On the day he gets married and hangs up his badge, Marshal Will Kane is told that a man he sent to prison years before, Frank Miller, is returning on the noon train to exact his revenge. Having initially decided to leave with his new spouse, Will decides he must go back and face Miller. However, when he seeks the help of the townspeople he has protected for so long, they turn their backs on him. It seems Kane may have to face Miller alone, as well as the rest of Miller's gang, who are waiting for him at the station.
Written by
Man_With_No_Name_126
Plot Synopsis:
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The movie opens with outlaws Jack Colby (Lee Van Cleef), Ben Miller (Sheb Wooley), and Jim Pierce (Robert Wilke) meeting up on horseback and riding into the small town of Hadleyville on a Sunday morning. As church bells ring out, the townspeople eye the notorious gang warily. Meanwhile, Marshal Will Kane (Gary Cooper) and pacifist Quaker Amy Fowler (Grace Kelly) are getting married at the Justice of the Peace office. The three outlaws ride through town and settle in outside the train depot to await the noon arrival of gang leader Frank Miller.

Marshal Kane and his radiant bride are congratulated by the town mayor (Thomas Mitchell) and the retired Marshal (Lon Chaney, Jr.), and Kane reluctantly hangs up his star per his wife's wishes. Just then a telegram arrives announcing the pardon of Frank Miller, who Kane had arrested and sent to prison for murder years earlier. The station master declares that Miller is coming on the noon train. Along with the arrival of the other three outlaws, it is obvious that the Miller gang is reuniting to come after Kane and the judge who sentenced Miller. Kane and Amy are quickly hustled out of town in hopes of avoiding bloodshed. Once out on the open road, Kane suddenly turns his buckboard around and tells a bewildered Amy that he can't run from his past. Besides, the new Marshal won't arrive until the following day and the town will be defenseless. Back in town, the world-weary judge who sentenced Miller to prison is packing up his office and getting out of town. He advises Kane to do the same.

Kane's hot-headed young deputy, Harvey Pell (Lloyd Bridges), who was passed over for the Marshal's job, presses Kane to turn over the reins to him and get out of town. Kane declines. Complicating things is the fact that Deputy Pell has taken up with saloon owner Helen Ramirez (Katy Jurado), a former lover of both Kane and Frank Miller. With Miller coming back, Helen Ramirez decides to sell the saloon and leave town. Determined not to be a widow, Amy Fowler also buys a ticket on the departing noon train.

At the train depot, Ben Miller grows impatient and rides in to pay a visit to the town saloon, where he is welcomed like a returning hero. As Miller leaves, he runs straight into Kane and they exchange glares. Kane enters the unfriendly confines of the saloon to ask for volunteers and overhears the surly bartender speculating he will soon be shot dead. An angry Kane knocks him to the floor. The jeering saloon patrons rebuff Kane and he leaves empty handed. Kane then pays a visit to the packed church and interrupts the sermon to ask for help. A heated debate erupts among the parishioners, and a lesson in civics follows as a few brave citizens stand up for Kane and the rest find excuses to avoid conflict. The realization that he may be fighting alone begins to dawn on Kane. A visit to the retired and cynical former Marshal only produces another rejection.

Meanwhile, Amy drops in on a surprised Helen Ramirez, searching for an answer to Kane's stubborn refusal to leave. Amy thinks her husband is staying because of Ramirez. Ramirez sets her straight. Tired and stressed, Kane goes to the livery stable and thinks about saddling his horse and leaving. Deputy Pell sees him and follows him in, pressuring him to leave. When Kane resists, Harvey slugs him. A desperate fistfight ensues, which Kane wins. Kane goes to the barber's office to clean up and hears the undertaker building a coffin.

Back at the Marshal's office, the one man who has volunteered to stand with Kane backs out when he discovers they will be alone. After the man leaves, Kane makes out his will and leaves it in a desk drawer. The clock ticks down the last seconds before noon. Suddenly, the shrill whistle of the approaching train sounds. The three outlaws lace up their gunbelts as the train nears. In a heartwrenching scene, Kane steps out onto the street just as Amy and Helen Ramirez drive by on their way to the station. Amy looks away, but Helen doesn't. Just as the two women arrive at the station, Frank Miller steps off the train, makes eye contact with Helen, and turns away to strap on a gun belt. In an iconic scene, the camera goes wide to reveal Marshal Kane all alone on the deserted streets.

