Fabricated Truth

Review:

On the day of his wedding to Quaker Grace Kelly, city marshal Gary Cooper learns that a murderer he once sent up has been pardoned and is returning on the noon train. The town fathers urge him to leave the place immediately, but he knows that he has to stick around. Over the next 80 minutes, he desperately tries to raise help in defeating the man who has come to kill him. John Wayne once called this “a western for people who don’t like westerns” and that’s somewhat true. It’s depiction of the old West is much closer to Sergio Leone’s work than Wayne’s and Cooper’s useless search for help readily deconstructs the hero myth. The tension builds over the (almost) real time development before it unleashes itself in the final confrontation.

Random Observations:

High Noon at the IMDb

Writer Carl Foreman wrote the script as an allegory for the McCarthy witch-hunts of the HUAC - probably one of the reasons Wayne disliked it so much. The producers later purchased the rights to the story The Tin Star by John Cunningham because Foreman was unsure whether he had read it and subconsciously based the story on it.

This was Foreman’s last Hollywood project before he became blacklisted. Lloyd Bridges (father of Jeff Bridges), who played a dissatisfied deputy, befell a similar fate, but the actor was “only” greylisted.

Despite the modern day Los Angeles skyline clearly visible in the background, the shots of the deserted town have become rightfully iconic.

Interestingly, John Wayne accepted the Best Actor Oscar on Gary Cooper’s behalf, who was absent at the ceremony.

The film’s theme song “High Noon (Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin’)” was the first non-musical song to win the best original song Oscar. The score of the entire film is also a variation on the theme, which is very unusual, was a first at the time, and is actually annoying, despite the song being completely awesome.