{"id":8731,"date":"2022-12-31T21:36:35","date_gmt":"2023-01-01T02:36:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tempestmag.org\/v01_2020\/staging\/?p=8731"},"modified":"2023-01-06T00:12:21","modified_gmt":"2023-01-06T05:12:21","slug":"do-not-forsake-me-comrade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/2022\/12\/do-not-forsake-me-comrade\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cDo not forsake me, comrade\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"dropcap\">T<\/span>he film <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0044706\/\">High Noon<\/a>,<\/em> written by Carl Foreman, produced by Stanley Kramer, and directed by Fred Zinneman, turned 70 this past year and is considered one of the finest western films of all time. The catchy, Tex Ritter-sung theme song is included on the American Film Institute\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.afi.com\/afis-100-years-100-songs\/\">list<\/a> of 100 most significant American movie songs and the Western Writers of America\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20101019002745\/http:\/\/americancowboy.com\/culture\/top-100-western-songs\">list<\/a> of 100 best western songs. The 1952 film was nominated for seven Academy Awards, winning four for Best Actor, Best Editing, Best Original Song, and Best Score and winning the WGA award for Best Screenplay. <em>High Noon<\/em> is listed second on the AFI\u2019s list of top ten westerns. In the years following the film\u2019s release, it became a favorite of U.S. Presidents Eisenhower, Reagan, and Clinton, who reportedly screened the film seventeen times in the White House. However, despite this current unanimous acclaim, the story of <em>High Noon<\/em> is inseparable from one of the most trying times for the U.S. Left.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-8738\" src=\"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/sunset_v2.png\" alt=\"An illustration in black, grey, and white of two gunslingers, in a faceoff in the desert under the sun at high noon.\" width=\"900\" height=\"900\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/sunset_v2.png 900w, https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/sunset_v2-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/sunset_v2-100x100.png 100w, https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/sunset_v2-600x600.png 600w, https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/sunset_v2-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/sunset_v2-768x768.png 768w, https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/sunset_v2-800x800.png 800w, https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/sunset_v2-400x400.png 400w, https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/sunset_v2-200x200.png 200w, https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/sunset_v2-250x250.png 250w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><span style=\"font-size: 1rem;\">On its surface, <em>High Noon<\/em> tells a pared-down, archetypal western story. Will Kane (Gary Cooper), is a town marshall in the town of Hadleyville, set to retire with his Quaker bride Amy (Grace Kelly). However, before Will and Amy can leave they receive word that Frank Miller, a vicious killer Will put away five years prior, has been pardoned and is on his way to Hadleyville. Will vows to stay and defend the town from Miller and his gang, while also attempting to find deputies who will help him in the fight.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately for Kane, his pleas are rebuffed by virtually everyone in town, for a variety of reasons. The Justice of the Peace is scared of Miller, the old marshall is arthritic and can\u2019t hold a pistol, and the current deputy resents Kane because he was turned down for a promotion. The film\u2019s climactic scene is not the gunfight, but a church service, when Will interrupts to appeal to Hadleyville\u2019s solidarity. At first, everyone is with Will but this dynamic quickly turns,what finally sways everyone is an appeal to their economic self-interests: Northern financiers are looking to invest in Hadleyville and a gunfight on the streets will deter their investments. Kane will have to face Miller\u2019s gang alone. Even Amy has turned her back on Will, as violence conflicts with her Quaker beliefs.<\/p>\n<p>In the exciting gunfight that follows, Will triumphs over the killers, with Amy\u2019s assistance after she realizes that pacifism is not a practical policy. When Amy and Will leave the town, he throws his marshal star in the dust to show his disdain for Hadleyville\u2019s cowardice.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"pullquote\"><em>High Noon<\/em> was written by screenwriter Carl Foreman\u2026he refused to name names before [HUAC] as a matter of principle&#8230; and was blacklisted by all of Hollywood\u2019s major studios.<\/aside>\n<p><em>High Noon<\/em> was written by screenwriter Carl Foreman, who would become a victim of Hollywood\u2019s anti-Communist blacklist. Even though Foreman had left the Communist Party by the time of his questioning by the <a href=\"https:\/\/isreview.org\/issues\/12\/mccarthyism\/\">House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)<\/a>, he refused to name names before the committee as a matter of principle. This led to the dissolution of his partnership with producer Stanley Kramer, who felt that working with Foreman would be bad for his career. Kramer would find success as the director of \u201cmessage movies\u201d like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0055031\/\">Judgement at Nuremberg<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0061735\/\">Guess Who\u2019s Coming to Dinner<\/a>. As a result of Foreman\u2019s refusal to name names, he was considered an \u201cuncooperative witness\u201d and was blacklisted by all of Hollywood\u2019s major studios.