The Miller gang walks into town, where Kane is waiting. Kane catches a break when foolish Ben Miller smashes a shop window to steal a hat. Kane circles behind the gang on their blind side and calls out. When they whirl around, Kane drops Ben Miller. Amy hears the gunshot as the train pulls out and jumps off. She runs into town to find Ben Miller dead in the street. Kane is soon caught in a crossfire and takes refuge in the hayloft of the livery stable. Colby rushes the stable, only to be gunned down by Kane. The remaining two outlaws set fire to the stables and prepare to shoot Kane as he is smoked out. Kane drives the frantic horses out, concealing himself Indian-style in the midst of the fleeing horses. He escapes, but not without getting shot off his horse. The wounded Kane holes up in a small store as Miller and Pierce pour shots Into the building. Pierce stops to reload in front of the Marshal's office across the street and is suddenly shot in the back at close range. As he collapses, Amy is revealed behind the shattered window, gun in hand. Frank Miller realizes what has happened and takes Amy hostage, using her as a shield to approach Kane's position. Miller calls Kane out, threatening to kill Amy unless he shows himself. Kane lowers his gun and steps out. Knowing that Miller is about to kill her husband, Amy spins around and claws Miller's face as he throws her down. Marshal Kane quickly takes aim and kills Miller. As the townspeople flood into the street, Kane's wagon is driven up so the couple can resume their wedding journey. Will Kane surveys the ungrateful townspeople scornfully and drops his tin star into the dust.

In 1951, after twenty-five years in show business, Gary Cooper's professional reputation was in decline, and he was dropped from the Motion Picture Herald's list of the top ten box-office performers. In the following year he made a big comeback, at the age of fifty-one, with this film.
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Film debut of Lee Van Cleef, who does not have a word of dialogue.
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Lee Van Cleef was originally hired to play Deputy Marshal Harvey Pell. However, Producer Stanley Kramer decided that his nose was too "hooked", which made him look like a villain, and told him to get it fixed. Van Cleef refused, and Lloyd Bridges got the part. Van Cleef was given the smaller role of gunman Jack Colby, one of the Miller gang.
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Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly had an affair that lasted for the duration of filming.
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Director Fred Zinnemann said that the black smoke billowing from the train is a sign that the brakes were failing. He and the cameraman didn't know it at the time, and barely got out of the way. The camera tripod snagged itself on the track and fell over, smashing the camera, but the film survived, and is in the movie.
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There was some question as to the casting of Gary Cooper, since he was fifty and Grace Kelly, playing his wife, was only twenty-one, despite this being fairly commonplace for the timeframe of the movie.
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Amongst other accomplishments, the film was a milestone in scoring. It introduced the idea of a theme song to be marketed separately from the movie, and to be a motif for the instrumental score throughout the movie. Tex Ritter (John Ritter's father) sang the song "Do Not Forsake Me", whose lyrics are from the point of view of the hero appealing to his new wife, Amy, to stay with him.
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This film was intended as an allegory for the failure by some of the Hollywood community to stand up to the Un-American House Activities Committee during Senator Joseph McCarthy's Communist witch-hunt.
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Producer Stanley Kramer first offered the leading role of Will Kane to Gregory Peck, who turned it down because he felt it was too similar to The Gunfighter (1950). Other actors who turned down the role included Charlton Heston, Marlon Brando, Kirk Douglas, Montgomery Clift, and Burt Lancaster.
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Gregory Peck, an activist liberal Democrat who strongly opposed blacklisting, later said that turning down this film was the biggest regret of his career, although he modestly added that he didn't think he could have played the lead character as well as Gary Cooper did.
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In the fight scene involving Marshal Will Kane (Gary Cooper) and Deputy Marshal Harvey Pell (Lloyd Bridges), Lloyd's son, Beau, then a youngster, was in the hayloft watching the filming. When water was thrown on his father after the fight, Beau could not help laughing, requiring the scene to be shot a second time. Cooper was unwell and in pain, but was gracious and understanding, according to Lloyd.
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The movie is often described as "a western for people who don't like westerns".
