High Noon

Fred Zinnemann’s Western runs close to the length of its own event: clocks keep entering the frame and scenes shorten as the noon train nears. What comes out is a record of refusals, gathered door to door by a lawman asking for help. Hadleyville sits in New Mexico Territory, yet the shoot was in California, and the railway station was built for the film at Warnerville. Summoned before the committee, screenwriter Carl Foreman would not name others. Gary Cooper defended him in the press, and when the producer moved to strike Foreman’s name from the credits, Cooper and Zinnemann threatened to walk off unless it went back. Cooper won Best Actor; abroad that night, he asked John Wayne to collect the statuette. It took 7 nominations and 4 awards: Actor, Film Editing, Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture, and Song, losing Best Picture to The Greatest Show on Earth. It won 4 Golden Globes too, one for Katy Jurado as Helen Ramírez, who learned English for the part, 2 hours of lessons a day for 2 months. A good fit if you have the patience to watch a town refuse one caller at a time, each with a fresh excuse. Not for anyone waiting on an early gunfight; the weapons stay holstered until the train arrives.