High Noon
Gary Cooper is Hollywood's perfect hero, the very embodiment of integrity and grace in this greatest of Westerns. As a newly married town marshal, he must balance an innate sense of justice and duty with loyalty to his beautiful new and pacifist bride when he is left by an ungrateful town to face a gang of deadly outlaws alone. As we watch spellbound, film time is real time as the showdown grows ever closer.
HIGH NOON is a masterpiece that is frequently interpreted as a parable about artists left to "stand alone" and face persecution during the HUAC Hollywood blacklisting. However, Howard Hawks allegedly devised RIO BRAVO as an answer to the film's "wimpiness," and John Wayne once declared HIGH NOON as un-American he was apparently offended by the ending of the film, which shows Sheriff Kane removing his badge and tossing it in the dirt.
Directed by
Fred Zinnemann
Cast
Gary Cooper - Marshal Will Kane
Thomas Mitchell - Mayor Jonas Henderson
Lloyd Bridges - Deputy Marshal Harvey Pell
Katy Jurado - Helen Ramirez
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
Production Co.
Stanley Kramer Productions
Produced by
Stanley Kramer
Elmo Williams
Studio
United Artists Pictures
Writer
John W. Cunningham
Carl Foreman
Music
Dimitri Tiomkin
