5 Star

A Man of Principles.

From humble beginnings as The Tin Star by John Cunningham and adapted by screenwriter Carl Foreman (The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Guns of Navarone, Force 10 from Navarone), High Noon is brought to the screen by visionary director Fred Zinnemann (From Here to Eternity, Oklahoma!, A Man for All Seasons, The Day of the Jackal) and it changed the face of Westerns for ever. Awesome suspense.

The small town of Hadleyville New Mexico is a quiet town where people get on with their business, but it wasn’t always like that. Women feared walking the streets as it was a rowdy lawless place run by the Miller gang headed by Frank (Ian MacDonald, Taza, Son of Cochise, Two-Gun Lady). That is until the merchants of Hadleyville banded together and funded a marshal and six deputies to clean the town up. They were successful and Frank was sentenced to death.

“This town will be safe until tomorrow.”

Now it is five years later and the successful marshal Will Kane (Gary Cooper, Sergeant York, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Vera Cruz) is about to hang up his badge, but first he must wed his fiancée Amy Fowler Kane (Grace Kelly, Dial M for Murder, Rear Window, High Society) who is a devout Quaker and pacifist and that is why they don’t get married in the towns church.

It is Sunday morning and things are quiet as people prepare for church and for those that are on the street, it is a shock as three of Miller’s gang, his younger brother Ben (Sheb Wooley, The Fighting Seventh, Giant), Jack Colby (Lee Van Cleef, For a Few Dollars More, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, The Magnificent Seven Ride!), and Jim Pierce (Robert J. Wilke, A Gunfight, Stripes) ride through town and head for the railway station. The station master recieves a telegram that sends him running for the town, he finds the marshal and hands him the news that Frank Miller, instead of being dead, had his sentence commuted and is now a free man who is coming for revenge against the town and marshal Will Kane.

The town want him to flee with his new bride, but he is a man of conviction. He cannot leave his town without a marshal and he has a link with Miller, both men have had intimate relations with Helen Ramírez (Katy Jurado, A Beautiful Secret) the owner of the towns hotel.

He has just over an hour to get deputies to defeat the Miller gang and you can watch every sweaty minute of it in beautiful 4K.

 High Noon (1952) (Masters of Cinema)
Limited Edition is available on Blu-ray

 

BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES

4K Digital Restoration
Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
Brand new and exclusive audio commentary by historian Glenn Frankel, author of High Noon: The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic
Brand new and exclusive audio commentary by western authority Stephen Prince
New video interview with film historian Neil Sinyard, author of Fred Zinnemann: Films of Character and Conscience
A 1969 audio interview with writer Carl Foreman from the National Film Theatre in London
The Making of High Noon [22 mins] a documentary on the making of the film
Inside High Noon [47 mins] and Behind High Noon [10 mins] two video pieces on the making and context of the film
Theatrical Trailer