<\/p>\n<p>Foreman intended Hadleyville to stand in for Hollywood, with Miller standing in for HUAC, saying:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cThere are scenes in the film that are taken from life. The scene in the church is a distillation of meetings I had\u2026And there\u2019s the scene with the man who offers to help and comes back with his gun and asks, where are the others? Cooper says there are no others\u2026I became the Gary Cooper character.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Foreman was not the only member of the film\u2019s cast and crew to experience problems as a result of HUAC. Howland Chamberlain, who plays the hotel desk clerk would not appear in another film until more than twenty-five years later, in 1979\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0079417\/\">Kramer vs. Kramer<\/a>, as a result of his blacklisting. Lloyd Bridges was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/archive\/local\/1998\/03\/11\/tv-and-film-actor-lloyd-bridges-dies\/f574ec42-ebfd-4552-9369-a83f4706910d\/\">blacklisted<\/a> briefly due to his membership in the Actor\u2019s Laboratory Theater until he agreed to cooperate with HUAC. Actress Virginia Farmer, who played Mrs. Lewis, was blacklisted and never worked again after the film. Floyd Crosby, the film\u2019s cinematographer, found it difficult to get mainstream work despite his acclaimed work on <em>High Noon<\/em> and Crosby spent most of the rest of his career working on B-movies (low-budget films) like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0050147\/\">Attack of the Crab Monsters<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0052169\/\">the Screaming Skull<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Gary Cooper was an odd choice to star in a left-wing message film, despite being the subject of a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.novakarchive.com\/all-the-presidents-movies\/2022\/9\/26\/the-fbi-investigated-gary-cooper-over-the-fake-news-of-his-rousing-communist-speech\">bizarre<\/a> FBI investigation over a pro-communist speech he was said to have given. Actors with more progressive political leanings like Henry Fonda and Gregory Peck had turned down the role of Will Kane. Cooper had strongly opposed Franklin Roosevelt in both the 1940 and 1944 elections, even paying for a 1944 radio broadcast in which he assailed the New Deal for borrowing \u201cforeign notions.\u201d Cooper was a friendly witness at a 1947 HUAC committee meeting where he <a href=\"https:\/\/wordpress.its.virginia.edu\/Wild_Wild_Cold_War\/files\/2011\/11\/GaryCooperHUAC.pdf\">stated<\/a> that he turned down roles in films \u201ctinged with communist ideas.\u201d He was also a member (along with the likes of Walt Disney, Ronald Reagan, and John Wayne), of the<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cobbles.com\/simpp_archive\/huac_alliance.htm\"> Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals<\/a> (MPA) which was an organization dedicated to rooting out perceived communist infiltration in Hollywood. Despite this, Cooper was an opponent of blacklisting and gave Carl Foreman words of support when the screenwriter had to testify before HUAC as an \u201cunfriendly witness.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"pullquote\">Despite the failure of most of the Left and liberal press to see it, the allegory in <em>High Noon<\/em> is actually fairly obvious\u2026 a reflection of [an earlier era of]\u00a0 anti-fascist activism in Hollywood&#8230;<\/aside>\n<p>The Left did not know what to make of <em>High Noon<\/em>. The International Socialist League was split. In a November 24, 1952 review in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marxists.org\/history\/etol\/newspape\/laboraction-ny\/1952\/v16n47-nov-24-1952-LA.pdf\">Labor Action<\/a>,\u00a0 reviewer Hal Draper (under the pen name Phillip Coben) defends the film against charges that it is \u201canti-democratic\u201d but also states \u201cit is doubtful that <em>High Noon<\/em> was made with as conscious a social message\u201d as other Hollywood movies. Draper found the film to be a robust defense of individual integrity and determination. However, in a letter written for the December 8, 1952 edition of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marxists.org\/history\/etol\/newspape\/laboraction-ny\/1952\/v16n49-dec-08-1952-LA.pdf\">Labor Action<\/a>, the writer, Bob Bone, condemned the movie as \u201cinsidious war propaganda.\u201d The April 26, 1952 review of the film in <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/nation174jannewy\/page\/n487\/mode\/2up\">the Nation <\/a>called <em>High Noon<\/em> a \u201cperfectly fouled up western,\u201d without commenting on the political subtext. The Communist Party USA\u2019s Daily Worker stated the movie displayed \u201cthe usual amount of cynicism and misanthropy. The high point of the film, with Gary Cooper stalking down the street in intense loneliness, is a classic restatement of the anti-human theme of nearly all cowboy and detective yarns.\u201d The Soviet Union\u2019s Pravda opined that <em>High Noon<\/em> was a film \u201cin which the idea of the insignificance of the people and masses and grandeur of the individual found its complete incarnation.\u201d The New York-based Partisan Review mocked this view by saying \u201cA hundred years after the Manifesto, the specter haunting Europe is-Gary Cooper!\u201d Film critic Bosley Crowther of the New York Times did get the intended message, writing that the courage of Will Kane \u201ccould give a fine lesson to the people in Hollywood today.