I've seen DVD's and movie posters of High Noon and they all usually have the same box art, a shot of the iconic Gary Cooper walking proud and tall with his shiny sherif's badge, but I think this screen shot is a better representation of the movie. Here it shows Will Kane (Cooper), a single man patrolling the streets of a town all alone.
This isn't a traditional western per say. There are no horse chases or wild shootouts. It's a purposely slowed down drama with a lot of dialogue and a character study on bravery and standing up for justice, or in the case of the townsfolk, backing away from it. While in the traditional western, the heroes are made heroic by superficial deeds on screen, Kane is heroic for simply doing what he believes he must do. In a nutshell, High Noon is a morality tale.
Frank Miller, a bad bad man, has just been released from prison and is due to arrive in town on the noon train. His old posse is waiting for him at the station and when they meet up they plan on getting back at the man who put Miller away, the town's marshal Will Kane. Kane, recently married and literally on the last day of his job, is ready to give up his badge and start a new life until he hears the news of Miller's eminent arrival at noon. He has a little over an hour to round of some volunteer deputies to help him confront Miller, except that nobody wants to help for various reasons. Most of it, understandably, is out of fear and some of it believing it's Kane's fight and not the town's. A lot of it also has to do with mob mentality, leaving Kane out to hang. It is hard being the one person to stand up when no one else does. Kane gets turned down left and right and as the time draws closer it is becoming evidently clear he may very well have to face the Miller and his men all alone.
So obviously the film is driven by Cooper who basically carries the movie (he would go on to win the Academy Award for best actor in this role), but the thing that really struck me is the great musical score. First there is the folksy but ominous theme song with lyrics foreshadowing the inevitable showdown between Kane and Miller. There is that recurring track that kind of reminds me of the music in Yojimbo.
Speaking of which, playing around with the audio commentary for the Yojimbo Blu-ray, I learned that High Noon had some influence on the samurai classic. The coffin maker who anticipates increased business with brewing trouble is used in both movies. Another thing that I try to notice but don't ever really are how pictures are composed on screen. In the audio commentary of Yojimbo, there is a mention of layered scenes in which in the foreground there is the main action and through the window you can see another scene going on outside. The classic example of this is the deep focus shots of Citizen Kane. In High Noon, there's a scene where Kane is talking to another man and you can see a man approaching through the window and a couple seconds later the door opens and there he is. Not earth shattering stuff, but pretty cool to think about.
Apparently this film was disliked by some when it came out due to its supposed communist sympathies, namely that it serves as an allegory to standing up to the HUAC. John Wayne hated it and even called it "the most un-American thing I've ever seen in my whole life." He and director Howard Hawkes, a fellow hater that basically called the Will Kane character a coward for asking everybody for help, teamed up to make Rio Bravo, a supposed response to High Noon. This is all pretty ironic considering that High Noon was blasted by the Soviet Union who characterized it as "a glorification of the individual." Haters gonna hate.
I think this is a fantastic movie highlighted by a big performance by Cooper as Will Kane who, in my eyes, is clearly a heroic figure. I've only seen a couple John Wayne movies, The Searchers and True Grit off the top of my head, but I was never all that impressed by his screen persona. Maybe its because he represents an unrealistic portrayal of the masculine ideal while Cooper's Kane is more human which makes his deeds even greater and more heroic.
Grade: A
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