Film Forum

(1952, Fred Zinnemann) “Do not forsake me, oh, my darlin’, on this, our weddin’ day” – but there’s more than nuptials ahead for retiring sheriff Gary Cooper:  the noon train’s bringing revenge-minded Ian MacDonald with three gun-packing henchmen. Coop’s Quaker bride Grace Kelly knows he’s got to fight it out, and the townspeople will stand with him at the showdown – won’t they? A scintillatingly suspenseful screen experiment in “real time” and one of the movies’ starkest portraits of fear and loneliness. DCP. Approx. 85 min.

Q&A with Maria Cooper Janis, daughter of Gary Cooper, and author Glenn Frankel moderated by film historian Foster Hirsch following the film. Mr. Frankel’s new book High Noon: The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic (published by Bloomsbury), and Gary Cooper: Enduring Style, by Ms. Janis and G. Bruce Boyer, will be on sale at our concession, with lobby book signing to follow event.

Reviews

“STILL HAS THE POWER TO SHOCK. The film’s one-minute wordless montage leading up to the noon train whistle truly sears: a small, abstract masterpiece buried in the heart of mainstream myth making.”
– Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out