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Despite the failure of most of the Left and liberal press to see it, the allegory in <em>High Noon<\/em> is actually fairly obvious. Will Kane\u2019s earlier defeat of Miller is a reflection of anti-fascist activism in Hollywood through things like propaganda films and fundraisers. In his book Gunfighter Nation, Richard Slotkin writes,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cMiller\u2019s return is a metaphorical way of identifying McCarthyism with Fascism: the same people who in an earlier and less prosperous time had risen up to defeat the enemy have now grown too comfortable or complacent to risk their lives and fortunes for the public good.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The townsfolk who refuse to fight are representative of Hollywood liberals like <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20130527111522\/http:\/\/tfm.usc.edu\/autumn-2011\/little-caesar-and-the-mccarthyist-mob\">Edward G. Robinson<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oldmagazinearticles.com\/1948-Humphrey_Bogart_on_Hollywood_Blacklist_editorial_pdf\">Humphrey Bogart<\/a> who turned their backs on the victims of the blacklist. The film also attacks the institutions of organized religion and big business as being unwilling and unable to stand up to the resurgence of fascism. In the film\u2019s famous church debate, support for economic growth and \u201cprogress\u201d are arguments used against standing up to the villains. Katy Jurado\u2019s saloon owner Helen Ramirez is also an important part of this allegory. Ramirez experiences racism on the part of the town and owns her business as a silent partner with a white man who is the official owner. She also flees Hadleyville due to Miller\u2019s return, a sign of the persistence of racism despite the defeat of fascism.<\/p>\n<p>The Right, however, latched onto <em>High Noon<\/em>\u2019s intentions immediately. The American Legion Magazine singled out the movie for derision since its cast and crew included \u201cCommunist-collaborators.\u201d The review in the Hollywood Citizen-News claimed that \u201cthe weakness of the \u2018good citizens\u2019 of the town, which are underlined repeatedly are just the kind of thing which brings forth cries of communist propaganda in motion pictures.\u201d MPA President John Wayne led a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.denofgeek.com\/culture\/was-john-wayne-high-noon-s-biggest-villain\/\">campaign<\/a> against the film and Gary Cooper\u2019s business partnership with Carl Foreman. Wayne even went to Foreman\u2019s house and threatened him in order to convince the screenwriter to return to HUAC and name names. Foreman instead left the country and found work in the U.K. on films like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0050212\/\">The Bridge on the River Kwai<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0054953\/\">the Guns of Navarone<\/a>. Years later, John Wayne maintained his hatred for the film calling it \u201cthe most un-American thing I\u2019ve ever seen.\u201d This was in the same 1971 <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20130823143806\/http:\/\/pages.shanti.virginia.edu\/Wild_Wild_Cold_War\/files\/2011\/11\/John_Wayne_Playboy_Int2.pdf\">Playboy<\/a> interview in which he stated his support for white supremacy. Wayne maintained that he\u2019d \u201cnever regret having helped run Foreman out of the country.\u201d There was also a concerted campaign against <em>High Noon<\/em> in the lead-up to the Academy Awards. Luigi Luraschi, an executive at Paramount, Academy member, and Central Intelligence Agency asset, wrote a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.giovanninoguareschi.com\/archivio-bibliografia\/2000%20Eldridge%20divieto%20CIA%20per%20Oscar%20Don%20Camillo.doc.pdf\">letter<\/a> to his contact taking credit for ensuring that <em>High Noon<\/em> lost the award for Best Picture. Perhaps not coincidentally, the winner that year was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0044672\/\">the Greatest Show on Earth<\/a>, directed by MPA member, blacklist supporter, and staunch anti-communist Cecil B. DeMille.<\/p>\n<p>Seventy years later, the question is how we on the Left should remember <em>High Noon<\/em>. The Left of the past did not like the film because they felt it was anti-democratic to depict the forces of good in the minority. But unfortunately, sometimes we fighters for democracy, equality, and socialism do find ourselves in the minority. The voices against segregation, the War in Vietnam, and homophobia once found themselves in the minority also, but they fought on regardless. We should carry on in that spirit as we fight our battles for a better world, and as we return to the cinema.<\/p>\n<p><small><em>Featured Image Credit:\u00a0Image by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/olycandimko\/37196180322\/in\/photolist-YEU9vQ-2nvAYEJ-s8oSs5-bS3SRz-YYe3G8-2mfYTfr-4vZgHg-2kJY6Bt-fqiZtg-78nH5-2kKiJm1-2kJPVmt-QebWxw-2kKf7A6-2mg54Ub-2mfUrp7-2mg34qy-2nj2U9c-ECCWbG-CQhU3Z-azXh8w-2mAZCfn-cky8dC-eBUiom-2kKeXas-2kKePQY-2kKittL-2kKipP1-2kJY6BU-2kJY6zV-2kJXWqc-2kJQqJH-2kJQmjR-2niU1gW-2nj2DQN-2nj1m9S-2nj2vmP-2nj2MtD-2mfV5rd-2kKjyVB-2kKhKbK-2kKi1NH-2kJYkmC-2kJXFPx-2kJXYRp-2kJXU7p-2kJXjE3-2kJXh9X-2kJMfwR-2mfV5rt\/\">bratispixl<\/a>; modified by Tempest.<\/em><\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Hank Kennedy<\/strong> revisits the Hollywood classic <em>High Noon<\/em>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72,"featured_media":8735,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,11],"tags":[404,272,405],"class_list":["post-8731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","category-review","tag-blacklist","tag-film-review","tag-hollywood"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/Copy-of-Tempest-cover-design-WORKING-10.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/72"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}