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John Wayne set up and ran an anti-communist organization for the film industry. He strongly disliked this movie because he knew it was an allegory for blacklisting, which he and his friend Ward Bond had strongly and actively supported. Twenty years later he was still criticizing it, in his controversial May 1971 interview with Playboy Magazine, during which he claimed that Gary Cooper had thrown his Marshal's badge to the ground and stepped on it. He also stated he would never regret having driven blacklisted screenwriter Carl Foreman out of Hollywood. The fact is that while Kane threw his badge to the ground, he did not step on it.
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Screenwriter Carl Foreman was blacklisted by the House Un-American Activities Committee shortly after the film came out. In fact, he had fled to England by the time the film was finished.
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Director Fred Zinnemann's meticulous planning enabled him to make four hundred shots in only four weeks.
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"Do Not Forsake Me, Oh, My Darlin'" was the first Oscar-winning song from a non-musical film.
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Marshal Will Kane (Gary Cooper) was originally named Will Doane. The name was changed to Will Kane because Katy Jurado had difficulty pronouncing the name Will Doane.
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Although the movie takes place between 10:35 a.m. and 12:15 p.m. slightly longer than the one hour and twenty-four-minute running time, this was due to the re-editing ordered by Stanley Kramer and Fred Zinnemann, both of whom were unhappy over the first assemblage. Editor Elmo Williams experimented by using the final portion of the material shot, and condensed it to exactly sixty minutes of footage, timed to real-time in the film. Thus the film we see is Williams' experimental version, which met with both Kramer's and Zinnemann's approval.
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Grace Kelly was cast after Producer Stanley Kramer saw her in an off-Broadway play. He arranged a meeting with her and signed her on the spot.
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Its loss in the Best Picture category to The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), directed by Cecil B. DeMille, is usually cited as one of the biggest upsets in the history of the Academy Awards. This loss is often seen as an effort to appease Senator Joseph McCarthy, since DeMille was one of his strongest supporters.
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A comic relief scene involving town drunk Jack Elam, and an entire subplot with James Brown playing another Marshal, didn't make it into the final cut.
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Gary Cooper was responsible for getting soon-to-be-graylisted actor Lloyd Bridges the role of Harvey Pell.
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Little to no make-up was used on Gary Cooper's face. The thinking was that the lines on his face would emphasize how worried his character was.
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Gary Cooper had a bleeding ulcer at the time of filming.
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Though he was supposed to be the older man, at forty-five, Lon Chaney, Jr. was five years younger than Gary Cooper.
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The film was set in Hadleyville, population six hundred fifty, in the New Mexico Territory, on a hot summer Sunday. The thirty-seven-star flag the judge removes as he prepares to flee shows that the time frame is sometime between July 4th, 1867 and July 4th, 1877. While Nebraska became the thirty-seventh state on March 1, 1867 and Colorado's became the thirty-eighth state on August 1, 1876, the addition of stars to flag of the United States only takes place on the 4th of July following the adoption of a new state.
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As Carl Foreman's script bore certain similarities to John W. Cunningham's story "The Tin Star", Producer Stanley Kramer bought the rights to Cunningham's novel to protect the production against accusations of plagiarism.
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Henry Fonda missed out on the film because he had been "graylisted" in the industry due to his political beliefs.
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Fred Zinnemann wanted a hot, stark look to the film. Cinematographer Floyd Crosby achieved this by not filtering the sky and having the prints made a few points lighter than normal.
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Gary Cooper didn't use a stunt double in the fight with Lloyd Bridges.
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Until his death, Director Fred Zinnemann fought not to have this film colorized, saying that he designed it in black and white and that it should be shown that way. He was unsuccessful, however. A colorized version was released by Republic Pictures Home Video, which acquired the film several years prior, and was broadcast several times over the cable outlets of Ted Turner, who was a strong advocate of the process.
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Although John Wayne often complained that the film was "un-American", when he collected Gary Cooper's Best Actor Oscar on his behalf at the The 25th Annual Academy Awards (1953) he complained that he wasn't offered the part himself, so he could have made it more like one of his own westerns. He later teamed up with Director Howard Hawks to make Rio Bravo (1959) as a response.
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Gary Cooper took a cut in salary to help this get made, taking fifty thousand dollars plus a share in the profits instead of his customary two hundred fifty thousand dollars.
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Cinematographer Floyd Crosby was the father of David Crosby of Crosby Stills Nash & Young.
