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The Real Political Message of High Noon
The classic film, which is being reissued on DVD this week, seems like a conservative work today. It's not an anti-McCarthyism allegory, but a warning about the dangers of being soft on crime.
The Left has always treasured High Noon
Yet other fans of the film, which is being reissued on DVD today
The film didn’t start out as an anti-McCarthyism allegory, though, and it’s hard to picture a new generation viewing the film as a monument to liberal ideals. Quite the contrary: in a trick of history, or perhaps a lesson that subtle metaphors can fade, High Noon today seems like a conservative work. (This essay contains spoilers.)
Marshal Kane is on his last day on the job in a Western town when, at the start of the film, he marries a Quaker (Grace Kelly, in her star-making role) and prepares to go away with her to begin a new life. The next marshal is due in tomorrow. But the news comes that a man Kane arrested for murder, Frank Miller, who was supposed to hang, had his sentence commuted to life and then was released entirely due to an inexplicable decision by authorities “up North.” Three of Miller’s fellow gunslingers are already in town, and when Miller turns up on the noon train, the four of them plan to take revenge on Kane. Kane spends most of the movie trying but failing to interest townsfolk in becoming deputies to fight beside him, leaving him alone to write out his will and prepare to be slaughtered.
A young student watching High Noon for the first time today is unlikely to even notice any reference to McCarthyism unless prompted. Unlike other films that dealt with the subject — On the Waterfront, Spartacus, The Crucible — High Noon doesn’t feature a scene built around “naming names” — ratting out one’s colleagues.
Foreman’s battle with HUAC is subtext barely noticeable beneath the blaringly obvious text: High Noon is a warning about the dangers of being soft on crime, domestic or international.
The resonance of “up north”— blue states? — is history’s little gag gift to the film. Long before the 60s riots and the notion that every prison was built out of loopholes designed by northern intellectuals, High Noon would not at the time have been seen as politically divisive for its unsympathetic view of paroling killers.
Yet the film’s most potent allegorical power is as a defense of internationalism, of America as world policeman of last resort. Foreman said that he originally had in mind a metaphor about the United Nations.
Marshal Kane is like America going to the U.N. pleading for help in stopping the advance of Communism, getting rejected, and carrying on anyway because it’s the right thing to do. At the time — 1947 or 1948 — that Foreman first started thinking about the plot (which he combined with elements from the short story “The Tin Star”) the issue was Communist penetration into Korea. When the Justice of the Peace tells Will Kane, “This is just a dirty little village in the middle of nowhere. Nothing that happens here is really important,” he is making the classic isolationist case. He might be speaking about Korea, Vietnam or Iraq.
A slightly different argument is made by Kane’s bride Amy, who, as a Quaker, vows to leave him (less than an hour after their wedding!) if he doesn’t simply walk away from the desperadoes. Kane says that isn’t an option: He’ll just have to fight them on some other day. Amy begs Kane to put his notions of good and evil aside and just give peace a chance. “My father and brother were killed by guns,” Amy explains. “They were on the right side but that didn’t matter when the shooting started . . . I don’t care who’s right or who’s wrong. There’s got to be some better way for people to live.”
When Amy changes her mind — she shoots one villain and distracts another, saving Kane’s life — it’s one of the great character reversals in cinema history. What’s happening before our eyes — a pacifist taking up arms — is far more resonant than the reading-between-the-lines view of Kane as a blacklisted screenwriter looking for friends.
Director Fred Zinnemann, an Austrian Jew, saw himself as steering the film toward a message movie about European failure to fight fascism until it was too late. Zinneman’s vision is ultimately the one that prevails. Kane’s little town isn’t populated by Joe McCarthys — but by Neville Chamberlains.
Kyle Smith is a film critic for the the New York Post. His website is at www.kylesmithonline.com.
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38 Comments
1. Al-Ozarka:Excellent post!
Jun 10, 2008 - 5:53 am 2. WR Jonas:Very well said . When he slowly takes his badge off and drops it into the dust ,we know what Will Kane thinks of the people he has been protecting.
