Posted on 07/23/2023 9:36:20 PM PDT by Ozguy1945
On July 24, 1952, Stanley Kramer’s High Noon was released and subsequently won 4 Oscars.
Wikipedia reports that the film was “one of the first 25 films (selected) for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” in 1989, the NFR’s first year of existence.”
As I see it, the greatness of the movie is in showing how good government depends on the performance of exceptional individuals and just how hard modern centuries make it for those individuals to want to stay in government.
The heroes we need are getting harder and harder to find.
(Excerpt) Read more at freedom-demokrasi-and-civilised-humanity.com ...
High Noon is one of the top 5 films of all time. I think some of the critics on this thread have never seen it. For many years I used it in my leadership theory courses. In addition, I highly recommend Glen Frankel’s book (of the same name), a biography of Gary Cooper and the story of the making of the movie.
“Me too also.”
Cooper was good. Tex Ritter was better. Grace Kelly was sorta adequate.
The rest of the cast was, in reality straight from a B western of that period.
As evidenced by a little incident in Northfield, Minnesota. And another in Coffeyville, Kansas a few years later.
The rest of the Gary Cooper keyword, sorted:
*That was one reason John Wayne hated High Noon. I think he called the film “Communist.”*
Can’t imagine that. Cooper was a better actor. Great. John Wayne, my hero, played characters. Reminds me of when Richard Harris said Paul Newman and Robert Redford were ‘not actors’. They played characters who got ahead based on their looks.
Harris may have very well been underrated based on that criteria. Safe to say he was a serious actor.
That was great b
Gentleman Cinephile,
I agree completely about how you see the Marshal Kane character.
I was born in 57 and first saw the film as a teenager.
Then I thought the throwing the star on the ground was artistic greatness.
“ It’s long been reported that High Noon was intended as an allegory of Hollywood writers, producers, actors, etc. who testified and named names for Senator McCarthy and HUAC’s investigations of Communism in Hollywood. The gang represents HUAC and McCarthy, and the cowardly townsfolk are the friendly witnesses.”
I have a masters in English lit and I’ve heard some wacky interpretations. The one you supplied rates up there with the Ren and Stempy a Homosexual Allegory, which actually made some sense. I can’t seem to see your allegory in the movie. Perhaps you could explain. Just because John Wayne supposedly said it doesn’t make it gospel.
Wayne was close friends with Omar Torrijos Herrera, who was friendly with Castro. Torrijos was a dictator and though not president of Panama was widely regarded as running the country.
Stupid left movie. John Wyane answered it with the superb Rio Bravo.
An internet search turns up many articles.
How ‘Commie’ writer turned ‘High Noon’ into subversive Hollywood hit.
The Blacklist and the Making of High Noon.
High Noon: A Hidden Allegory for McCarthyism.
Forsaking great story for politics: HUAC, blacklists and 'High Noon'.
The Marshal and the Contender: Allegories of HUAC in High Noon and On the Waterfront.
High Noon: John Wayne Hated Cooper’s Film.
Thanks for the articles. Did you read them?
The first two read almost identical. I used to teach composition at the university level. These two articles are so alike, not just in content but in style, had they been handed in to me, someone would be in trouble for plagiarism.
While that may have been the author’s intent to castigate McCarthy, intent is something that is difficult to prove. Unless the author specifically said so, it’s mere conjecture. Regardless, intent is less meaningful than affect. In other words, unless audiences are leaving the theater thinking about McCarthy, and they weren’t, he didn’t succeed.
People said the movies The Founder and Iron Lady were scathing assessments of the main characters, both the actors and producers said so. I didn’t see either movie that way, in fact, both movies left me admiring the main characters more. I appreciated that their faults were shown. We all have them. It’s how we deal with them and what we do in spite of them that matters.
The reason I ask if you read the articles is because the fourth article didn’t support your position at all. The author was skeptical of your hypothesis, as I somewhat am. I say somewhat as I concede it may have been the author’s intent, I simply say it remains unproven. It was the better written of all the articles supplied. His point about sci-fi being used to further socialist agendas is somewhat accurate (they further it far more than the author lets on). The majority of futuristic movies are usually wholesale endorsements for communism.
The last article didn’t really support your position either. I can make an argument that High Noon is an anti communist movie. Frank Miller can easily be viewed as a dictator, a totalitarian. The citizenry are willing to cede anything to him in the vain hope of some sort of life albeit in chains. It reflects the failures of our voters while Soros goons run roughshod over us.
I disagree with John Wayne that every western needs to be wholesome propaganda in support of the American way of life. I use the term propaganda in its original definition, not in the bastardized Goebbels use. There is good propaganda and bad, that for a laudable goal and that for lesser or even evil goals. The propaganda to support our troops and war effort in WWII that our government engaged in along with John Wayne and that which he did and the movies he made were laudable forms of propaganda. I greatly enjoy Wayne movies not in spite of but because of this.
John Wayne also disliked Clint Eastwood for the same reason. He felt that Eastwood’s westerns were negative in tone and purpose and painted our nation in a poor light. Of course many of Eastwood’s westerns were produced in Italy and some never had a script. I think they were mostly just-trying-to-make-a-buck efforts with little thought.
If we want to talk about authors, we should consider William Dale Jennings, the author of The Cowboys. While I liked the movie, the author was a raving homosexual and advocate. The book, The Cowboys, contains a fair amount of material that would be fodder for removing the book from a Florida public school library, and rightly so. I cannot begin to express my disgust and disappointment when I finally obtained a copy of this difficult to find book, at least difficult at a reasonable price. Jennings clearly seeks to groom.
I bring this book up because I fail to see how anyone could read The Cowboys and pay its author, even if the remove the filth and alter its purpose.
Again, thanks for the articles and telling me about the author’s intent. It is something I never knew. While I don’t doubt that may have been the author’s intent, it is a sad commentary that virtually no one viewing it had his takeaway on it. A failure of writing.
This interpretation's "smoking gun" is Carl Foreman, the blacklisted Communist who co-wrote High Noon.
I knew an exceptional. The government “workers” dumped their stacks on her desk. She did not complain; because the work kept her busy, and the work week flew by.
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