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Ranked number two on the American Film Institute's list of the ten greatest films in the genre "Western" in June 2008.
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In 1989, the day before the Polish people were to vote on the political future of Poland, a poster featuring an image of Gary Cooper from this film was plastered on kiosks and walls around the country. This landmark image of the famous actor strolling towards the viewer depicted him carrying not a gun, but a voting ballot, and wearing a Solidarity logo above his Marshal's badge that read, "It's high noon, June 4, 1989." As Frank Fox, former professor of Eastern European History, stated, "Indeed, an American Western was an apt symbol for a political duel that marked the beginning of the end of Communism in Eastern Europe. Gary Cooper would have approved."
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The number of close-ups Fred Zinnemann gave Grace Kelly reportedly infuriated Katy Jurado, prompting her to accuse Zinnemann of being "half in love" with Kelly.
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Bill Clinton's all-time favorite film. He watched it seventeen times during his two terms as President of the United States.
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Since Gary Cooper was fifty, thirty-eight-year-old Lloyd Bridges was cast as twenty-something Deputy Marshal Harvey Pell.
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Each scene took only between one and three takes.
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In 2007 the American Film Institute ranked this as the number twenty-seven Greatest Movie of All Time.
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Although the film takes place between 10:35 a.m. and 12:15 p.m, you would need to start watching the film at 10:50 a.m. in order for noon in real life to synchronize with the "High Noon" of the film.
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Katy Jurado says, "One year without seeing you" in Spanish, to which Cooper replies, "Yes, I know."
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It took twenty-eight days to shoot the film, after ten days of rehearsal.
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Stanley Kramer removed Carl Foreman's credit as a producer. They never spoke to each other again.
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Frankie Laine had a million-selling record with the title song "High Noon (Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling)", though Tex Ritter's version of the song, heard on the soundtrack, has fared well over the years.
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Floyd Crosby recounted a different version of the camera versus the train. He said the camera was placed in a hole dug between the tracks because they wanted the angle to be upward as the train stopped at the station. The train missed its mark and annihilated the camera. The film, however, survived. Crosby said he always thought they should have used the footage.
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Gary Cooper became a close friend of Producer Carl Foreman during filming, and they continued to correspond for the rest of Cooper's life.
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One of the reasons Gary Cooper took the part was because it represented what his father, a Montana state Supreme Court justice, had taught him: that law enforcement was everybody's job.
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Gary Cooper was reluctant to do his big fight scene with Lloyd Bridges, as he was suffering from back pain at the time.
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The name of the town in the film is Hadleyville, which was likely intended as an indirect reference to Mark Twain's "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg," a short story that has some thematic similarities to the film.
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The character of Will Kane was based on Carl Foreman.
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The theme song, "Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin'", was originally going to be used throughout the movie. Stanley Kramer, in his autobiography "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World: A Life in Hollywood", wrote: "I can't begin to calculate how much that song did for the picture, but my admiration for it, at first, led me astray. I became so enamored of the song I overused it, allowing it to cover some of Gary Cooper's most dramatic moments. When we finally had the picture ready for its first preview, which was to be in Inglewood (California), the song was everywhere in the movie. By the time we got halfway through the showing, the audience was obviously restless. Before we were three quarters of the way through, I knew why. At each repetition of the song, they started to laugh and then mockingly follow the lyrics. After the disastrous preview, everyone said I should get rid of 'that damned song', that it made a joke of the whole picture. Fortunately, I didn't agree. I insisted that the song was great, and that I'd simply used it too much. I redid the soundtrack and forsook at least half of the 'Do Not Forsake Me's'. The result was miraculous."
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The climax begins with a long pullback from Gary Cooper, walking the dusty streets of the desolate town. Fred Zinnemann achieved this by using a long crane that he borrowed from fellow Director George Stevens. If you look closely, you can see, in the upper frame, the nearby Warner Brothers studio lot. The same Western set on the Columbia Studios lot was used by Zinnemann as a Hawaiian locale in From Here to Eternity (1953).
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In one scene, a posted bill for a production called "Mazeppa" is visible. Mazeppa was a literary character (written about by Lord Byron, amongst others) who was tied to the back of a horse by his townsmen and countrymen. The horse was then whipped and sent out into the country, carrying the helpless Mazeppa with it. In one version of the story, Mazeppa survived, joined his former enemies and returned with them to try to conquer his former town and country. This is somewhat reflected in the situation of Frank Miller, and even, perhaps, of Will Kane, who at the outset of the film is hastily sent off by his townsmen in a horse-drawn vehicle, with considerable reluctance on his part, before he decides to return (to little thanks from them).