Jun 10, 2008 - 5:57 am 3. Bob:And that is a accurate metaphor for the American view of the worlds gratitude for its sacrifice in trying to deal with the bad guys.
You make some interesting points, and raise some fascinating questions.
Will modern, some virst time, viewers interpret the story in the constructs of the modern war on terror. Will they see Bush as Kane, holding the line against Islamo-fascism when many of our allies will provide only lip service in support? And, viz the upcoming general election, do they see Obama as the judge who would simply proclaim Iraq a dirty little place in the middle of nowhere-and say that no one would mind (or remember) if he chose to save himself by running away? Will they get the fact that running away in the face of evil, even in order to simply save yourself, is not the duty of the strong and able; it is simply surrender and will only aid your enemy?
And, isn’t it a delicious coincidence that McCain has acquired the nickname Maverick, itself an old school western story moniker?
Once again thanks for an entertaining and thought provoking essay.
Jun 10, 2008 - 6:11 am 4. WJ:I saw the movie about 10 years ago, in my late 20’s. Until I read today what you wrote, I had no idea there was any kind of subtext around anti-McCarthyism. Remembering the movie, I still can’t think of any. I’ve always thought of my IQ as reasonably ok, so what am I missing that is right in front of me?
The message I got immediately was about appeasement, being soft and crime, and that evil (bad people) exists. You can fight it today, or wait until tomorrow, but you will eventually have to fight, be killed, or have it become your master.
Jun 10, 2008 - 6:52 am 5. WR Jonas:I would like to add a few things about this subject for a good reason. One is , High Noon is in a group of about three or four films that define excellence in the classic Western genre. I consider The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence and Shane with perhaps The Big Country as the best ever filmed.
Jun 10, 2008 - 6:56 am 6. Cicero:There are some scenes with the impact of TRUTH in these movies that are so overwhelming that they make the viewer squirm. The Eternal struggle of Good vs. Evil is right there before our eyes and while we know the drama is artificial we feel the truth of its existence is evident to our very eyes.
The scene in which Jack Palance casually murders the “farmer”in the muddy street (Shane)is a depiction of evil so horrifying you cannot misunderstand the message.
To poster Bob , Maverick is also the name for a pathetic basketball team owned by an American hating liberal whose team always fails.
Well, my favorite Western has always been Shane.
Which I think also develops some of these themes but in a less clear-cut manner. I think that the resulting ambiguity makes it an even better teaching tool.
Jun 10, 2008 - 7:01 am 7. Corky Boyd:I grew up with High Noon and it remains my favorite movie of all time. I was anti-communist conservative at the time, and in no way at any level did I see this related to McCarthy. This is the first time I have even heard it suggested.
It simply portrayed pure good against pure evil and how a town already saved by the Coop would take no action to help him or save the town. This even included his ex-girlfriend, but I guess she could be forgiven under the circumstances. If any other message comes out it is one of exposing the “better red than dead” crowd.
I have said it before and will say it again, this movie portrays George Bush precisely. I wonder if he sees himself in Coop’s role. All the elements are there.
Jun 10, 2008 - 7:03 am 8. Ed Wallis:I also am surprised (and baffled) that “High Noon” would have been “denounced as “un-American” by John Wayne.” I’ll believe ya, Kyle….but it sort of reminds me of back when some Leftists kept insisting that George Orwell’s “1984″ was a critique of capitalism. Har-dee-har.
Jun 10, 2008 - 7:30 am 9. alwanderer:Sure seems to fit bush presidency, Cory. Even the scorn of the pacifists. The song is especially haunting, “do not for sake me oh my darling”.
Jun 10, 2008 - 8:14 am 10. “High Noon”: Liberal or Conservative? | KyleSmithOnline.com:[...] left has always read “High Noon” as an anti-McCarthyism allegory. But in this essay, I wonder if that is merely because its screenwriter, Carl Foreman (father of my predecessor as New [...]
