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Movie of the Week #21 - High Noon
Third movie of Best Picture nominees that didn't win is High Noon from 1952 directed by Fred Zinnemann and starring Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly. Gary Cooper won for best actor, Dimitri Tiomkin won for the score and for the title song "The Ballad of High Noon ("Do Not Forsake Me, O My Darlin'")"
Besides any thoughts on this movie, have you seen the other nominees that year and do you think this deserved the win instead?
The other nominees:
- The Greatest Show on Earth (winner)
- Ivanhoe
- Moulin Rouge
- The Quiet Man
The rest of the schedule is:
- 25th: Saving Private Ryan
I had seen this before but I probably wasn't paying attention because this was way better than I remembered. While it is classic in many ways and forms in terms of storytelling and acting, it does stand as one of the earlier steps towards changes for the western genre. We see more hesitance and outright fear from "the hero" and while it's overall message seem to be that one should step up for the greater good even if it comes to violence, I don't feel it is so clear cut as that.
The central conflict between the city, the marshal and the outlaws sets up for some quite interesting dilemmas. From the church debate it is clear that Kane is well liked and he made the town safer, so in some sense the people owe him some support. One viewpoint is that they act like cowards for not stepping up. Another equally valid viewpoint is that this conflict is personal and since he chooses to stay in town, he brings the problem to the town. I don't think the movie makes any clear statement to what is wrong or right here, though we do see the outcome of Kane dealing with it and then rejecting the town afterwards. So it had a price.
The story arc for his wife is a bit of a problematic one. The pacifist Quaker movement were often ridiculed in movies for not retorting to violence when it was deemed necessary, and this is no exception having Amy to make that choice between her belief and saving her husband. We don't really see the outfall of that dramatic tragic turn for her as the movie just ends after that, so we are left to decide for ourselves what we think of that.
In conclusion, I really liked the tight script and execution of the simple story that allowed for plenty of interesting scenes in the short running time - that also runs close to real time with the clock ticking. It is old fashioned, but mostly in a good way and it paved the way for westerns in many decades afterwards.
I wrote a bit about The Gunfighter here, which I really recommend to anyone who liked High Noon. It is almost as good.
I am not familiar with the other nominations, except with The Greatest Show on Earth only by name, which seems to be the only one of them that is at least somewhat remembered today.
TBH, that's the way I felt about it too. I also kept thinking "pride goeth before the fall" over and over again, the longer it went on, the more he failed to stir up any support in the town, and after coming to realize that he was going to have to face the bad guys alone he still decided to go through with the fight anyways. I almost wish he hadn't triumphed, or had but died in the process, since that would have been a genuine shocker of an ending (for the time!), and elevated this movie into something I would wholeheartedly recommend.
I'm kind of spoiling it by recommending it here, but if you want a western that ends kind of like you'd like this one to you should check out
Click to expand spoiler.
One of the absolute best! They even had to film a happy ending which of course was terrible and thankfully wasn't used.
I've never heard of it. Sounds interesting though. I'll make sure to check it out. Thanks for the recommendation!
p.s. The movie I was thinking of when I made my comment was:
Click to expand spoiler.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Although they weren't exactly heroes, so their deaths at the end were kinda deserved. :P
That's one of those classics I haven't gotten around to seeing, this is a good reminder to get around to it!
Ah, sorry for spoiling it for you! It's a genuine classic and a lot of fun all throughout. So even though you know how it ends now, it's still well worth watching, IMO.
And if you're also a fan of conmen/heist movies, The Sting (the other Robert Redford and Paul Newman movie) is well worth watching too. I actually just rewatched it a couple of weeks ago, and it holds up amazingly well!
My fault for clicking the spoiler lol. I don't care too much about getting spoiled on stuff anyway. I love The Sting, wrote a paper on it in college!
Oh, cool. What element of it did you write about?
It was a while ago so I don't fully remember, but I believe i was comparing it to another heist film (possible House of Games?) I watched the movie for the first time to write the paper but the film stuck with me more than the paper I guess
Huh, I've never heard of House of Games either. Is it any good?
It didn't quite stick with me the way The Sting did, but if you liked the sting you would probably like House of Games as well. It's written and directed by David Mamet, more famous for writing Glengarry Glenross.
I've enjoyed David Mamet's other movies, so I'll have to check out House of Games as well. Thanks again for the recommendations!
Love The Sting. Underrated.
This was a decent example of a classic black & white Western, and one that I'd never actually seen before. It's from a time slightly before all the Westerns I greatly enjoy rewatching over and over (Sergio Leone era), or the even more modern stuff that I also really enjoy (Tarantino's, Unforgiven, Tombstone, Appaloosa, Hidalgo, Deadwood, 3:10 to Yuma, etc). And while it was okay overall, it's not one I would go back and watch again or recommend to anyone but diehard fans of really old Westerns, since it does suffer from a lot of the same issues as other early, black & white Westerns that I've seen:
There was a clear cut good guy, and clear cut bad guys, and no matter the odds the good guy always wins!
It was quite slow, which I don't mind so long as the story is compelling, and there is good cinematography to make up for it... but this did not have good cinematography, and the story was merely serviceable.
Most of the side characters, especially the townsfolk, and the bad guys, were incredibly one dimensional. Although Gary Cooper's leading man character did have a tiny bit more depth to him than most leads from contemporary Westerns I've seen. And Grace Kelly's character (his new wife), and the moral conflict she faced as a Quaker, was a lot more interesting than most other leading ladies in Westerns of the time too.
It was also fun seeing Lloyd Bridges in a serious role, since I've mostly seen him in comedic ones (Airplane, Hot Shots, etc). And seeing a younger Harry Morgan (Col. Potter from MASH) was fun too, even though it was a tiny part.
So, yeah. It was okay, and I enjoyed it. But Sergio Leone it ain't.
p.s. For anyone else that wants to watch High Noon:
https://vimeo.com/156370921
I didn't like this!
I thought it was kind of dull. I thought the performances lacked charisma. I wasn't aware of the film before this, if I'm being honest, and I was definitely not aware that it's considered one of the best westerns ever made. I feel like I'm going crazy with how much this film is praised.
I think a lot of the technical aspects of the film (with the exception of the music) feels like a b-movie from the time. It reminded me a lot of the TV show Leonardo DiCaprio's character in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood starred in. Nothing about it screams great Western to me the way when I first watched The Searchers or The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance for the first time.
I was trying to find something, anything, from critics that didn't like it. I learned that Roger Ebert didn't like it. However, I could only find one line about it from one of his blog posts: "I recently screened "High Noon" (No. 33) as a candidate for my Great Movies series, and rejected it as, frankly, just not a very good film."
I think it gets praised highly because of the Hollywood Blacklist analogy. With the writer of the film having been blacklisted himself, and John Wayne calling the film unamerican. Even then I don't think there's anything special about this, though as I understand it it was a very influential western.
In terms of the other contenders. I've seen The Quiet Man, which I loved as it's from John Ford and is one of the best looking films from this era of Hollywood IMO. Ford rightfully won Director for that film. And I've seen the Best Picture winner from that year The Greatest Show on Earth which I found to be incredibly boring. Greatest Show has a reputation of being one of the worst Best Picture winners but it has it's fans (namely Spielberg who showed how influential it was for him in The Fabelmans).