High Noon is a classic American motion-picture Western. The film has been praised for its realism and for complex characters that departed from the simpler traditions of the Western film. High Noon was released in 1952. American actor Gary Cooper won the Academy Award as best actor for his performance as the movie’s hero.
Cooper plays Will Kane, the marshall of the town of Hadleyville. Five years before the start of the story, Kane put outlaw Frank Miller in prison. As the film begins, Miller has been pardoned, and he is expected to arrive by the noon train to meet three members of his old gang and kill Kane in revenge. The film lasts about the same time as the action on the screen, about 90 minutes, from 10:30 a.m. to high noon. Kane learns of Miller’s expected arrival at his wedding. His friends advise him to leave town, but he refuses, believing he must take a stand against the villainous Miller gang.
Kane spends the next hour trying to find townspeople who will help him against the gang, but they all desert him. Kane’s plight is complicated by the resistance of his Quaker bride, who rejects violence for religious reasons. The film ends in an extended gunfight. Kane is wounded, but Miller and his gang are all killed. Kane drops his marshall’s badge into the dirt as the townspeople watch, and then he leaves town in a buggy with his new wife.
Critics praised High Noon for the tautness of Fred Zinnemann’s directing. The film also won acclaim for its vivid photography of a bleak, empty landscape and sky, which symbolically heightens Kane’s isolation. In addition, the film breaks with the tradition of the uncomplicated Western hero. Kane is an average man filled with fears and doubts. High Noon stimulated a new trend toward more “psychological” Westerns.
Grace Kelly plays Cooper’s bride. The supporting actors include Lloyd Bridges, Lon Chaney, Jr., Katy Jurado, Otto Kruger, Henry Morgan, and Ian MacDonald as Frank Miller. Country and western singer Tex Ritter sang the film’s theme song, “High Noon (Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin’).” The song won an Academy Award for composer Dimitri Tiomkin and lyricist Ned Washington.