Jun 10, 2008 - 8:21 am 11. Jack Okie:It’s been a long time since I’ve seen it, but I remember The Tin Star, with Henry Fonda as a cynical ex-sheriff, and Anthony Perkins as a new, shaky and untried sheriff, as being first-rate.
Jun 10, 2008 - 8:35 am 12. Michael Hiteshew:“Kyle Smith is a film critic for the the New York Post.”
Well, I think it’s obvious he’s not a film critic for the New York Times! Or the LA Times, for that matter.
Jun 10, 2008 - 9:35 am 13. Bill Bradley:Well, odd as it may seem to the either/or mentality … High Noon is BOTH an anti-McCarthyism allegory (and very thinly disguised at that to anyone paying attention to its lineage …) AND a warning about being soft on crime.
Jun 10, 2008 - 9:36 am 14. Sonny Bunch » High Noon as neocon allegory:[...] seriously. I’m glad Kyle Smith wrote this essay, because it’s something that has bothered me for a while but I’ve never been able to [...]
Jun 10, 2008 - 10:09 am 15. BRUCE BURTON:I read, many years ago (Esquire I think it was) that Foreman stated that Wayne, the night of the Oscar awards, asked Foreman, “Why didn’t you write something like that for me?” Foreman later reported his surprise about Wayne’s denouncing HIGH NOON’S alleged anti-American slant.
Jun 10, 2008 - 10:14 am 16. The Real Political Message of High Noon:[...] Jeff Bercovici wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptThe classic film, which is being reissued on DVD this week, seems like a conservative work today. It’s a warning about the dangers of being soft on crime, not an anti-McCarthyism allegory. [...]
Jun 10, 2008 - 11:17 am 17. Dave II:Hmmm…”history’s little gag…”
Makes me wonder what other “pre-60’s” movies that history has turned the allegory on the its head for the liberals who made them at the time.
It looks like we won’t have to wait that long for all the bad Iraq war movies that have come out. No allegory there though…just the wrong side of HISTORY!
Jun 10, 2008 - 12:06 pm 18. J.E.Rendini:I beg to differ from the both the main post and the comments here. High Noon is a case of an elephant hiding in plain sight. It’s not about McCarthyism or any type of politics at all, at least not when viewed fifty years later, whatever Zinneman intended. It’s about something prior to politics. It’s about something prior to society. It’s about what remains after politics and society crumble. Listen to the title song – it’s about MARRIAGE! Everyone, every institution of society, every friend and associate abandons Will Kane except the woman who took the marriage vow with him. And she may not even be the woman who loves him most. As Katy Jurado’s character says to her, “If he were my man, I’d be fighting for him.” But Kane’s not her man, so she boards the train and heads out of town.
And what is Will Kane fighting for? Truth? Justice? The American Way? No, at least not directly. He’s fighting for his personal honor. As the song says, “I must face a man who hates me or lie a coward, a craven coward, in my grave.” Nobody wants him to die for the town; the town fathers want him out of town. He’ll hurt trade. But, for Kane, something more important than the town is at stake.
What’s at stake is his manhood. And his wife’s living up to her vow is part of that manhood. And when she stands by her man, she is not abandoning her pacifism; she’s putting it in its proper place. Once she chooses to live by her vow, the proper order of the universe, which underlies all civic order and which was what was really threatened by the outlaws’ approach, is confirmed. Kane and his wife can leave town; they can go somewhere else and start a new town. Because what they carry with them is more important, more fundamental.
Jun 10, 2008 - 1:15 pm 19. Charlie (Colorado):I have said it before and will say it again, this movie portrays George Bush precisely. I wonder if he sees himself in Coop’s role. All the elements are there.
Lovely piece.
I dno’t think Bush needs to consciously see himself as Cooper in the film; most all of us who grew up in the Southwest at that time — and all of us who thought at heart we wanted to be cowboys — grew up with that notion that a man does the right thing because it needs doin’, whether other people join us or not.