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Jack Elam was not originally in the cast. After viewing the first full cut, the filmmakers realized the climactic gunfight didn't work. They resumed production with Gary Cooper and new cast member Elam. Elam recalled, "I knew (Cooper) very well. They also had some extras in the bar. We went back to the jail cell and did a few shots of me in the cell with Cooper walking around and seeing me in there snoring, and then they did a shot where he lets me out of jail, and I go into the bar, people are coming out because it's high noon. They did about a full minute of me in the bar doing my drunken clown act. I'm taking drinks and putting drinks under my arms and all that. They were going to cut back and forth between me and the gunfight. But then they turned the picture loose with the regular gunfight before they added our stuff, and it got rave reviews. so they never put that stuff in. The only part they put in was to establish who I was, and the only thing you see of me in the bar was when I was going in and everyone else was coming out. The credits were already written up when I went to work. They didn't bother to put my name in, and that's why I didn't get the credit. But I was very happy because I got to work two days, and there was about a half a day with Cooper and me, and what a gentleman he was! There was about a day of me going into the bar and then of me just wandering around the bar. I understand there are some videocassettes of 'High Noon', but I don't think you can buy them in a store, where those scenes of mine are included in the outtakes, but I have never seen them. The last thing you see of me in the movie is when I'm going in the bar and the people are rushing out."
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Marshal Will Kane was supposed to be about thirty, although Gary Cooper was fifty when the film was made.
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The steady drum beat signifying confrontation in Frankie Laine's recording of "High Noon" was later employed by Roy Orbison in his 1961 hit, "Running Scared".
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The church scene in which Kane tries to solicit help is directly parodied in Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles (1974).
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Gary Cooper, "B" movie Producer Robert L. Lippert, and Screenwriter Carl Foreman were set to go into a production company together, after the success of this film. John Wayne and Ward Bond ordered Cooper to back out of the deal, as HUAC was preparing to "blacklist" Foreman. Shortly afterward, Lippert was deemed "persona non grata" by the Screen Actors Guild, which destroyed his independent production company.
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Grace Kelly was unhappy with her performance, feeling that she was too stiff and wooden as Amy Kane. However, Fred Zinnemann thought her inexperience was appropriate for the role, which was rather limited in scope. As Zinnemann said, "(Kelly) at the time wasn't equipped to do very much. She was very wooden, which fit perfectly, and her lack of experience and sort of gauche behavior was to me very touching, to see this prim Easterner in the wilds of the Burbank Columbia backlot. It worked very well."
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Former U.S. Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton cited this as their favorite film of all time.
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Ben Miller is played by Sheb Wooley. Wooley, in one form or another, has appeared in more movies than any other actor in High Noon. This is due to a recording of his "yelping" scream for another movie. The scream was so good that it was saved and reused for other films, including such blockbusters as Star Wars. As of July, 2018. it has been used 386 times. This is commonly known as the "Wilhelm scream" and was named after a character in the third film in which the sound was used.
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Much of the film was shot in the gold rush town of Columbia, California. Today it is a state park right by Sonora on California Highway 49.
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Hadleyville is the name of the town. It is never spoken but is clearly visible on the train station wall. Hadleyville was also the name of the town in Gung Ho (1986) but was placed in the northeast U.S. In the west, there is a real Hadleyville, in Oregon.
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Carl Foreman had already worked on this screenplay when he and Stanley Kramer both read John Cunningham's short story "The Tin Star" in Harper's Magazine. Since it was so similar to the script, they decided to option it to avoid any charges of plagiarism. The two decided to call the film "High Noon", which had once been the temporary working title for Home of the Brave (1949), a previous film produced by Kramer and written by Foreman. However, it was Foreman, not Kramer, who actually negotiated the screen rights to Cunningham's short story. If Kramer had bought the story, the rights would have undoubtedly cost much more than the twenty-five thousand dollars Foreman paid, because publishers would have been well aware of Kramer's reputation as a successful producer.
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Sheb Wooley (Ben Miller) had recording success in 1958 with the novelty "The Purple People Eater" (number one on the U.S. pop charts).
