGH NOON


    DIRECTED BY FRED ZIMMERMAN
    PRODUCED BY CARL FOREMAN/ STANLEY KRAMER (both uncredited)
    STANLEY KRAMER PRODUCTIONS/ UNITED ARTISTS


    Information From IMDb


    Plot Summary
    Will Kane on his wedding day, just as he's hanging up his Marsalls badge,
    is told that the man Frank Miller,
    that he sent to prison, some years ago,
    is arriving on the noon train, to exact is revenge.
    He attempts to leave town, but decides to stay, and confront the problem.
    However, when he asks the townspeople for the help,
    they back off, including his own wife,
    leaving Will to face the Frank Miller gang all alone!
    Written by ethanedwards


    Full Cast
    Gary Cooper ... Marshal Will Kane
    Thomas Mitchell ... Mayor Jonas Henderson
    Lloyd Bridges ... Deputy Marshal Harvey Pell
    Katy Jurado ... Helen Ramírez
    Grace Kelly ... Amy Fowler Kane
    Otto Kruger ... Judge Percy Mettrick
    Lon Chaney Jr. ... Martin Howe (as Lon Chaney)
    Harry Morgan ... Sam Fuller (as Henry Morgan)
    Ian MacDonald ... Frank Miller
    Eve McVeagh ... Mildred Fuller
    Morgan Farley ... Dr. Mahin, minister
    Harry Shannon ... Cooper
    Lee Van Cleef ... Jack Colby
    Robert J. Wilke ... Jim Pierce (as Robert Wilke)
    Sheb Wooley ... Ben Miller
    Tom London ... Sam
    Ted Stanhope ... Station Master
    Larry J. Blake ... Gillis, saloon owner
    William 'Bill' Phillips ... Barber
    Jeanne Blackford ... Mrs. Henderson
    James Millican ... Deputy Sheriff Herb Baker
    Cliff Clark ... Ed Weaver
    Ralph Reed ... Johnny, town boy
    William Newell ... Jimmy, drunk with eye patch
    Lucien Prival ... Joe, Ramirez Saloon bartender
    Guy Beach ... Fred, coffinmaker
    Howland Chamberlain ... Hotel clerk
    Virginia Christine ... Mrs. Simpson
    Jack Elam ... Charlie, drunk in jail
    Paul Dubov ... Scott
    Harry Harvey ... Coy
    Tim Graham ... Sawyer
    Nolan Leary ... Lewis
    Tom Greenway ... Ezra
    Dick Elliott ... Kibbee
    John Doucette ... Trumbull
    Lee Aaker ... Boy (uncredited)
    Roy Bucko ... Barfly (uncredited)
    Bob Carson ... Barfly (uncredited)
    Ben Corbett ... Townsman (uncredited)
    Virginia Farmer ... Mrs. Fletcher (uncredited)
    Chuck Hayward ... Townsman (uncredited)
    Chubby Johnson ... First old timer on hotel porch (uncredited)
    Merrill McCormick ... Fletcher (uncredited)
    Syd Saylor ... Second old timer on hotel porch (uncredited)


    Writers:
    John W. Cunningham (story)
    Carl Foreman (screenplay)


    Original Music by
    Dimitri Tiomkin


    Trivia
    * Director Fred Zinnemann said that the black smoke billowing from the train is a sign that the brakes were failing. He and the cameraman didn't know it at the time, and barely got out of the way. The camera tripod snagged itself on the track and fell over, smashing the camera, but the film survived and is in the movie.


    * This film was intended as an allegory in Hollywood for the failure of Hollywood people to stand up to the House Un-American Activities Committee during the McCarthy era.


    * Lee Van Cleef does not have a word of dialogue.


    * The pained expression on Kane's (Gary Cooper's) face throughout the film was not acting; Cooper had a bleeding ulcer at the time.


    * Bill Clinton's all-time favorite film. He watched it seventeen times during his two terms as President of the United States.


    * This movie is rumored to be able to be viewed in real time. Several shots of clocks are interspersed throughout the film and they correspond with actual minutes ticking by.


    * Lee Van Cleef's first film.