It’s worth thinking about the other famous saying of the Cowboy Code: “Never complain, never explain.”
Jun 10, 2008 - 1:18 pm 20. Peter:I remember reading years ago that John Wayne was offered the lead in High Noon before Cooper. Wayne, who had tried to make his movies as authentic as possible found the plot too far fetched. He had interviewed real gunslingers from the old west days and knew that in a High Noon situation every man in town would have met the train, shotgun in hand.
Jun 10, 2008 - 3:46 pm 21. Bleepless:That might not have been as suspenseful however, so we got the movies as is.
The only impression I have ever had of the film is similar to the Duke’s take, most people are not nearly as cowardly or dumb as Hollywood portrays them.
Whatever Foreman may have intended at the time, this is about one courageous individual standing up to evil. The Noble Masses are composed of nothing but cowards and hypocrites.
Jun 10, 2008 - 3:48 pm 22. nodak boy:Thanks for the great post, and thanks for the comments. Perhaps strangely, you all seem right. That might be a tribute to the artistic level of “High Noon”: It’s true on several levels, in several ways.
Jun 10, 2008 - 4:40 pm 23. rotwang:I, however, have always been left a little cold, relatively speaking, by it; because of the cartoonish nature of the plot. No normal people, of course, would play things out like this, on Miller’s gang’s part, on the town’s part, or Coop’s.
However, other aspects of the movie allow it to ride through and above the deficiencies of the cardboard units peopling the drama.
By contrast, “The Big Country,” is, I think, the best Western ever. The plot holds together. Peck’s acting is incredibly powerful yet subtle; no actor ever represented the tall, silent Western hero better. Why did he never get a chance to do a proper version of “The Virginian?” He inhabits that part.
Burl Ives’ performance is a legend. Heston played his part really well.
And lest we forget to notice: can you even buhlEEEEEVE! how high-minded, how honorable, the main characters are? (As someone mentioned about Katie Jurado’s loving deference and honor in leaving town and her man, her head held high, in “High Noon,” which otherwise doesn’t match “The Big Country,” well, big country.
Will Kane is NOT George Bush. If that were true, Cooper’s character would have ignored the imminent arrival of Frank Miller’s gang, allowed them to savage the town, then bombed a Quaker village and declared victory.
Carl Foreman doesn’t need a revisionist interpreter, 50 years after the fact. But Kyle Smith needs to make a word-count and a payday, obviously.
Jun 10, 2008 - 5:08 pm 24. DelD:Peter was exactly right when he said this…”in a High Noon situation every man in town would have met the train, shotgun in hand.”
Too right! High Noon is fundamentally bull-crap.
People forget that after 1865 American towns were populated by a generation of men who’d survived the Civil War
And once you’ve stood in the line at Chickamauga, Gettysburg, or Shiloh, on either side, three or four jumped-up thugs with pistols probably didn’t scare you all that much.
For a real life example see, the Great Northfield, Minnesota Raid.
Jun 10, 2008 - 6:05 pm 25. Sandra M:“Wayne… had interviewed real gunslingers from the old west days and knew that in a High Noon situation every man in town would have met the train, shotgun in hand.
That’s what a Montana friend told me. My favorite Westerns are RED RIVER (a movie my folks called “Stampede” and which lost me family film-choosing privileges) and RIO BRAVO
Jun 10, 2008 - 6:15 pm 26. Sandra M:“Wayne… had interviewed real gunslingers from the old west days and knew that in a High Noon situation every man in town would have met the train, shotgun in hand.
That’s what a Montana friend told me. HIGH NOON was a New Yorker’s view of the Old West.
My favorite Westerns are Howard Hawks’ RED RIVER (a movie my folks called “Stampede” and which lost me family film-choosing privileges) and RIO BRAVO in which the Sheriff keeps turning down offers of help.
