A town Marshal, despite the disagreements of his newlywed bride and the townspeople around him, must face a gang of deadly killers alone at high noon when the gang leader, an outlaw he sent up years ago, arrives on the noon train.Believe it or not i never saw this movie before and heard so much about it. Well all I can say is that it's way over rated and extremely dated.There are supposed to be political undertones regarding the McCarthy era but you'd have to dig for them.Sorry, I know Cooper won an academy award for this film and I like him as an actor but the movie is just not that good.

I can always nitpick about some aspect of how the script plays out and think I can do a better job. When it comes to the camera stuff I will not pretend to know anything. Now that I have got that out of the way I have always felt the visuals in "Shane" were the best of any film I had seen. At over 60 I have finally taken the time to watch "High Noon" and was blown away by the way it was filmed. Black and white works here when I am sure it would have made Shane a poorer movie. Wilke, Cleef, and Wooley played their parts in what I would call an understated and very believable way. Grace Kelly has to be the most beautiful woman to ever have graced the silver screen. It could have been a silent film and still been a joy to watch, though the song "The Ballad of High Noon" and dialogue make it a much better experience. For different reasons High Noon now joins Shane at the top of my list of favorite Westerns.

With it's short running time it was a weird to look at the movie that is western, drama and thriller at the same time but also it proved it can be very powerful if played correctly. As the word about man returning with noon train hit the small town everything just went down, people started to leave and overall fear kicked in for their lives and future. Marshall kept running around looking for help as everybody is turning him down and he realizes what has come upon him that he will need to face them alone and in all that his newly wed wife is leaving him because of his decision that he will stand for the town and fight those criminals. It was obvious that he was desperate but he was driven by the urge to protect everybody. Finally they arrived and chase around town started he fight them back and won after a turnover of events. Everyone is relieved and he is finally free to leave town as his wife is by his side. Music in the movie is absolutely fantastic with theme song playing over and over when tension is building. 3.5/4

...a quote from Men in Black that applies here if it ever applied anywhere.Gary Cooper plays marshal Will Kaine, who turns in his star immediately after he marries Amy, a Quaker girl (Grace Kelly). Upsetting the celebration is the news that killer Frank Miller is due on the noon train and his first order of business is to kill Kaine, a man who Kaine helped send to prison five years ago and swore blood vengeance at the time. The three members of his gang are waiting at the depot. Miller escaped hanging, got a long sentence, and some knuckleheads on the parole board have turned him loose. At first Kaine is with the popular sentiment - Run!. But then he realizes that Miller will lay waste to the town if he isn't there - the new marshal isn't due in until the next day - plus Miller will hunt him down wherever he is - Kaine will always be looking over his shoulder.He goes around looking for deputies to help him make his stand. Oh, everybody talks about what a good job Kaine did, but nobody stands up for him. They have all kinds of excuses. That a shootout will cause investors from the east and north to think their town is just another shoot em up town, that if Will isn't there Miller will just leave etc. In the end the result is NOBODY stood by him in his hour of need, in spite of the fact that many in the town owed their lives and fortunes to Kaine cleaning up the town.The best device in this movie - added after a preview called the film dull - is the constant showing of the clock, ticking away the precious minutes Kaine has. And he is a human hero - because you can tell dying is on his mind, running is on his mind, but in the end he stays to face his enemies. The scene towards the end, with him standing in the middle of a dusty abandoned main street as the camera pulls back just to show how alone Kaine is in this battle is iconic.Where is his wife you might ask? With a ticket in hand to get on the next train out. At least Grace Kelly's character has a reason for her pacifism - her newly found Quaker faith. What she fails to realize is that unless you are willing to be a slave you have to be strong enough that you can afford pacifism.There are some great performances here. There is Lon Chaney as the old sheriff who Will goes to for help. The old sheriff has the best excuse of all - he is just too old for this. Will would be looking after him instead of himself. Then there is Lloyd Bridges as one of the most unlikeable characters in film history. He's Kane's ex-deputy Harvey Pell and he is a weasel without the cuteness factor. He is tired of living in Kaine's shadow, just a little jealous that Kaine had Harvey's girl before he had her, very resentful that Kaine would not recommend him to be the new marshal. But here is his chance - if Kaine runs, Kaine is no better than he is. That is why he beats Will up trying to put him on a horse towards the end of the film. He doesn't want Will to live, he wants him to run, to somehow prove he is a coward.And you have to love the townspeople thinking that this will just "all go away" if everybody hides. The first act of the foursome of gunslingers when they hit town is not to kill Kaine, but to smash a store window and take a woman's bonnet that one of the killers fancies - an act of theft. They'll be stealing more than stuff by nightfall if nobody stops them.Highly recommended.