High Noon (1952)
Country: US
Technical: bw 85m
Director: Fred Zinnemann
Cast: Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, Katy Jurado, Lloyd Bridges, Lon Chaney Jnr, Otto Kruger, Thomas Mitchell, Lee Van Cleef, Jack Elam
Synopsis:
After many years service cleaning up his town, a marshal finally retires to marry a Quaker girl, when the news comes of the arrival in town of a gang sworn to get even on him for sending one of them down for life. Grimly, he determines to stay, rather than leave the town to their mercies, but has great difficulty raising a posse to stand against them.
Review:
A classic western which, according to some critics is not even a proper Western, rather a character drama or textbook exercise in suspense craftsmanship. I beg to differ: the themes of community values and refusal to run from a fight resonate well enough with those of the Western genre, and the mere presence of Coop and some of the other faces, not to mention the sounds of Dimitri Tiomkin, confirm the generic feel. It is above all scrupulously written and directed, each scene carefully geared to fulfil its purpose, each shot enriched by its place in the whole. The backstory and extent of the townspeople's pusillanimity become apparent in stages, but the actual showdown is a perfunctory affair: once that whistle blows the interest flags; the waiting is all. True, some of the ways in which Kane is so inexorably isolated seem contrived on repeated viewings, but then, as has often been commented, the film can be read as an allegory of McCarthyism with Kane the one man who refuses to name names, and as such one can forgive the odd artifice. John Wayne and Howard Hawks took exception to the film ('No decent sheriff would run around town asking for help in so craven a fashion.') and Rio Bravo was intended as a sort of response: a marshal who fights his own fights and has no time for weaklings. But even John T. Chance accepts help.
Country: US
Technical: bw 85m
Director: Fred Zinnemann
Cast: Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, Katy Jurado, Lloyd Bridges, Lon Chaney Jnr, Otto Kruger, Thomas Mitchell, Lee Van Cleef, Jack Elam
Synopsis:
After many years service cleaning up his town, a marshal finally retires to marry a Quaker girl, when the news comes of the arrival in town of a gang sworn to get even on him for sending one of them down for life. Grimly, he determines to stay, rather than leave the town to their mercies, but has great difficulty raising a posse to stand against them.
Review:
A classic western which, according to some critics is not even a proper Western, rather a character drama or textbook exercise in suspense craftsmanship. I beg to differ: the themes of community values and refusal to run from a fight resonate well enough with those of the Western genre, and the mere presence of Coop and some of the other faces, not to mention the sounds of Dimitri Tiomkin, confirm the generic feel. It is above all scrupulously written and directed, each scene carefully geared to fulfil its purpose, each shot enriched by its place in the whole. The backstory and extent of the townspeople's pusillanimity become apparent in stages, but the actual showdown is a perfunctory affair: once that whistle blows the interest flags; the waiting is all. True, some of the ways in which Kane is so inexorably isolated seem contrived on repeated viewings, but then, as has often been commented, the film can be read as an allegory of McCarthyism with Kane the one man who refuses to name names, and as such one can forgive the odd artifice. John Wayne and Howard Hawks took exception to the film ('No decent sheriff would run around town asking for help in so craven a fashion.') and Rio Bravo was intended as a sort of response: a marshal who fights his own fights and has no time for weaklings. But even John T. Chance accepts help.
Country: US
Technical: bw 85m
Director: Fred Zinnemann
Cast: Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, Katy Jurado, Lloyd Bridges, Lon Chaney Jnr, Otto Kruger, Thomas Mitchell, Lee Van Cleef, Jack Elam
Synopsis:
After many years service cleaning up his town, a marshal finally retires to marry a Quaker girl, when the news comes of the arrival in town of a gang sworn to get even on him for sending one of them down for life. Grimly, he determines to stay, rather than leave the town to their mercies, but has great difficulty raising a posse to stand against them.
Review:
A classic western which, according to some critics is not even a proper Western, rather a character drama or textbook exercise in suspense craftsmanship. I beg to differ: the themes of community values and refusal to run from a fight resonate well enough with those of the Western genre, and the mere presence of Coop and some of the other faces, not to mention the sounds of Dimitri Tiomkin, confirm the generic feel. It is above all scrupulously written and directed, each scene carefully geared to fulfil its purpose, each shot enriched by its place in the whole. The backstory and extent of the townspeople's pusillanimity become apparent in stages, but the actual showdown is a perfunctory affair: once that whistle blows the interest flags; the waiting is all. True, some of the ways in which Kane is so inexorably isolated seem contrived on repeated viewings, but then, as has often been commented, the film can be read as an allegory of McCarthyism with Kane the one man who refuses to name names, and as such one can forgive the odd artifice. John Wayne and Howard Hawks took exception to the film ('No decent sheriff would run around town asking for help in so craven a fashion.') and Rio Bravo was intended as a sort of response: a marshal who fights his own fights and has no time for weaklings. But even John T. Chance accepts help.