High Noon

DVD review from The Movie Snob

High Noon (A-). I thoroughly enjoyed this classic Western that won Gary Cooper the Best Acting Oscar. Cooper plays Will Kane, the marshal of the little town of Hadleyville. As the movie opens, he is turning in his badge and marrying a Quaker gal (Grace Kelly, looking terrific). But even as he is getting hitched, three tough customers blow into town and ominously sit down to wait at the railroad station. Word gets out that Frank Miller, a convicted murderer that Kane had put away five years earlier, has just gotten out of prison and is arriving in Hadleyville on the noon train, and the rest of the movie unspools in real time as high noon approaches. Kane answers the call of duty, picks up his badge, and tries to gather a posse to stand up to Miller and his gang. Will the townspeople back the honest lawman? Will his Quaker bride abandon him for his refusal to forsake violence? Watch the film and find out for yourself.