My Father was a wrangler in High Noon...It was filmed in Tuolumne County California,...the train is one used many Times in filming from the Sierra Railroad. Mr. Ernie Durham provided the locations and the Beautiful limo which he drove Grace Kelly and Cary Cooper to and from the set.
I think that Miller being no big deal just shows how people can let fear build up in them, and grow way out of proportion to what the source of it really is.
Lee Van Cleef's first credited movie role. Launched an impressive career of playing villains. He said he enjoyed being the bad guy. He thought they were usually more interesting and colorful characters to play.
Great review. High Noon is my favorite movie of all time, at least I come to that conclusion based on the number of times I've seen it. I first saw it when I was about 7, in 1962. I remember asking my mom about Gary Cooper after watching the film, wondering where he lived and if I could visit him. She said "Honey, he died last year". I was so disappointed. Anyway, the review is spot on as far as I am concerned, and I do agree that the character Frank Miller is somewhat weak, but really I never thought about that, because Cooper's Will Kane is so strong and you really focus on him. Im sure I've seen the movie fifty times, and will continue to see it, always finding something new within this relatively short movie.
Thank you for a thoughtful review. High Noon was one of my old man's favourite films and to be honest, although I liked Westerns and sitting with Dad on a Saturday afternoon watching them (in B&W), I was a boy and never really got John Wayne and all that - I was much more into the Spaghetti Westerns. Wind forward some decades... I recently re-watched High Noon for the first time in several decades and it really did strike a chord with me: I knew Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly were film stars and my parents loved them both, but all the same, it's the tension in this film that makes it work so well. It really is edge-of-your-seat stuff. Hitchcock couldn't have done better.
In 1989, the anti-communist party in Poland, Solidarity, defeated the communists. The Solidarity poster? A picture of Gary Cooper as the sheriff in "High Noon."
❤❤❤ amigos del western no habido nunca un actor que represente tan majestuoso y magistral un papel con más credibilidad honestidad y sublimidad, GARY COOPER, que estás en el cielo, el mejor actor de todos los tiempos , Y su obra maestra , SOLO ANTE EL PELIGRO , un auténtico lujo para los mejores cinéfilos del mundo, Honestamente, 🛤🛤🛤🛤🛤🛤🛤🛤🛤🛤🛤🛤🛤🛤🛤🛤🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀⚘⚘⚘⚘⚘⚘⚘⚘⚘⚘⚘⚘⚘⚘
I like the review. This is one of my favorite films. The one thing that you didn't mentioned that stuck me the first time that I saw it as a kid, was the haunting theme song that is sung throughout the whole movie by Tex Ritter. I thought that is one of the best examples of a song adding to the movie.
In his Bio, editor/director Elmo Williams speaks in detail about how the song came about...seems there was a lot of input from various people on the complete song
One of the finest movies ever made. McCarthyisn didn't damn it - this movie damned McCarthyism. And John Wayne, who imho could never have have hoped to address this role to the level that Coop did. And I surely can't be the only one who considers the performance of the beautiful Katy Jurado (María Cristina Estela Marcela Jurado García) as a tour de force?
I don't know much about westerns but this movie is genius. The main character is a decent man with a sense of resposability and duty who is alone against bad people and cowardly people. That didn't changed much since the movie released. It even has suspense and something noir about it.
Most of the remarks on High Noon are right on the spot and applauded everyone one of them. High Noon is probably the best movie I have seen, and it is because of the message. It is embedded in my core as a man. To me it’s personal, the message of this movie and the acting of Gary Cooper got me through hard times - don’t depend on anyone else but yourself. As for John Wayne remarks…. well he was a POS
Very strong women in this film. When strong women were strong until it all changed around 2005... And men were always individuals and not part of society. Nowadays, it's the same for men AND women, they are individuals not part of the whole. The fact the bad guy was "normal" and given a poor script is all part of the direction of the film, showing how people blow up the power of enemies and then find their just human.
What a great movie! I remember that when I first saw the movie as a teenager I was very pleased with myself when I discovered that the movie is like an ancient Greek drama which unfolds in real time after thè count-down towards 12:00, when the villain arrives at the train station, has begun! Btw, the music has a lot to do with the movie's greatness! The lyrics of the title song introduce the villain and the main conflict. However, while Frank Miller isn't all that memorable as the bad guy, he isn't the main antagonist. The main antagonist is time itself and the very people whom sherif Will Kane wants to protect.
John Wayne wearing his big McCarthyism tin hat...yeeesh. FYI Gary Cooper was unable to be at the awards, so John Wayne accepted his Oscar for best actor for him. He said he should fire his agent because he didn't get the part of the sheriff for him to play.
@@jayleerichards4318 I had a blacklisted writer dad so I am definitely informed having lived through that time in Hollywood. The film's writer, Carl Foreman, was blacklisted. If everyone facing that situation had stuck together and refused to testify, it might not have turned into the truly bad situation it became, with friend accusing friends just to keep their careers alive. The bravest people in that situation found themselves alone, like Will Kane (Gary Cooper) did. Should the government be allowed to kill people's careers because of their political views, or, in many cases, long past political views, or even the political views, or past political views, of friends or acquaintances? We had just fought WWII opposing fascistic dictators.
