Screenshot for the Week of 05 July 2020: "HIGH NOON" (1952)

Gary Cooper as Marshal Will Kane in High Noon (1952)

The Year 1952 was rife with paradox, irony, and fear in the movie industry.  That year yielded seven great films, none of which won the Oscar for Best Picture.  It was the year of High Noon; The Bad and the Beautiful; Viva Zapata!; The Quiet Man; Come Back, Little Sheba; Forbidden Games; and Singin' in the Rain.  The Oscar for Best Picture of 1952 went to a good but not great film, The Greatest Show on Earth.

Carl Foreman's script for High Noon is a classic.  It was nominated for an Oscar but lost to The Bad and the Beautiful.  I think Foreman's script was better, but the loss wasn't a miscarriage of justice.  After all, The Bad and the Beautiful won 5 Oscars, more than any other film that year.

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High Noon is an allegory for the "red scare" in postwar America and for the way Hollywood—actors, producers, writers, directors, studio bosses—failed to rise up, stand united, and protect their own in the face of Congressional bullying.  In trying to find and root out Communists and Communist influence in Hollywood, the House Committee on Un-American Activities menaced witnesses who did not unabashedly and unhesitatingly cooperate and "name names"—i. e., expose members of the film industry that had even a remote connection to Communism.

If it were discovered that you had taken a leaflet from someone on the street that turned out to be Communist propaganda—even if you had immediately shoved it into your pocket without looking at it and thrown it away when you got home—you would be labeled a suspected Communist or Communist sympathizer.  If you had eaten a meal one time in a restaurant that was later identified as a Communist hangout; if a distant relative had been labeled a Communist or sympathizer; if you had gone to a party where Communists or sympathizers had been present, you would be labeled a suspected Communist or Communist sympathizer.  In or out of Hollywood you would lose your job.  Friends and colleagues would shun and avoid you.

The film industry was complicit in the bullying by way of its off-the-record "blacklist."  The "Hollywood Blacklist" was a poorly-kept secret that, for decades, Hollywood insiders denied ever existed.  But too many memoirs and first-person accounts of the blacklist have put that canard in its grave.  Indeed there was a blacklist and it was enforced.

It was the age of widespread fear.  It was the age of the second "red scare" of the 20th century.  It was the age of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Whitaker Chambers, the "atom bomb" and the soul-killing fear of "World War III."  It was the age of Joseph R. McCarthy, his henchman Roy Cohn, and Congressman Richard Nixon.  Few dared to stand up to the bullying.  Carl Foreman was one who did, and in return he was blacklisted from working in Hollywood.  But before he was blacklisted, he wrote High Noon.

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Floyd Crosby (father of rocker David Crosby [The Byrds; Buffalo Springfield; Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young]) was the Director of Photography on this film.  What's the difference between a cinematographer and a director of photography?  Answer: the level of artistic control over the cinematography.

The high-contrast black-and-white of High Noon was conceived and executed by Crosby and makes the visual imagery as stark as the story and action.  Director Fred Zinnemann had a vivid mental storyboard of how the action should play out.  His firm grasp on his subject no doubt helped Crosby tremendously.  If only ….  If only High Noon had been Crosby's lone film credit, he might have been considered among the world's greatest cinematographers.  Alas, it wasn't and he isn't.

Crosby's resume is unimpressive.  And thus his credit for High Noon stands out as if it were in all caps or red letters.  His work on that film is the work of a true artist at the top of his game.  I spent the time to take screenshots of High Noon from start to finish, following Crosby around, shooting what he shot.  I ended up taking only 57, but nearly every one is perfectly framed.  Here are a few examples.

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Gary Cooper was a lifelong conservative Republican.  I don't know whether he hesitated in taking the role of Will Kane and whether the hesitation, if it happened, was political.  But Fred Zinnemann's first choice—Gregory Peck—turned the role down and it was then offered to Cooper.  His popularity had dropped in the previous seven or eight years.  Perhaps he saw this as a comeback opportunity.  It most certainly was.

Many critics and, doubtless, many filmgoers were disturbed by the age gap between Cooper and Grace Kelly.  Cooper was 51 and Kelly was 21.  Cooper and Kelly had no problem with it.  In fact they carried on an affair during the entirety of the filming.

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Some blacklisted writers continued to work in Hollywood off-the-record, literally.  Their screen credits were given over to fake names.  At least four of their screenplays won Oscars: Roman Holiday (1953), written by Dalton Trumbo; The Brave One (1956), also by Trumbo; The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), co-written by Carl Foreman and another blacklisted writer, Michael Wilson; and The Defiant Ones (1958), co-written by Nedrick Young.  Decades later, they finally received their credits when their real names were restored to the films and to the official records.

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High Noon director Fred Zinnemann's next movie was From Here to Eternity (1953).  It won the Oscar for Best Picture of 1953 and he won an Oscar for his direction.

DoP: Floyd Crosby.  D: Fred Zinnemann.