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Audiences in 1952 were disappointed with the revelation that Ian MacDonald was portraying Frank Miller. With his eventual appearance in the film being built up for more than an hour, fans were expecting a more well-known actor. Surveys taken at theaters revealed that Ward Bond, a frequent face in westerns, and Walter Brennan, a frequent co-star of Gary Cooper, were the top names the fans would have liked to see as Frank Miller. However, MacDonald's casting has become more appreciated as the film's legacy has grown.
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Stanley Kramer and Fred Zinnemann stated that they originally intended to photograph the film in color, but after some color sequences where shot, they switched to black and white for artistic reasons.
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In the showdown scenes, western film trivia buffs may notice a store called "Boyd's Hardware", a reference to William Boyd, who played the title role in the Hopalong Cassidy (1952) television series.
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Prior to the movie's release, Gary Cooper was widely felt to be too old for his character. The movie's popularity, and a Best Actor Academy Award, clearly proved them wrong.
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This movie is rumored to play in real-time. Several shots of clocks are interspersed throughout the film, and they correspond with actual minutes ticking by.
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There were only two characters in town who actually offered to Kane to fight despite the odds: Jimmy, the drunk with an eye patch (played by William Newell), and Johnny, a young boy (played by Ralph Reed).
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Included among the American Film Institute's 1998 list of the Top 100 Greatest American Movies.
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Gary Cooper worked on the film for three weeks in September 1951.
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This was the film debut of Lee Van Cleef. He was given an extraordinary introduction in his film career. He appears, solo, in the opening pre-title shots.
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Three decades after Grace Kelly and Lloyd Bridges appeared in this film, Bridges starred as her father in the biopic Grace Kelly (1983).
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Fred Zinnemann read the first draft of the script once he was offered the chance to direct. Immediately, he thought it "nothing short of a masterpiece, brilliant, exciting, and novel in its approach."
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Between takes, Gary Cooper would chat with the crew or snooze underneath a tree.
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As inspiration for the film's look, Fred Zinnemann and Cinematographer Floyd Crosby studied the Civil War photographs of Mathew Brady.
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The wife of Sam (Harry Morgan) was named Mildred. On M*A*S*H (1972), Colonel Sherman Potter (Harry Morgan) also had a wife named Mildred.
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Included among the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die", edited by Steven Schneider.
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In the French-dubbed version, the song "High Noon" ("Si toi aussi tu m'abandonnes") is performed by Claude Dupuis.
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The muted rhythm in the background of the theme song was later imitated by Jimi Hendrix, which he used for the count-off of his song Voodoo Chile (Slight Return).
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A little while after the Hadleyville railroad station arrival scene, the town's name again appears on the town bank's nameplate. It simply says "Hadleyville Bank".
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The only Best Picture Oscar nominee that year to be also nominated for Best Song.
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According to Carl Foreman, the scenes with Toby were shot at the end of production, as insurance in case the film seemed too claustrophobic.
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This film was selected into the National Film Registry in 1989 (the first year of inductions) for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
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Miller refers to Pierce having been "down in Abilene." As this film was set in New Mexico, the term "down" would refer to Abilene, Texas, which is over 400 miles south of Abilene, Kansas, which would have been referred to as "up in Abilene."
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The exterior of Sam Fuller's house is actually a private home that still exists. It is on the grounds of the Columbia State Park in California, next to the visitor's center. (The permanent western movie set there was too lush at the time to be used for the rest of the town, this exterior posed no problem.)
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Opening credits: "The characters and events depicted in this photoplay are fictitious. Any similarity to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental".
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Near the start of the film you can see black smoke in the distance behind the church and rising from a fixed location. The church is the St Joseph's Catholic Church, which still stands in Tuolumne City, California. The smoke is coming from the Tuolumne Fire Protection District, located a quarter mile to the southwest, which still exists today. The area in back of the TFPD was used for the safe burning of refuse.
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In what was a rather unusual move for westerns of the time, Kane reloads after firing exactly six shots. In all, he fires ten times during the gun battle and Amy fires once.
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This was the first movie ever spoofed by MAD Magazine (in its 9th issue). It can be found in the paperback "The Bedside MAD." Reader response was so positive, movie satires became a regular staple, following up with a parody of "Shane" in the 10th issue.