    * Although the picture takes place between 10:35 a.m. and 12:15 p.m.. slightly longer than the 84-minute running time, this was due to the reediting ordered by both Stanley Kramer and Fred Zinnemann, both of whom were unhappy over the first assemblage. Editor Elmo Williams experimented by using the final portion of the material shot and condensed it to exactly 60 minutes of footage timed to real-time in the film. Thus the film we see is Williams' experimental version, which met with both Kramer's and Zinnemann's approval.


    * Although John Wayne often complained that the film was "un-American", when he collected Gary Cooper's Best Actor Oscar on his behalf at the The 25th Annual Academy Awards (1953) (TV) he complained that he wasn't offered the part himself, so he could have made it more like one of his own westerns. He later teamed up with director Howard Hawks to make Rio Bravo (1959) as a right-wing response.


    * Gary Cooper, B movie producer Robert L. Lippert and screenwriter Carl Foreman were set to go into a production company together, after the success of this film. John Wayne and Ward Bond ordered Cooper to back out of the deal, as HUAC was preparing to "blacklist" Foreman. Shortly afterward, Lippert was made persona non grata by the Screen Actors Guild, which destroyed his independent production company.


    * Until his death, director Fred Zinnemann fought not to have this film colorized, saying that he designed the film in black and white and that it should be shown that way. He was unsuccessful, however. A colorized version was made by Ted Turner's television production company and was broadcast several times over his several cable outlets.


    * Producer Stanley Kramer first offered the leading role of Will Kane to Gregory Peck, who turned it down because he felt it was too similar to The Gunfighter (1950). Other actors who turned down the role of Will Kane included Charlton Heston, Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift.


    * Writer 'Carl Foreman' was blacklisted by the House Un-American Activities Committee shortly after the film came out. Indeed Foreman had fled to England by the time the film was finished.


    * As 'Carl Foreman' 's script bore certain similarities to John Cunningham's story "The Tin Star", producer Stanley Kramer bought the rights to Cunningham's novel to protect the production against accusations of plagiarism.


    * Grace Kelly was cast after Stanley Kramer saw her in an off-Broadway play. He arranged a meeting with her and signed her on the spot.


    * Gary Cooper was reluctant to do his big fight scene with Lloyd Bridgesm as he was suffering from back pain at the time.


    * A comic relief scene involving town drunk Jack Elam and an entire subplot with James Brown playing another marshal didn't make it into the final cut.


    * Hadleyville is the name of the town. It is never spoken but is clearly visible on the train station wall. Hadleyville was also the name of the town in Gung Ho (1986) but was placed in the northeast U.S. In the west, there is a real Hadleyville, in Oregon.


    * In the fight scene involving Gary Cooper and Lloyd Bridges, Lloyd's son 'Beau Bridges' , then a youngster, was in the hayloft watching the filming. When water was thrown on his father after the fight, Beau could not help laughing, requiring the scene to be shot a second time. Cooper was not well and in pain but was gracious and understanding, according to Lloyd.


    * Gary Cooper didn't use a stunt double in the fight with Lloyd Bridges.


    * Gary Cooper was responsible for getting soon-to-be-graylisted actor Lloyd Bridges the role of Harvey Pell.


    * Katy Jurado says, "One year without seeing you" in Spanish, to which Cooper replies, "Yes, I know."


    * The wife of Sam, 'Harry Morgan' 's character, was named Mildred. In "M*A*S*H" (1972), Morgan's character, Col. Sherman Potter, also had a wife named Mildred.


    * Fred Zinnemann wanted a hot, stark look to the film. Cinematographer Floyd Crosby achieved this by not filtering the sky and having the prints made a few points lighter than normal.


    * Stanley Kramer removed 'Carl Foreman' 's credit as producer. They never spoke to each other again.


    * They used little to no makeup on the face of Gary Cooper, to show his lines and show how worried he was.


    * Took 28 days to shoot the film.


    * There were 10 days of rehearsal.


    * Fred Zinnemann's meticulous planning enabled him to make 400 shots in only four weeks.


    * The film is set in Hadleyville, population 650, in the New Mexico Territory, on a hot summer Sunday. The 37-star flag the judge removes as he prepares to flee shows that the time frame is sometime between Nebraska's admission as the 37th state on March 1, 1867 and Colorado's admission as the 38th state on August 1, 1876.


    * The picture takes place between 10:35 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. slightly longer than the 84 minute running time.


