One Righteous Man-Gary Cooper’s “High Noon” (1952)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Sam Lowell

No question the western trek back in the 19^th was filled with plenty of people who for one reason or another had cashed their checks in the East and headed out to some kind of new beginning, out to the frontier (and you didn’t have to be a high-flying Harvard professor back then to figure out that once you hit the Pacific Ocean the frontier spirt was done for-unless you wanted to swim the Japan seas looking for your place in the sun). The drift trek west drew plenty of weary sod farmers, budding capitalists especially with the coming of the railroads across the great expanse and, important for the film under review, High Noon, a big fistful of desperadoes, bandits and other preying sorts. So you had a mix of free spirits and free-loaders to contend with on an average day.      

No question either the West, here we are talking about what was called the Wild West of legend, book and film, drew those who were individualistic sorts, you don’t leave where you are if you have some things going for you as a rule if you haven’t cashed your check but at the same time between the dramatic climate shifts, the wrath of the Native American who took umbrage at whites settling on their sacred lands and the shoot ‘em up bandits you also needed some sense of social cohesion-needed when the deal went down to stick together.   

Now I have heard and read a lot about this film produced deep in the red scare Cold War film being a metaphor for people in those days like those settlers in the film keeping their heads down. Probably so for like Arthur Miller’s The Crucible you needed to use metaphor to get some work if you didn’t want to get blacklisted need the services of a “front.” But this film also stands for the proposition good any time that one righteous unafraid man is good to have around anytime.   

Here’s the way this shoot-out played. The Sheriff, played by Oscar-winner Gary Cooper, got married to a Quaker lady, played by fetching even in a bonnet Grace Kelly, and was ready to leave his old law enforcement life behind. Problem was though that a desperado that he had sent to state prison five years before had gotten a pardon and with his gang of men looking to get even with the good sheriff. The new sheriff was not expected until the next day but our desperado was coming in at high noon that day. So the sheriff stayed, stayed and tried to recruit the townspeople to help back him up in the coming shoot-out. For many reasons, some good, some bad, he got no takers but he was just the type to go it alone if he had to. And he did, except that Quaker lady he married when they deal went down and they were going to gun down her man became very un-Quakerly. The sheriff and the Misses saved the town as he dropped his badge on the ground after the fight and headed out of town. Yeah, I can appreciate a righteous man anytime-especially when the times make the masses keep their heads down. A classic neo-Western.