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Body count: 4
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In a number of scenes there are Pabst Brewing signs seen on the inside and outside walls of the saloon. Although Pabst did brew in 1848, it did so under the name Best and Company and did not change to Pabst until 1889; the 37-star flag suggests the setting dates are between 1867-77.
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Although the 37-star flag suggests the setting date is within the 1867-77 frame, the date on the large boarding house at the end of the street as Amy and Helen are taking the buckboard out of town is "1888".
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The pre-gummed rectangular envelope that Kane puts his folded Last Will and Testament into was not the type used in the 1867-77 era that the 37-starred US flag suggests and was not made until about the 1890s. Envelopes in that era were diamond-shaped with the user having to provide the sealant (wax, for example).
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Just after Kane leaves the barber shop and walks up the street, sunlight can briefly be seen reflecting off cars passing by the set in the distant background. It is reportedly more noticeable in the theatrical release than on TV screens.
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In the climactic crane shot when Kane is alone in the town square, modern-day buildings, high-voltage power lines, and telephone poles are clearly visible in the skyline.
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When Will and Ann return to town in the wagon, you can clearly see a telephone pole with three crossbeams between the branches of a tree just right of the center of the shot.
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In the high crane shot shortly before the gunfight begins you can see modern industrial buildings in the distance, which are located on what is now Interstate 5. Just beyond the studio lot you can see a number of private homes.
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In the church scene, the front wall behind the pulpit is illuminated with wall-mounted candelabras, each one holding what appears to be lighted candles. The church scene is an extended scene, but throughout the scene, none of the candles' flames flicker, waver or smoke, as would be typical of real candles. These are obviously electric candles with electrically-powered bulbs, but judging by the setting and time period, it's clear that the story takes place before modern electricity.
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Although the film is set in the 1870s, the wedding dress worn by Grace Kelly clearly had a zipper up the back. The zipper did not go into production until the 20th century.
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As Judge Mettrick rides away you can see the top of a nearby soundstage in the distance. As Amy and Helen are driving out of town, Helen looks back at Kane. High in the background you can see another, even more massive, soundstage in the background.
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When the mayor makes his speech in church there are children sitting in the pews with the adults. Then the children disappear, but they're back in the next shot.
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When Ramirez sells her store, her clock is at about 11:20, then in a later scene Kane comes to see her and the clock is at nearly 11:15.
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When Kane is in his office and puts his head down on his desk,he did not have a badge on when his head went down, but he has a badge when his head comes up.
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When Kane enters Ramirez's hotel room, he drops his hat on achair to his left. Next shot he holds his hat in his left hand.
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While walking around in the city looking for help, Will Kane's vest alternately opens and closes between cuts.
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When Will Kane goes to visit Martin Howe, the house door has a different arrangement of panels on the outside from the inside.
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In the two shots where we see Kane and then Harvey enter the livery, the sky is covered with clouds. In all other scenes, the sky is clear.
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Amy's shawl changes position on her left arm when she and Kane ride off after their wedding.
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Amy's luggage has been loaded onto the train, which we see pull off without any unloading, but it reappears on the cart in the final scene.
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In the church scene, a young girl is still in the church next to her mother after all the children have been "dismissed"; in the very next shot she is not there.
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When Amy is looking out the office window at the showdown, the very next shot is from a high angle. This gives the impression that she had been looking from or above the second floor.
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The position of Kane's hat during the scene where the judge is packing to leave.
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When Kane scribbles the note saying "Back in 5 minutes", the frontal camera shows the sentence beginning with "Back" being written at the top left of the page. However, the view changes to a camera behind Kane and he is still writing, but this time we can see the "Back" has begun halfway down and nearer the center of the page.
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When Kane and the judge are arguing while the judge packs, as Kane asks, "Why?" in close-up his head is turned slightly to his left. It then cuts to a longer shot and his head is turned visibly further to the left.
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The name of the small town newspaper changes from the "Chronicle" to the "Clarion."
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Kane writes the "Back in Five Minutes" note on the back of a printed document, then tacks it on his office door with his note facing out. When he returns to his office, the printed side is facing out.
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When Gary Cooper goes to the church to solicit help, the children are asked to leave. Later a mother stands to say her words of disagreement (her daughter is sitting beside her). When she is again shown in the scene her daughter is gone.