    * They only took between 1-3 takes per scene.


    * Between takes Gary Cooper would chat with the crew or snooze underneath a tree.


    * The character played by Gary Cooper was originally named Will Doane. The name was changed to Will Kane because co-star Katy Jurado had difficulty pronouncing the name Will Doane.


    * "Do Not Forsake Me, Oh, My Darlin'" was the first Oscar-winning song from a non-musical film.


    * Much of the film was filmed in the gold rush town of Columbia, CA. Today it is a state park right by Sonora on Highway 49.


    * Henry Fonda was prevented from accepting the role of Will Kane because he had been graylisted from Hollywood due to his political activism, forcing him to act exclusively on the stage from 1947 to 1955.


    * In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked this as the #27 Greatest Movie of All Time.


    * John Wayne strongly disliked this movie because he knew it was an allegory for blacklisting, which he and his friend Ward Bond had actively supported. Twenty years later he was still criticizing it in his controversial interview with Playboy magazine in May 1971. Inventing a scene that was never in the movie, he claimed Cooper had thrown his marshal's badge to the ground and stepped on it. He also stated he would never regret having driven the blacklisted screenwriter Carl Foreman out of Hollywood.


    Goofs
    * Continuity: In the church scene a young girl is still in the church next to her mother after all the children have been "dismissed"; in the very next shot she is not there.


    * Continuity: When Kane is in his office and puts his head down on his desk, he did not have a badge on when his head went down, but he has a badge when his head comes up.


    * Continuity: While walking around in the city looking for help, Will Kane's vest alternately opens and closes between cuts.


    * Continuity: Amy's luggage has been loaded on to the train, which we see pull off without any unloading, but it reappears on the cart in the final scene.


    * Continuity: When Will Kane goes to visit Martin Howe, the house door has a different arrangement of panels on the outside from the inside.


    * Anachronisms: In the climactic crane shot when Kane is alone in the town square, modern day Los Angeles is clearly visible in the skyline.


    * Continuity: Due to weather problems, the climactic crane shot at "high noon" was actually taken at 3pm, thus the shadows are all wrong.


    * Continuity: When Kane enters Ramirez's hotel room, he drops his hat on a chair to his left. Next shot he holds his hat in both hands.


    * Continuity: When Kane throws his badge on the ground at the end of the movie, a star from a previous take can be clearly seen immediately behind his left boot.


    * Continuity: When the mayor makes his speech in church there are children sitting in the pews with the adults. Then the children disappear, but they're back in the next shot.


    * Factual errors: Once the showdown began, the first time Kane is fired upon by an off screen gunman, the bullet strikes the side of a barn about a foot over his left shoulder. At the same time Kane grabs his upper left arm as if he was wounded. His shirt from that point on is torn as if damaged by a bullet. The ballistics involved for that scenario just doesn't work, the bullet would have had to bounce off Kane's arm in an impossible trajectory.


    * Continuity: SPOILER: After Amy shoots one of the bad guys in the back there is a shot of Will Kane looking out a window holding his gun in his left hand. There is an immediate cut to a shot of him holding the gun in his right hand. The left-handed shot appears to have been done to make the composition of the shot more dramatic.


    * Anachronisms: SPOILER: In the climactic gunfight, after Marshal Kane has shot Ben Miller, we see Kane running between buildings into a back alley area off the main street of town. He stops by a tree and looks back to see if he is being pursued. As he sets off again, we see the back of a brick building with an air conditioning unit mounted on the outside of a second storey window.


    Filming Locations
    Burbank, California, USA
    Columbia State Historic Park - 22708 Broadway, Columbia, California, USA
    Columbia, California, USA
    Columbia/Warner Bros. Ranch - 411 N. Hollywood Way, Burbank, California, USA
    (studio)
    Iverson Ranch, Chatsworth, Los Angeles, California, USA
    (opening sequence)
    Main Street, Columbia State Historic Park - 22708 Broadway, Columbia, California, USA
    Melody Ranch - 24715 Oak Creek Avenue, Newhall, California, USA
    Modesto, California, USA
    Newhall, California, USA
    Railtown 1897 State Historical Park, Jamestown, California, USA
    Railtown, California, USA
    Sierra Railroad, California, USA (rail scenes)
    St Joseph's Catholic Church, Gardner Avenue, Tuolumne City, California, USA (church)
    Tuolumne City, California, USA
    Warnerville, California, USA (rail station)
    Western Street, Warner Brothers Burbank Studios - 4000 Warner Boulevard, Burbank, California, USA
    Wilson House, Main Street, Columbia State Historic Park - 22708 Broadway, Columbia, California, USA
    (Wilson / McConnell House)


    Previous discussion:-
    High Noon

    Best Wishes
    Keith
    London- England

    Edited 5 times, last by ethanedwards ().