Excellent review! Watched this movie at the tender age of 13 on a nice 16mm print in middle school. Didn't understand it completely back then, obviously. IMHO all great movies are about the human condition in one way or another. I can forgive some lines delivered in a wooden stage-play-like performance back in the early 1950s. Have a great 2021!
If Marshal Kane was my man, I'd be fighting and shooting, right along with him...but that's the way this American Indian babe rolls. RIP Gary Cooper, luv you lots.
Very good review . My older brother then age 4 was taken by our mother then age 22, to see this in the cinema.My brother is an old man now, our mother died in her 90s . Personal again
I think i saw this film in a film class. Forgot about it. But now I think I recall liking it. Got my attention then. Thinking about t HN the pat 2 days i wondered `....what is the big deal behind this filmÉ Considered a classic...`....now i understand. Do plan to order a copy of this film in DVD or BluRay disc. I think it`s refreshing to have a film that you`d think would be àction scene driven`to actually be plot driven. A good unique approach to a western. Original. As much as we all loved Eastwood`s Spagehetti westrn iconic cowboy films as well. Which had a g doo story AND good action...we DO go to see filmto be èntertained`. Can we really still be èntertained`watchi g a wetern with out much gun-playÉÉ Be like watching a samurai film with maybe only one sword fight at the end...
It’s A Man for All Seasons in 1:25 h in Wild West. Centuries of one men against the public odds. Biggest fear of all. History repeating itself without us learning anything. Exploring and repeating the same mistakes.
You talk about Amy "seeing the bigger picture." If she does, she sees it wrong. If they run away Miller and his gang will hunt for them and find them. I see the message as, "Running away from a situation is not going to solve it." There are a few situations in the world that can only be resolved by violence, and this is one of them. I think John Wayne was wrong. The people in the town had fought and struggled and made the town a good place to live, but they didn't realize that is a situation that needs upkeep. It's possible to put in a garden and work hard to make it all nice and neat and growing, but it's not going to stay that way unless it is watched over and watered and weeded!
I disagree with John Wayne, he was a movie star who didn’t live the average life in America. This movie is the reality of today; only 10 % of our country stands up and defends our constitution. Great movie about life in a free country 🇺🇸
Contrary to Wayne's beliefs there are in fact more cowardly people around than those who aren't. Many of whom attempt to cover their cowardice by claiming to be minding their business. I've witnessed this phenomena myself. The cowardice of the residents of the town was completely believable.
And just what is this different worldview, you mentioned? Looking at the final shootout scene, Cooper's character does not exactly come across as confident, but rather he looks like he had to fight this guy (er, guys) because he had to. The plot element of the townspeople abandoning him does not seem realistic (if it was supposed to be, I don't know) The key to Westerns is the generic setting. The Wild West in the genre is that it is a place where there is almost no government to speak of, and wherever it exists, it is wishful thinking. That is what makes it the genre, as the theater of it is, what does one do when there is no consistent morality or law enforcement around, and catching criminals is difficult at best?
I don’t know what the hell John Wayne is talking about… The men and women are not sitting on opposite sides in the church. they’re all sitting together
How much of a bad guy does Frank M have to be for you to acknowledge his evilness? 3 other bad guys look up to him as their superior; his former girl friend knows enough to unwillingly leave town under duress as fast as possible; he has no compunction about starting a fire which heartlessly could destroy animals and a man's livelihood, and possibly spread and destroy the town; and he hold's a woman at gunpoint and uses her as a shield. That and more about his cravenness is in the few minutes out of a 24 hour day.
Would have been cool to give the bad guy role to a more eccentric famous actor like orson wells or Marlin Brando. He could have had some high brow dialogue about business and law and cowards and populism, and sprayed the town with a double barrel shotgun or something.
fun fact: in 1989, in communist Poland, first free elections were allowed by the waning Communist Party, and the Solidarity movement produced a poster, encouraging ppl to vote: Gary Cooper from High Noon, caring a ballot instead of a gun. the message of the movie: lone individual, standing for what's right, against the odds, while his town watches, was well understood in Eastern Europe, and the movie, almost 40 years old at the time, carried a universal message. oh, the irony, that movie's star, Gary Cooper, was such a coward during McCarthyism. and John Wayne was an idiot: given the right circumstances, the ppl will behave just like the town's men in the movie, nothing special about Americans. hell, the whole movie is a metaphor for McCarthyism, no wonder he disapproved, given his leanings.
Grace Kelly acted magnificently? Are you in love with her? She barely registers any emotion in the entire movie. After that she mostly was eye candy for director Hitchcock before she found her real calling a real life princess. The film is incredible style-alized pretending to be deeper than it really is. Some of the fights are badly edited and the entire scene where he is trapped in the barn are so confusing you can't tell where anyone is. In it's simplistic storyline there was nothing that was going to surprise the audience. However, it seemed rather strange that a Quaker women would shoot a man in the back on her wedding day. Or that a main character in a western would have a first name of Harvey. The other actors in the film are just great even Lon Chaney Jr.but Cooper couldn't have been replaced by a long timber of wood.