The hanging sign at the Marshall's office is spelled "Marshal".
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As Kane and Pell are standing outside the Marshall's office, a small clock in the bottom of a store window reads 10:50. A minute and a half later, when the two are inside the Marshall's office, the clock on the wall reads 11:02. Their conversation takes around three minutes (until 11:05) then the scene cuts to Helen's room, when Pell are already in the middle of a conversation. When Pell walks out, it is 11:05. By then it should have been no earlier than 11:10.
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By the presence of mountains in the distance, the town is in northern New Mexico. The hotel lobby has tall plants by the door, which are a variety of banana trees. They would not be able to survive in such a dry climate, nor survive by doors in a climate that usually has freezing temperatures in the winter.
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When Kane is in Helen's room advising her to leave, the clock in her room is at 11:11. Fifty second later when Kane goes down the stairs the desk clerk sets the time on the grandfather clock to 11:15. Later, after Miller starts to ride back into town, Pell walks into the saloon. The clock on the saloon wall says 11:10, stepping us back in time by five minutes. When Miller arrives at the saloon, it is back to 11:15.
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When Will and Amy start leaving in the beginning, they appear to travel a substantial distance away from the town, but when they get back, the clock shows only ten minutes have passed. This would be virtually impossible for a horse-and-buggy ride.
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During the last minute before noon, Kane looks at the clock on his office wall twice. The clock in the first instance was made by the Gilbert Clock Company and it includes a dial for the date and day of the week. The second time he looks at the clock, it has changed to a Seth Thomas clock with pendulum and without the date dial. Even so, both clocks are correct for the period.
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Due to weather problems, the climactic crane shot at "high noon" was actually taken at 3:00 pm, so the shadows are wrong for a a "high-noon" shot.
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In the climactic gunfight, after Kane has shot Ben Miller, we see Kane running between buildings into a back alley area off the main street of town. He stops by a tree and looks back to see if he is being pursued. As he sets off again, we see the back of a brick building with an air conditioning unit mounted on the outside of a second-story window.It might not be widely known, but many of the buildings used for permanent sets doubled as production offices. This was one of them.
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When the barn is set on fire, it can be seen burning with lots of flames and smoke. Less than five minutes later, and during the final scene, Kane and Amy ride right by the barn in the background and there is no damage and no smoke.
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After Will shoots Frank, Frank's hat is on the ground at his feet between him and Amy. When the scene changes to Will walking toward them, Frank's hat is on his head.
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After Amy shoots one of the bad guys in the back, there is a shot of Will Kane looking out a window holding his gun in his left hand. There is an immediate cut to a shot of him holding the gun in his right hand. The left-handed shot appears to have been done to make the composition of the shot more dramatic.
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The stains on Kane's collar and shirt after the fight with Pell change when he goes to the barber shop.
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When Kane approaches the church to ask for help from the people inside, a very large column of black smoke can be seen in the background just to the right of the church. That smoke was from the burning barn that is seen later on in the film, although it was actually shot before the church scene.
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As a result of the barn fight scene between Kane and Pell, Kane is left with a large abrasion on the right side of his face and goes to the barber shop to get cleaned up. The abrasion is gone while he is in the barber shop, but it can be seen in subsequent scenes.
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When Will is shot in his left arm, at first there is no tear in his shirt and no visible wound on his arm. In the next shot, both the tear and the wound are visible.
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After Will shoots Frank, Amy's position on the ground changes. Will should have been walking towards her feet, not her head. Frank's position and theshadows are different also.
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Once the showdown began, the first time Kane is fired upon by an off-screen gunman, the bullet strikes the side of a barn about a foot over his left shoulder. At the same time Kane grabs his upper left arm as if he is wounded. His shirt from that point on is torn as if damaged by a bullet. The ballistics involved for that scenario just don't add up; the bullet would have had to bounce off Kane's arm in an impossible trajectory.
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At the final stage of the shootout, just after Amy / Grace Kelly scratches Miller's face, Kane / Gary Cooper shoots Miller twice. Not once is the gun barrel actually aiming at Miler at the moment of the gunshot: it is always aiming to the ground some feet in front of where Miller / Ian McDonald is standing.
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When Kane throws his badge on the ground at the end of the movie, a star from a previous take can be clearly seen immediately behind his left boot.
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