High Noon Blu-ray Review
Do not forsake this Blu-ray, oh my darlin'.
Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, June 22, 2012
The fate of high profile catalog titles on Blu-ray has been a rather interesting story, especially now that we're several
years into the high definition era. Some studios, notably Warner Brothers, have excelled at releasing quality catalog
product, often in lavish Collectors' Editions, at least for their
very high profile titles like
Ben-Hur or
Citizen Kane. Though perhaps less lauded than
Warner, Paramount has also done excellent work on a number of high value titles, including
The Ten Commandments and
Breakfast at Tiffany's
(the latter title quite unfairly derided for supposed DNR that simply isn't there). Universal, of course, is a different
matter entirely, usually the bane of withering comments that lambaste its persistent use of DNR on catalog releases
(even if I personally seldom find the results as abhorrent as many seem to). Perhaps at least a little unexpectedly, a
whole slew of supposedly "lesser" catalog releases have either not seen the Blu-ray light of day (yet) or have been
relegated to a kind of secondary market, where we've seen Paramount (or Paramount controlled) titles coming out on
Olive Films Blu-rays and both Columbia and Fox catalog titles being released by Twilight Time. Some of these titles
might be termed second string
catalog releases, and many seem to be getting shuttled off to niche labels like Twilight Time and Olive Films via licensing
deals
more and more lately, perhaps a sign that the actual studio labels themselves have little to no interest in actually taking
the financial risk to release product that may not have sold overly well on VHS or DVD (or in some rare cases may never
have been released in any home video format whatsoever before). For all the sniping about price
points and lack of extras that regularly enflame discussions about both of the niche labels listed above, my personal
opinion is
lovers of classic films owe these little labels a debt of gratitude for at least testing the market waters with releases that
otherwise might not see the light of day, even if there
are certain things to complain about now and again.
High Noon is a case in point. It regularly makes any number of AFI
"best of" lists, it won Gary Cooper a well deserved Best Actor Academy Award, it produced one of the most memorable
and best loved theme songs of all time (another Oscar winner), and it in its own small way reinvented the Western.
And yet Paramount (which controls distribution of this United Artists release) has never seen fit to release it on Blu-ray
itself, leaving that up to Olive Films via its licensing deal.
Though there had been unique Westerns before
High Noon (John Ford's opuses spring instantly to mind), for
most
moviegoers a Western meant simple characters broad drawnly, so glyph-like that they frequently literally wore white
hats
and black hats to denote their class as either hero or villain. Mix in a few (sometimes a lot of) gun battles, the more
than
occasional marauding "Indians" (back when that was what Native Americans were routinely called), and the broad
outlines
of the genre were firmly in place. That may be one reason critics and audiences didn't quite know what to make of
High Noon when it premiered in 1952. This was a decidedly low key Western, with a brooding quality and
virtually
no action whatsoever save for the final few minutes when all hell breaks loose.
The basic setup of
High Noon is simplicity itself, almost what might be termed high concept (no pun intended):
Marshal Will Kane (Gary Cooper), who has brought law and order to the previously crime ridden streets of Hadleyville,
has just married a Quaker named Amy (Grace Kelly), and has resigned his position. The very day he weds he finds out
a vicious criminal he had arrested has been released from prison and is headed back to Hadleyville with his gang. Amy
wants Will to simply leave with her, but Will fears the gang will hunt him down no matter what he chooses to do, and so
he decides to stay, reclaiming his badge and vowing to fight the bad guys, no matter what the consequences.
Unfortunately, the townspeople are curiously divided about how exactly to handle this looming threat, and Will finds no
takers when he asks for Deputies to help him fight the gang. In the meantime, Amy has threatened to leave one way
or the other. It should be mentioned that all of these developments take place in "real time", i.e., the approximately 90
or so minutes the film lasts, another somewhat unusual approach for a film of that era.
High Noon was the brainchild of scenarist Carl Foreman, though due to an unfortunate concatenation of events,
producer Stanley Kramer is often credited as the driving force behind the film (notice in the trailer—included on this Blu-
ray—how the film is labeled a Stanley Kramer film, rather than a Fred Zinnemann one). While
High Noon was in
production, Foreman was one of a gaggle of Hollywood artists caught up in the Red Scare and forced to testify before
the House Un-American Activities Committee. Unlike "fellow traveler" Elia Kazan, Foreman refused to name names, and
as a result he was blacklisted (he moved to England where he continued to write under various pseudonyms or without
receiving proper credit at all, as was the case with his contributions to
The Bridge On the River Kwai). Accounts
differ as to how supportive Kramer was through this process, but there's little doubt that the HUAC hearings promptly
put an end to Foreman's Hollywood career, and as a result his contribution as co-producer was removed from
High
Noon's credits, though his screenplay credit was allowed to stand (a fairly controversial decision), and he ultimately
received an Oscar nomination for his work.
All of this political backstory plays into
High Noon, for the film is at its most fundamental an examination of
personal courage under enormous peer pressure. Seemingly everyone in Hadleyville is espousing a "go along to get
along" attitude, hoping that the gang will not do anything
too nefarious, especially if Will Kane isn't there to
raise their hackles. The supporting cast debating what to do includes such heavyweights as Thomas Mitchell, Lloyd
Bridges and Lon Chaney, Jr., who has never been better and should erase any indelible memories of Larry Talbot and
The Wolfman in most viewers' minds.
Director Fred Zinnemann stages things effortlessly, but he also displays some unusual panache in several key
sequences.
Gunsmoke's opening titles borrowed Zinnemann's approach here of having Kane basically walk
"over" the camera, and there's another fantastic crane shot pulling back from Kane in one memorable moment which
reveals just how desperately alone Kane really is. Performances are uniformly excellent, including Katy Jurado as a
Hispanic store owner who has a history with Kane, his former Deputy (Bridges)
and the chief bad guy (she got
around, so to speak).
What is so bracing about
High Noon is just how low key it is. This is a film that moves relentlessly through
increasing desperation without so much as a hint of hyperbole. Fifties audiences didn't know what to make of a
Western that didn't feature "shoot 'em up" moments, thunder horse hooves and other well worn tropes of the idiom.
Luckily we can look back on
High Noon now from the vantage point granted by all the films that followed in its
wake and aped some of its techniques, and realize it for the undeniable masterpiece it is.
