High Noon – the Death of the Cowboy Lawman

High Noon - Edited by Elmo Williams & Harry Gerstad, Music by Dimitri Tiomkin, Directed by Fred Zinneman - 1952

High Noon is a masterpiece of montage and a celebration of simplicity in storytelling. It describes a time when the lone defender of the law was becoming an historical aberration. It is a lament for the death of courage and principles. It is an indictment of the spread of a culture of fear and self-interest.  

It tells the story of Marshal Will Kane, played by Gary Cooper, who, on the day of his wedding and retirement is faced with the imminent return to his town of a criminal, Frank Miller, who he’d helped to put in prison. Kane makes a stand. He puts off his departure and prepares to stand up to the returning Miller and his three henchmen.

One by one his erstwhile allies desert him until he is alone in the street, facing down the villains. The final, climactic scene is a masterpiece of narrative tension which is described through perfectly realised montage and photography and accentuated by the tense soundtrack.

Every shot of this film seems perfectly edited, expertly worked into a unified whole of form and content. The story and the acting, the music and the photography interrelate with sympathy, symmetry and at times, irony.

From the beginning High Noon is a primer in the basics of the grammar of film making: The opening scene has no dialogue. The story is introduced through music and montage. Close ups, landscape shots, medium shots are beautifully and elegantly edited into the narrative thread.

Time, or rather, time running out is a key theme of this film. Twelve noon, high noon is when the train bringing Miller back to town arrives at the station. The photography reinforces this theme and creates a sense of claustrophobia and tension that builds as the film approaches the climax:

The repeated shots of the clock in the Marshal’s office; the Marshal himself walks past a store advertising ‘Watches Repaired’ on a number of occasions; the long shots of the train line disappearing to the horizon. The actors’ faces in close up are (with the exception of Grace Kelly) sweaty and tense. The soundtrack adds to this sense of heightening fear.  

Towards the end, after the Marshal has been abandoned by every man and woman in the town, he is shown in the deserted street waiting for the showdown. A fantastic pull back and crane shot captures Cooper’s isolation (You can see a still from this shot at the top of this post). He is truly alone; his time, his options and, indeed his life has run out.

Of course, Cooper’s life is not running out. He kills all four villains – I love Lee Van Cleef’s character; he does not say a single word throughout the film but he is so sinister – he prevails against all the odds. The Marshal flings his badge into the dirt, takes his wife and leaves the cowardly, craven townspeople  to fend for themselves.

Cooper’s departure indicts the townspeople. He had, in the past saved their town. One character tells him:

“When you cleaned this town up you made it fit for women and kids to live in”

But they deserted them in his hour of need. A town full of Judases. How did this happen?  The film is set sometime late in the nineteenth century. Historically speaking, it had to happen.

A debate in the church midway through the film amongst the townspeople reveals this historical context.  The people are debating what to do rather than immediately taking arms to defend themselves. These are people of reflection  and thought more than they are of action – this is late in the long day of the settlement of the American West – the Indians have been tamed and the newly settled whites are looking to put down roots – quiet and undisturbed. I suppose this is a film about the birth of suburbia.

“People up north are thinking about this town , thinking might hard thinking about sending money down here to put up stores and to build factories…but if they’re going to read about shooting and killing in the streets,  what are they going to think then?”

Economic security, self-interest, at any cost. There is no place for a lone upholder of the right and the good. The day of the cowboy/sheriff had passed.  Cooper’s character did not die but he might as well have.