  • High Noon is a 1952 American Western film produced by Stanley Kramer
    from a screenplay by Carl Foreman, directed by Fred Zinnemann, and starring Gary Cooper.


    The plot, depicted in real time, centers around a town marshal, torn between his sense of duty and love for his new bride, who must face a gang of killers alone.


    Though mired in controversy with political overtones at the time of its release, the film was nominated for seven Academy Awards, and won four (Actor, Editing, Music-Score, and Music-Song) as well as four Golden Globe Awards (Actor, Supporting Actress, Score, and Cinematography-Black and White). The award-winning score was written by Russian-born composer Dimitri Tiomkin.
    High Noon was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" in 1989, the NFR's first year of existence.



    In 1989, High Noon was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry
    by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant",
    entering the registry during the NFR's first year of existence.


    After Duke's movies, I think this is one of best classic westerns ever made.
    I know Duke didn't like it, because of it's moral stand, but I I did.


    Duke said

    Quote

    High Noon, was the most un-American thing I've ever seen,
    in my whole life.... I'll never regret having helped run Carl Foreman(Screenwriter), out of the country.


    Quote

    * John Wayne strongly disliked this movie because he knew it was an allegory for blacklisting, which he and his friend Ward Bond had actively supported. Twenty years later he was still criticizing it in his controversial interview with Playboy magazine in May 1971. Inventing a scene that was never in the movie, he claimed Cooper had thrown his marshal's badge to the ground and stepped on it. He also stated he would never regret having driven the blacklisted screenwriter Carl Foreman out of Hollywood.


    Quote

    * Although John Wayne often complained that the film was "un-American", when he collected Gary Cooper's Best Actor Oscar on his behalf at the The 25th Annual Academy Awards (1953) (TV) he complained that he wasn't offered the part himself, so he could have made it more like one of his own westerns. He later teamed up with director Howard Hawks to make Rio Bravo (1959) as a right-wing response.


    High Noon, stands head and shoulders above many westerns made.
    Gary Cooper was perfect in this role, and the suspense
    of filming it in almost real time, as the clock ticked away,
    added to the reality of the film.


    The theme song 'Do Not Forsake Me' sang by Tex Ritter,
    and Frankie Laine, on disc,
    was the first Oscar-winning song from a non-musical film
    and goes down as one of the greatest western movie songs ever written.



    Production
    The creation and release of High Noon intersected with the second Red Scare and the Korean War. In 1947, while Carl Foreman was writing the screenplay, he was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) during its investigation of "Communist propaganda and influence" in the Hollywood motion picture industry. Foreman had once been a member of the Communist Party, but he declined to identify fellow members, or anyone he suspected of current membership. As a result, he was labeled an "uncooperative witness" by the committee, making him vulnerable to blacklisting.[6] After his refusal to name names was made public, Foreman's production partner Stanley Kramer demanded an immediate dissolution of their partnership. As a signatory to the production loan, Foreman remained with the High Noon project; but before the film's release, he sold his partnership share to Kramer and moved to Britain, knowing that he would not find further work in the United States.


    Kramer later asserted that he ended their partnership because Foreman had threatened to falsely name him to HUAC as a Communist. Foreman said that Kramer feared damage to his own career due to "guilt by association". Foreman was indeed blacklisted by the Hollywood studios due to the "uncooperative witness" label and additional pressure from Columbia Pictures president Harry Cohn, MPA president John Wayne, and Los Angeles Times gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, among others.


