SECOND HELPINGS: High Noon* (1952)

This is another one of the Original Eleven, the films I watched in my college class that became the foundation of this website. As an 18-year old raised on Star Wars and Indiana Jones, I thought this film was boring. Seeing it again years later, I am reminded of just how immature I was when I first got into this whole rating movies thing.

In my youth, I was completely ignorant to the uniqueness of High Noon’s concept. It probably wasn’t the first film to tell its story as it plays out in real time but that doesn’t matter. Few filmmakers go this route at all, so it is noteworthy when it is done and done as well as it is here. We are given enough time for characters to catch the audience up to speed through exposition and to let us know just how high the stakes are.

My father is a big Clint Eastwood fan, so I grew up watching and appreciating antiheroes. I think this factored heavily in my original rating, because after so many years of cheering on rogues, a dutiful and honorable sheriff doing his job seemed pretty uninteresting. I’m still not much of a cookie-cutter good guy Western fan but I understand now that High Noon is anything but cookie cutter.

Over the years Westerns have been generalized as either rowdy cowboy flicks or simplistic good-vs.-bad yarns. High Noon is a good-vs.-bad yarn but its characters are much more contemplative than characters in other films in the genre at that time. Instead of boldly standing up for justice when no one else will, Will Kane wavers on whether to defend his town or go on his honeymoon, and shows mounting frustration at the cowardice of his friends and fellow townsfolk. Kane’s Quaker bride struggles with Kane’s sense of duty and her strong devotion to pacifism.

The end result is realism that overshadows Kane’s nobility in taking on the gunman descending upon the town. It’s not pretty, and even a bit surprising for a Western, but it is still satisfying. But as much as High Noon can drive post-film conversation, is it really an all-time classic? Just like real life, the film drags on at times before getting to the point. We’re treated to all kinds of thought-provoking conversation but does that make up for what could be argued are rehashed scenes of Kane running around town getting the same disappointing result?

Now that I am older, I can appreciate the novel concept of this film and I enjoy the intelligence it tries to bring to what had largely become a brainless genre. But that’s about it for me. It’s unique and well-made but other than tricky editing to make it all flow as close to real-time as possible, I didn’t notice anything technically remarkable about the film. The acting is good but not emotionally gripping.

Let’s be honest- greatness is in the eye of the beholder. A part of me feels that this film was elevated to greatness by Hollywood and those who went on to be film theory professors because it was made as an allegory to Hollywood’s failure to stand up against Senator Joseph McCarthy and his HUAC and its blacklisting of Hollywood communist sympathizers.

I’m not suggesting that emotional resonance plays second fiddle to technical mastery, but for me to view a film as great, both need to be present in equally high amounts. A film’s greatness is determined by the sum of its parts. No one can impart or bestow greatness upon a film simply by stating that it is an allegory or metaphor for some other worthy struggle. If I came from that era, perhaps this film would mean more because I would be more familiar with its allegorical source. But I am not from that era, and the sum of High Noon’s parts that are timeless film traits (acting, cinematography, etc.) does not suggest greatness. I up my rating but I still don’t buy the hype.

Original Rating: 2.5 out of 5

New Rating: 3.5 out of 5