Watched: May 21 2017
Director: Fred Zinnemann
Starring: Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, Katy Jurado, Lloyd Bridges, Thomas Mitchell
Year: 1952
Runtime: 1h 25min
New Mexico Marshal Will Kane (Cooper) is getting married to Quaker girl Amy Fowler (Kelly) and retiring from his gun wielding profession as it goes against his new wife’s beliefs. As the ceremony comes to an end, word comes to their small town of Hadleyville that one of Kane’s earlier arrests has been released from prison (because Northerners are too lenient) and is coming on a train scheduled to arrive at noon.
Frank Miller (the bad guy, not the graphic novelist) has his three cohorts waiting at the train station, and the newlywed Kane couple decide to make a run for it before the killings begin. However, despite the theory that Miller may leave the town alone if he does not find Kane there, Kane is not one to run from a fight. He decides to stay and protect his town with the help of his disgruntled deputy Harvey Pell (Bridges) while they await the arrival of their new marshal who is supposed to arrive the next day.
New wife Amy and ex-lover Helen (Jurado) both think this is a ridiculously bad idea and team up to skip town by boarding the same train on which Miller is expected. With a clear deadline, Will tries to round up a posse of deputies to help him stand against Miller at noon. However, although most of the town agree that they have Kane to thank for their prosperity, and that Miller deserves a good ass whoopin’, they are reluctant to risk their lives to help their (technically former) marshal out. As noon approaches, Kane awaits his fate in solitude as even the jealous and immature Pell has abandoned him. Shit’s about to go down…
High Noon was a very tense Western and we loved it. It’s very engaging and we felt personally affronted by all the townspeople who refused to help. When the showdown finally came, after about an hour of the town clock moving relentlessly towards noon, it felt as though this could go either way, and we honestly had no idea whether Kane would come out of this alive or die defending his town.
All in all, this was a very engaging and enjoyable (almost) first Western on the list. Unlike The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (which we also loved, by the way), this felt more like the Westerns our dad used to watch when we were growing up, with a lot of the same tropes we will undoubtedly see in future representations of the genre. The tension rivaled that of many a thriller and Noir, and our dog loved all the horses on screen.
What we learned: We cannot hear the name “Gary Cooper” without Young Frankenstein’s rendition of “Puttin’ on the Ritz” getting stuck in our brains. Also, Lloyd Bridges stayed extremely recognizable for close to 50 years.
Next time: Ikiru (1952)
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