Review of High Noon

A unique little western film. It clocks in at under an hour and a half and the majority of that is Marshal Will Kane failing to rally the town to defend from the devious Frank Miller who's been released from prison to enact his vengeance.

The time leading up to the final battle is interesting with the passage of time (all leading up to the noon hour) on clocks being a big visual motif. Gary Cooper puts in a pretty good turn as a marshal who refuses to abandon a town that won't stand by him. As he repeatedly fails to get a posse together you can see the desperation and fear of mortality creep into his performance. He's almost an unlikely movie hero. He does the right thing but he's not the "Man With No Name" - he can't gun down 4 super villains at once. This makes the final showdown the most interesting yet least satisfying part of the film.

The box art and inflated expectations lead one to believe that the final showdown will be a classic one on one duel. It isn't. It's interesting in its own way but the conclusion of the showdown is quite sudden and unexpected. Realistic perhaps, but it lacks the high drama I was expecting.

Still, Cooper is great and this is as fine an examination of a man facing his mortality while his loved ones turn their backs as you will see in any film, let alone a Western.