This film is landmark, if not a classic

It also contains arguably the best music video style use in a motion picture. The film opens with three men riding on horses together confidantly and with a purpose that isn't immediately apparent. You start to think that this is going to be a good shoot em up film. That mislead is a great thing that this film gets right. To the person seeing it a second time (and hopefully not reading this review first) it dramatizes the incoming story well. What you end up getting is a story about what is necessary to provoke action and whether ideals and quality of life are things worthy to fight for, whether fighting is necessary at all. To a certain extent, the film becomes increasingly dry leading up to the ending, but I don't think the portions that take their time are bad in any way, they seem very real. These portions are why people think this film is crap today, but back then the film came out around the time of the red scare and a number of people involved in the film were blacklisted. The film also presents a hero who has to ask for help and doesn't really get any. This flies in the face of all the Western fantasy of what a hero is like. In the common Western the hero inspires by example, doesn't have to ask, always comes out on top, never breaks a sweat, and is always believed by the common folk in the film to be in the right. "High Noon" is what is referred to as a revisionist western and John Wayne with his director friend Howard Hawks took the same idea and changed around the results creating the epic "Rio Bravo." To restate the differences between the two films, this film is not an epic, but a story about underlying questions of principle in everyday life. I imagine what most people disliked about this film was that it's a critique of society and presents all parties involved in a less than sterling light. To me, the movie stands the test of time well because it's smart, it sticks to certain motif's throughout (the sense of dread through clocks), the opposition of the main character by his wife who's a Quaker. Also, it separates itself from being a formulaic western thriller by not constantly keeping the water boiling and giving the audience time to consider the underlying principles and rationally judge the situation, just like the hero. Interestingly, the film ends with the hero coming out on top, but it's not a positive thing here, it's almost an afterthought. So, in summary, this is not an action western, it's a ponderous one, so if that's what you want, well you can rent/buy "Rio Bravo." Although they are ideologically opposed they are both good movies in their own rights, although I think this one is superior on an intellectual basis.

High Noon, Does Not Foresake the Viewer

Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly are spectacular in what is considered one of the best westerns ever made, but should be ranked as one of the greatest films ever produced because it easily transcends its genre.
A morality play that was deliberately produced in stark black-and-white to heighten the mood, the story revolves around Cooper's character, the aging Marshal of Hadleyville who, when the film begins, weds Kelly's character. Cooper has retired and plans to return after his honeymoon as a store keeper because his wife is a Quaker and a pacifist. Plans immediately go awry, however, when it is discovered that a notorious killer whom Cooper had arrested and was expected to have been executed, was instead pardoned. The killer is expected to arrive back in town on the noon train to take revenge on Cooper. Three of his equally savage gang have already arrived and are waiting for him at the train station.

The townspeople urge Cooper to flee with his new wife, but as he starts out of town, he stops, then returns, convinced that he has a responsibility to protect the town and bring the outlaws to justice. Pinning the marshal's badge back on, Cooper tries to deputize residents, but no one will help him and he is forced to stand alone. In powerful scenes, Cooper is forced to ask for help time-after-time but is turned down by residents who refuse to accept civic responsibility or acknowledge the debt they owe Cooper, rationalizing their decision not to act.

Kelly doesn't understand her new husband and threatens to leave on the same noon train if he persists in remaining as the marshall this one last time. Kelly eventually begins to understand what drives Cooper but only after forming an unlikely friendship with his former girlfriend, who teaches Kelly about loyalty and character. Ironically, it is Kelly the pacifist who saves Cooper's life by picking up a .45 and killing one of the gunmen.

In the last scene, the steets are utterly deserted until the gunmen are killed, then the townspeople, who had been hiding, flock around Cooper and Kelly. Without a word, Cooper removes his badge and drops it in the dirt. He and Kelly leave together.

Throughout the movie, the stirring music and the real-time focus of the minutes ticking by until High Noon, serve to increase the movie's tension. The film combines elements of love, trust, duty, honor and courage in unexpected ways that are both thought-provoking and entertaining. The DVD version is crisp and clean, the story as powerful today as when it was filmed. If you have never seen this movie, you owe it to yourself to pick up this DVD.

Anti-John Wayne, not anti-McCarthy

I don't know about this film being an allegory about McCarthyism. I suppose any film that features moral integrity and courage could say something about people like McCarthy and the passive cowards who don't stand up to him. I found this film to be a refreshing antidote to John Wayne and Clint Eastwood style Westerns - not that I don't enjoy watching those films. But John Wayne is fantasy, and High Noon is real. A real hero gets scared, a real hero asks for help, a real hero considers options in which no one gets hurt, and a real hero knows when to run and when to stand and fight. Watching this film, I felt something I haven't felt so strongly in a long time: respect and admiration for a leader in a government position.