    According to Darkness at High Noon: The Carl Foreman Documents—a 2002 documentary based in part on a lengthy 1952 letter from Foreman to film critic Bosley Crowther—Foreman's role in the creation and production of High Noon has been unfairly downplayed over the years in favor of Kramer's. Foreman told Crowther that the film originated from a four-page plot outline he wrote that turned out to be very similar to a short story by John W. Cunningham called "The Tin Star". Foreman purchased the film rights to Cunningham's story and wrote the screenplay. By the time the documentary aired, most of the principals were dead, including Kramer, Foreman, Zinnemann, and Cooper. Victor Navasky, author of Naming Names, a definitive account of the Hollywood blacklist, told a reporter that, based on his interviews with Kramer's widow and others, the documentary seemed "one-sided, and the problem is it makes a villain out of Stanley Kramer, when it was more complicated than that".


    Richard Fleischer later claimed he helped Carl Foreman develop the story of High Noon over eight weeks while driving to and from the set of The Clay Pigeon (1949) which they were making together. Fleischer says his RKO contract prevented him from directing High Noon.



    Casting
    Wayne was originally offered the lead role in the film, but turned it down because he felt that Foreman's story was an obvious allegory against blacklisting, which he actively supported. Later, he told an interviewer that he would "never regret having helped run [Foreman] out of the country". Cooper was Wayne's longtime friend, and shared his conservative political views; he had been a "friendly witness" before HUAC, but did not implicate anyone as a suspected Communist, and later became a vigorous opponent of blacklisting. Ironically, Cooper won an Academy Award for his performance, and, since he was working in Europe at the time of the presentation, asked Wayne to accept the Oscar on his behalf. At the ceremony—although Wayne's contempt for the film and refusal of its title role were well known—he said, "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 ... 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 ... and find out why I didn't get High Noon instead of Cooper ..."


    After Wayne turned down the Will Kane role, Kramer offered it to Gregory Peck, who declined because he felt it was too similar to his role in The Gunfighter, the year before. He later said he considered it the biggest mistake of his career. Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, and Charlton Heston also declined the role.


    Grace Kelly was cast as Will Kane's wife after Kramer saw her in an off-Broadway play. He arranged a meeting with her and cast her on the spot, despite Cooper and Kelly's substantial age disparity (50 and 21, respectively). Rumors of an affair between Cooper and Kelly remain unsubstantiated. Kelly biographer Donald Spoto wrote that there was no evidence of a romance, aside from tabloid gossip. Biographer Gina McKinnon speculated that there might well have been a roll or two in the hay bales, but cited no evidence, other than a remark by Kellys sister Lizanne that Kelly was "infatuated" with Cooper.


    Lee Van Cleef made his film debut in High Noon. Kramer offered him the Harvey Pell role, after seeing him in a touring production of Mister Roberts, on the condition that he have his nose surgically altered to appear less menacing. Van Cleef refused, and was cast instead as Colby, the only role of his career without a single line of dialog.


    Filming
    High Noon was filmed in the late summer/early fall of 1951 in several locations in California. The opening scenes, under the credits, were shot at Iverson Movie Ranch near Los Angeles. A few town scenes were shot in Columbia State Historic Park, a preserved Gold Rush mining town near Sonora, but most of the street scenes were filmed on the Columbia lot in Burbank. St. Joseph's Church in Tuolumne City was used for exterior shots of the Hadleyville church. The railroad was the old Sierra Railroad in Jamestown, a few miles south of Columbia, now known as Railtown 1897 State Historic Park, and often nicknamed "the movie railroad" due to its frequent use in films and television shows. The railroad station was built for the film alongside a water tower at Warnerville, about 15 miles to the southwest.


    Cooper was reluctant to film the fight scene with Bridges due to ongoing problems with his back, but did, without the use of a stunt double. He wore no makeup, to emphasize his character's anguish and fear, which was probably intensified by pain from recent surgery to remove a bleeding ulcer.


    The running time of the story almost precisely parallels the running time of the film itself—an effect heightened by frequent shots of clocks, to remind the characters (and the audience) that the villain will be arriving on the noon train.[1


    The movie's theme song, "Do Not Forsake Me, My Darling", became a major hit on the Country-Western charts for Tex Ritter, and later, a pop hit for Frankie Laine as well. Its popularity set a precedent for theme songs that were featured in many subsequent Western films.


    Reception
    The film earned an estimated $3.4 million at the North American box office in 1952.