I also prefer TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT to CASABLANCA. (The love affair between Dagny Taggart and Hank Rearden in ATLAS SHRUGGED is an explicit philosophical rebuttal to the romantic self-sacrifice of CASABLANCA) It’s all about philosophy.
And as a woman, Hawks’ women were women I admired and tried to emulate as opposed to John Ford’s prissy housewives who all wore aprons and waved goodbye to their men as they went off on adventures, very depressing.
Jun 10, 2008 - 6:23 pm 27. JK:Wasn’t there a war that had recently occurred prior to the making of High Noon?
Some men fought and some men made movies. And in my own lifetime (well some decades past i’ll admit) there was a war. Some men fought and some men were cheerleaders.
Jun 11, 2008 - 12:48 am 28. Kid Various:http://groktheidiom.blogspot.com/2008/06/if-you-dont-know-i-cant-tell-you.html
…But what makes Will Kane representative of America in the world of talkers, shirkers, back stabbers, et al is precisely the fact that he is insecure. He is frightened. He is frustrated by his inability to recruit anyone to help him. He makes mistakes. One of the great sequences in the movie is when Kane walks through the saloon doors and overhears the bartender taking bets on how long he’ll live after Frank Miller gets into town. Kane walks over to the bartender and cold cocks him. At which point the bartender looks at up him from the floor, holding his jaw and says:
“You carry a badge and a gun, Marshall. There ain’t no call for that…”
To which Kane looks at him ruefully, knowing that he has let his anger tarnish him as an upholder of the law and admits:
“You’re right…” and offers the bartender his hand to help him up.
At the climax of the film, there is this magnificent shot of Kane in the middle of the street, looking around, wringing his hands as the noon train’s whistle blows in the distance. The camera cranes upwards from a close up on the frightened Kane to reveal the whole town – totally empty. He is totally alone.
And yet, he must go meet Miller and his gang to defend the town. It is his responsibility. He cannot escape it.
This is America.
And to my friends who don’t understand, mostly Europeans and Iraqis, I find myself resorting to the words of Kane when his wife asks him why he is doing this.
“If you don’t know, I can’t explain it to you.”
Jun 11, 2008 - 1:04 am 29. Kid Various:…But what makes Will Kane representative of America in the world of talkers, shirkers, back stabbers, et al is precisely the fact that he is insecure. He is frightened. He is frustrated by his inability to recruit anyone to help him. He makes mistakes. One of the great sequences in the movie is when Kane walks through the saloon doors and overhears the bartender taking bets on how long he’ll live after Frank Miller gets into town. Kane walks over to the bartender and cold cocks him. At which point the bartender looks at up him from the floor, holding his jaw and says:
“You carry a badge and a gun, Marshall. There ain’t no call for that…”
To which Kane looks at him ruefully, knowing that he has let his anger tarnish him as an upholder of the law and admits:
“You’re right…” and offers the bartender his hand to help him up.
At the climax of the film, there is this magnificent shot of Kane in the middle of the street, looking around, wringing his hands as the noon train’s whistle blows in the distance. The camera cranes upwards from a close up on the frightened Kane to reveal the whole town – totally empty. He is totally alone.
And yet, he must go meet Miller and his gang to defend the town. It is his responsibility. He cannot escape it.
This is America.
And to my friends who don’t understand, mostly Europeans and Iraqis, I find myself resorting to the words of Kane when his wife asks him why he is doing this.
“If you don’t know, I can’t explain it to you.”
Jun 11, 2008 - 1:06 am 30. john:I thought the movie was boring, I liked War Wagon best. John Wayne was the best.
Jun 11, 2008 - 11:07 am 31. Jesme:I never liked High Noon, and haven’t seen it in years. Maybe I’ll go back and re-watch it. I love lots of Zinnemann’s other movies, but not this one.