    Upon its release, critics and audiences expecting chases, fights, spectacular scenery, and other common Western film elements were dismayed to find them largely replaced by emotional and moralistic dialogue until the climactic final scenes. Some critics scoffed at the unorthodox rescue of the hero by the heroine. David Bishop argued that pacifist Amy's detached and abstract decision to shoot a man in the back "pulls pacifism toward apollonian decadence".[23] Alfred Hitchcock thought Kelly's performance "rather mousy" and lacking in animation; only in later films, he said, did she show her true star quality.


    In Chapter XXXV of The Virginian by Owen Wister, there is a description of a very similar incident. Trampas (a villain) calls out the Virginian, who has a new bride waiting whom he might lose if he goes ahead with the gunfight. High Noon has even been described as a "straight remake" of the 1929 film version of The Virginian.


    The film was criticized in the Soviet Union as "glorification of the individual". The American Left lauded it as an allegory against blacklisting and McCarthyism, but it gained respect in the conservative community as well. It has been cited as a favorite by several U.S. presidents. Dwight Eisenhower screened the film at the White House, and Bill Clinton hosted a record 17 White House screenings. "It's no accident that politicians see themselves as Gary Cooper in High Noon," Clinton said. "Not just politicians, but anyone who's forced to go against the popular will. Any time you're alone and you feel you're not getting the support you need, Cooper's Will Kane becomes the perfect metaphor." Ronald Reagan cited High Noon as his favorite film, due to the protagonist's strong commitment to duty and the law.


    By contrast, John Wayne told an interviewer that he considered High Noon "the most un-American thing I've ever seen in my whole life", and later teamed with director Howard Hawks to make Rio Bravo in response. "I made Rio Bravo because I didn't like High Noon," Hawks explained. "Neither did Duke [Wayne]. I didn't think a good town marshal was going to run around town like a chicken with his head cut off asking everyone to help. And who saves him? His Quaker wife. That isn't my idea of a good Western."


    Zinnemann responded, "I admire Hawks very much. I only wish he'd leave my films alone!" In a 1973 interview, he added, "I'm rather surprised at [Hawks' and Wayne's] thinking. Sheriffs are people and no two people are alike. The story of High Noon takes place in the Old West but it is really a story about a man's conflict of conscience. In this sense it is a cousin to A Man for All Seasons. In any event, respect for the Western hero has not been diminished by High Noon."



    Accolades
    High Noon received seven Academy Award nominations:


    Category Film Result
    Best Actor in a Leading Role Gary Cooper Won
    Best Film Editing Elmo Williams and Harry W. Gerstad Won
    Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture Dimitri Tiomkin Won
    Best Music, Song Dimitri Tiomkin and Ned Washington for "Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin'", sung by Tex Ritter. Won
    Best Director Fred Zinnemann Nominated
    Best Picture Stanley Kramer Nominated
    Best Writing, Screenplay. Carl Foreman Nominated
    Entertainment Weekly ranked Will Kane on their list of The 20 All Time Coolest Heroes in Pop Culture.[37]


    Katy Jurado won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Helen Ramírez, the first Mexican actress to receive the award. Cinematographer Floyd Crosby (father of musician David Crosby) also won a Golden Globe Award for his work on the film.


    American Film Institute recognition
    1998 AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies #33
    2001 AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills #20
    2003 AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains:
    Will Kane, hero #5
    2004 AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs:
    "High Noon (Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin')" #25
    2005 AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores #10
    2006 AFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers #27
    2007 AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) #27
    2008 AFI's 10 Top 10 #2 Western film



    Cultural influence
    "At High Noon, June 4, 1989". Polish political poster featuring Gary Cooper to encourage votes for the Solidarity party in the 1989 elections.
    In 1989, 22-year-old Polish graphic designer Tomasz Sarnecki transformed Marian Stachurski's 1959 Polish variant of the High Noon poster into a Solidarity election poster for the first partially free elections in communist Poland. The poster, which was displayed all over Poland, shows Cooper armed with a folded ballot saying "Wybory" (i.e., elections) in his right hand while the Solidarity logo is pinned to his vest above the sheriff's badge. The message at the bottom of the poster reads: "W samo południe: 4 czerwca 1989," which translates to "High Noon: 4 June 1989."