BTW, I remember the great Western novelist Louis L’Amour on 60 Minutes years ago, railing about High Noon as one of his least favorite films. Why? Simply because it was, in his view, utterly implausible. He pointed out that the movie would have been set in the 1870s or 1880s, when a substantial percentage of the town’s menfolk would have been veterans of the American Civil War, one of the most violent wars that had ever been fought anywhere in the world up until that time. Even those who weren’t veterans would have spent their lives on a frontier that was notoriously tough and violent. Would such people have been utterly panicked by the arrival in town of three–three!–skanky gunsels? Not bloody likely–even if one of them was played by the ultimate bad guy, Lee Van Cleef! No, the townies would have met them, shotguns in hands, and told them to get right back on that train or die where they stood. Or they’d have just shot ‘em and gotten it over with.
L’Amour even gave an example, featuring one of the most famous incidents of frontier history –the attempted bank robbery in Northfield, Minn. where the James gang and they Younger brothers were shredded by a bunch of ordinary townfolk. As in High Noon, the local burghers were warned that the West’s most famous outlaws were coming to town. They didn’t cower; they didn’t run. They laid an ambush and riddled them with lead.
I’ve never been able to take High Noon seriously after seeing that L’Amour interview.
Jun 11, 2008 - 11:09 am 32. Peter Risbergs:High Noon was the best western ever made. Stagecoach and the three John Ford-John Wayne location shot cavalry movies were also great. None of the Clint Eastwood westerns were quite as good, with Outlaw Josie Wales slightly better than Unforgiven. Believe it or not I liked Brokeback Mountain. The scenery and character development were quite good, but the soundtrack was terrible, with totally crappy lovie-dovie songs instead of the hundreds of applicable Country and Western songs that would have greatly improved the movie. Instead they sold out to the Johnny Mathis-Cher types who showed up at the movies and gave them what they wanted.
Jun 11, 2008 - 11:24 am 33. JK:I don’t know that I do know, all I know is that my discharge was honorable and I do my med stuff solely through the auspices of the VA. (In the offchance that “if you don’t know, I can’t tell you” was for me.)
The last movie I did see in an old fashioned theater was “The Outlaw Josie Wales” which I suspect doesn’t meet the requirements of the judgements. Josie was a former (depending on whether one read the book as well as watched the film) non-aligned sort of Confederate.
Well, I guess it’s true enough, if you don’t know (say the sound of an AK as opposed to the sound of an M-16) I can’t tell you.
Jun 11, 2008 - 6:17 pm 34. JK:I did not read the link provided by Kid Various prior to posting. My mistake.
My apology.
Jun 11, 2008 - 6:27 pm 35. James Poulos » High Noon For the Neocons´ Global Village:[...] Director Fred Zinnemann, an Austrian Jew, saw himself as steering the film toward a message movie about European failure to fight fascism until it was too late. Zinneman’s vision is ultimately the one that prevails. — Kyle Smith [...]
Jun 12, 2008 - 2:32 am 36. Michael Reinhard:What a pleasant surprise. I had seen the film a few times but I never knew it was thought of as an allegory for McCarthyism. I always thought from the first time I saw it that the message was about standing up to evil by force if necessary. In the back of my mind I had always assumed it was a pro-American, anti-neutralist film. In fact, the McCarthy angle misses me entirely. Other than the fact that the sheriff is unpopular (at least when he asks for help) there is no connection to McCarthyism at all. Am I just being dense?
Jun 15, 2008 - 9:32 am 37. joe mccarthy:[...] that prevails. Kane??s little town isn??t populated by joe McCarthys ?? but by Neville Chamberlains.http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-real-political-message-of-high-noon/Joe McCarthy baseball – Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJoe mccarthy baseball From Wikipedia, the [...]
Sep 10, 2008 - 9:14 am 38. WestWright:Thanks for the good work, Kyle Smith & PJ.
Kid Various hit the mark as far as I am concerned with:
This is America.
Jun 27, 2009 - 4:53 amAnd to my friends who don’t understand, mostly Europeans and Iraqis, I find myself resorting to the words of Kane when his wife asks him why he is doing this.
“If you don’t know, I can’t explain it to you.”
Good work ….