    As former Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa wrote, in 2004,


    Under the headline "At High Noon" runs the red Solidarity banner and the date—June 4, 1989—of the poll. It was a simple but effective gimmick that, at the time, was misunderstood by the Communists. They, in fact, tried to ridicule the freedom movement in Poland as an invention of the "Wild" West, especially the U.S. But the poster had the opposite impact: Cowboys in Western clothes had become a powerful symbol for Poles. Cowboys fight for justice, fight against evil, and fight for freedom, both physical and spiritual. Solidarity trounced the Communists in that election, paving the way for a democratic government in Poland. It is always so touching when people bring this poster up to me to autograph it. They have cherished it for so many years and it has become the emblem of the battle that we all fought together.


    High Noon is referenced several times on the HBO drama series The Sopranos. Tony Soprano cites Gary Cooper's character as the archetype of what a man should be, mentally tough and stoic. He frequently laments, "Whatever happened to Gary Cooper?" and refers to Will Kane as the "strong, silent type". The iconic ending to the film is shown on a television during an extended dream sequence in the fifth-season episode "The Test Dream".


    High Noon inspired the 2008 hip-hop song of the same name by rap artist Kinetics, in which High Noon is mentioned along with several other classic Western films, drawing comparisons between rap battles and Western-film street showdowns.Production
    Kramer later asserted that he ended their partnership because Foreman had threatened to falsely name him to HUAC as a Communist. Foreman said that Kramer feared damage to his own career due to "guilt by association". Foreman was indeed blacklisted by the Hollywood studios due to the "uncooperative witness" label and additional pressure from Columbia Pictures president Harry Cohn, MPA president John Wayne, and Los Angeles Times gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, among others


    According to Darkness at High Noon: The Carl Foreman Documents—a 2002 documentary based in part on a lengthy 1952 letter from Foreman to film critic Bosley Crowther—Foreman's role in the creation and production of High Noon has been unfairly downplayed over the years in favor of Kramer's. Foreman told Crowther that the film originated from a four-page plot outline he wrote that turned out to be very similar to a short story by John W. Cunningham called "The Tin Star". Foreman purchased the film rights to Cunningham's story and wrote the screenplay. By the time the documentary aired, most of the principals were dead, including Kramer, Foreman, Zinnemann, and Cooper. Victor Navasky, author of Naming Names, a definitive account of the Hollywood blacklist, told a reporter that, based on his interviews with Kramer's widow and others, the documentary seemed "one-sided, and the problem is it makes a villain out of Stanley Kramer, when it was more complicated than that".


    Richard Fleischer later claimed he helped Carl Foreman develop the story of High Noon over eight weeks while driving to and from the set of The Clay Pigeon (1949) which they were making together. Fleischer says his RKO contract prevented him from directing High Noon.


    See also:-


    Western Screen Legends- Gary Cooper

    Best Wishes
    Keith
    London- England

    Edited 11 times, last by ethanedwards ().

  • Do you know that it is going to be a new release of this movie this summer (June, 10) with new transfer (I can't imagine what they can do more the previos collector;s edition was pretty good) and some new documentaries.
    But some material disregarding Duke and Hawks was cut from it. It can be seen here
    http://insidehighnoon.com/video.html
    More information about upcoming release at Amazon.
    http://www.amazon.com/High-Noo…dvd&qid=1212823969&sr=8-2
    Regards,
    Senta

  • High Noon was the first Western movie, I ever saw! I liked it as a child, but, maybe, I have seen it too often...

    Today I prefer John Wayne in Rio Bravo as a more professionel lawman than Sheriff Caine played by Gary Cooper, who ran around through the town, to ask people, who are not professionals with their gun for their help.

    "Never apologize. It´s a sign of weakness."

  • I watch this movie when I'm in some kind of the fix and usually feel better.
    The first time I saw it was on Russian TV in colorized version and I thought that the movie is original in color, I like it very much and was anxios to see it again and to purchase the DVD with it. So I remembered that I have seen DVD with collector edition in DVD store at Helsinki so I asked my brother to buy it for me and found that movie is black and white but like it even more. Now I'm planning to buy this new edition of High Noon sometimes later this year, it includes all that was in old edition but with new transfer and new documentaries.
    Regards,
    Senta

  • Oh, I´ve never seen a colorized version of High Noon! - But I have some colorized german versions of original black & white John Wayne movies, like "Sands of Iwo Jima", "Rio Grande", "Red River", "The Fighting Seabeas" and some more...

    "Never apologize. It´s a sign of weakness."

  • The jury is still out on this one for me. Right now it's not a candidate for being in my collection. However, I maybe slowly coming around to it and I seem to like it more and more everytime I get to see it. ;-))

    Es Ist Verboten Mit Gefangenen In Einzelhaft Zu Sprechen..

  • I'll state the obvious or maybe not so obvious. I really liked Grace Kelly in this movie. Her innocence in this movie was perfect for the role. Plus, wow, she was not bad to look at.

    While I think this is a good western, and I own the special edition on DVD. I don't consider it a great western, especially next to Duke's finest western's.

    Life is hard, its even harder when your stupid!!
    -John Wayne

  • [extendedmedia]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/WzGtvnjtGtM&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/WzGtvnjtGtM&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>[/extendedmedia]

    Best Wishes
    Keith
    London- England

  • I prefer Rio Bravo to High Noon, but make no mistake about it this IS a great western. From the opening beats of the song "Do Not Forsake Me" as the outlaws assemble it builds itself into a great character study.
    There are other western movies I will watch if scheduled head to head with High Noon, but if this is on the schedule on it's own, I always settle in to be ENTERTRAINED and that is exactly what it does. Never tire of watching it.

    Regards
    Ethan
    P.S On a trivia note, and one that I did not see mentioned in the above list. Actor John Doucette is seen in TWO roles.
    First he is seen as a member of the outlaw gang assembling to meet the train, and is the outlaw who asks the station master if the train is on time.
    He is also seen in the discussion in the church as one who voices his support for the Marshall.

    Don't Believe In Surrenders!!!!!


  • P.S On a trivia note, and one that I did not see mentioned in the above list. Actor John Doucette is seen in TWO roles.
    First he is seen as a member of the outlaw gang assembling to meet the train, and is the outlaw who asks the station master if the train is on time.
    He is also seen in the discussion in the church as one who voices his support for the Marshall.



    From the opening review.


    Dick Elliott ... Kibbee
    John Doucette ... Trumbull
    Lee Aaker ... Boy (uncredited)

    Best Wishes
    Keith
    London- England

  • I really like this movie I always thought it was so cool how the movie is in real time. I thought it was a neat concept for a movie.

    [COLOR="Indigo"][FONT="Comic Sans MS"][SIZE="2"]"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life..." ~John Wayne~[/SIZE][/FONT][/COLOR]

  • And let's not ignore Tiomkin's contribution to the soundtrack, as differentiated from the ballad which permeates the film.
    I read someplace that Jack Elam's town drunk character sampling the wares of the empty saloon was intercut with the gunfight. No wonder it was cut!



    We deal in lead, friend.

  • I saw this movie when it came out, and thought it was ok. I was ten then and now I appreciate it much more. Gary, Grace, Lloyd,Katy, Lee Van Cleef, Jack Elam. What a
    great cast. It seems like Harry Morgan was in every movie ever made.
    I think it is a great movie, unfortunately we have more communists in government now
    then in the movie business then. I don't know if what to Cooper in the movie, actually could have happened in those days or not. I heard years ago John Wayne said this would have never happened, people would have supported the Sheriff.
    That is one thing about fiction, you can make anything happen.
    I was surprised Duke was pushing his weight around like that. Until I read "J.W. The
    Man Behind The Myth."
    They talk about Stalin and then Mao, putting hit orders on Duke for speaking out against
    communism. This actually happened, duke did not tell his family about it. There is an event on a beach with Duke and a friend holding prop guns to the head of two Russian, with F.B.I agents watching them. The russians were sent home.

    "A people that values their Privileges above it's Principles. Soon looses both." Dwight Eisenhower

    Edited once, last by colkid60 ().

  • i wanted to bring this Great Movie to the forefront. I saw it at age 10. When it won academy awards, I was surprised. Now I look at as a great move.
    All those fine actors in it. In fact I just ordered the "The Collectors Edition" very cheaply on amazon.

    "A people that values their Privileges above it's Principles. Soon looses both." Dwight Eisenhower