February 27, 2018 (XXXVI:5) Fred Zinnemann HIGH NOON (1952), 85 min.

DIRECTOR Fred Zinnemann WRITER Carl Foreman (screenplay), John W. Cunningham (from “The Tin Star”) PRODUCER Stanley Kramer MUSIC Dimitri Tiomkin CINEMATOGRAPHY Floyd Crosby EDITOR Elmo Williams SINGER Tex Ritter LYRICIST Ned Washington

CAST FRED ZINNEMANN (b. April 29, 1907, Vienna, Austria—d. Gary Cooper…Will Kane March 14, 1997, London, England) was considered for several Thomas Mitchell…Jonas Henderson years, along with William Wyler and George Stevens, one of the Lloyd Bridges…Harvey Pell three directorial “intellectuals” in Hollywood. Initially, Katy Jurado…Helen Ramirez Zinnemann planned to become a lawyer until he saw three films Grace Kelly…Amy Kane that forever changed his future: Greed (1924), The Big Parade Otto Kruger…Percy Mettrick (1925) and Battleship Potemkin (1925). After college, he Lon Chaney Jr….Martin Howe become an assistant cameraman in Berlin, where, in the company Harry Morgan…Sam Fuller of such future Hollywood filmmakers as Robert Siodmak, Billy Ian MacDonald…Frank Miller Wilder and Edgar G. Ulmer, he would collaborate on the Eve McVeagh…Mildred Fuller celebrated documentary, People on a Sunday (1929). In 1929, he Morgan Farley…Minister emigrated to Hollywood where he was hired as an extra on Lewis Harry Shannon…Cooper Milestone’s All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). Following Lee Van Cleef…Jack Colby years directing now forgotten B-movies, Zinnemann eventually Robert J. Wilke…James Pierce established a name for himself in 1948 with The Search, a film Sheb Wooley…Ben Miller following the growing friendship between a GI (Montgomery Jack Elam…Charlie Clift) and a young concentration camp survivor. In an era when many of the greatest Hollywood directors were politically National Film Preservation Board, USA 1989 conservative—if not reactionary—Zinnemann was a liberal humanist and a social realist, with a natural inclination to Academy Awards, USA 1953 addressing the burning issues of the day: disability [The Men 4 Wins: Best Actor in a Leading Role, Gary Cooper (Cooper was (1950)]; anti-Semitism [From Here to Eternity (1953) and Julia not present at the awards ceremony. John Wayne accepted on his (1977)]; heroin addiction [A Hatful of Rain (1957)]; heroic behalf.); Best Film Editing, Elmo Williams & Harry W. Gerstad; individualism from moral cowardice [High Noon (1952), A Man Best Music, Original Song, Dimitri Tiomkin (music) & Ned for All Seasons (1966)]. In his later years, the director’s Washington (lyrics) for the song “High Noon (Do Not Forsake reputation began to dwindle as critical taste changed. Ignored in Me, Oh My Darlin’)”; Best Score, Dimitri Tiomkin the ‘60s, when the auteur theory became the dominant methodology of film criticism, Zinnemann suffered a reversal of 3 Nominations: Best Picture, Stanley Kramer; Best Director; fortune from which his reputation never recovered. Yet, Fred Zinnemann; Best Writing, Screenplay, Carl Foreman Zinnemann was never one to fall back on tropes or bend to current trends. In his obituary, The Independent wrote, “And even when he made a genre movie—the western High Noon, the ZInnemann—HIGH NOON—2 musical comedy Oklahoma!—he seemed temperamentally knew, writing an original story about individual responsibility incapable of exulting in the simple, incorruptible poetry of and its relation to the community at large. It was not until a generic myths and conventions, of either cunningly or gruffly routine copyright-infringement search had taken place that John transcending those conventions from within in the manner of a W. Cunningham's short story “The Tin Star” (1947) surfaced and Hitchcock, Hawks or Ford. What concerned him, rather, was the “[a]ll concerned felt it necessary to purchase screen rights to the degree to which their sometimes resistant themes and textures title to avoid a lawsuit.” Ultimately Cunningham was given would lend themselves to the moral gravitas of his trademark screen credit as the creator of the story, although Foreman was brand of humanistic editorializing.” High Noon may be never convinced that the story lines had much in common apart Zinnemann's best-loved film, but the most vividly remembered from their common plot including an aging lawman who is single sequence in his entire oeuvre is without doubt the sexy, stalked by killers. Prior to tonight’s film, Foreman worked with wetly glistening encounter on a Hawaiian beach between Burt Zinnemann on The Men (1950), where in preparation for the Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity, a scene film, director and writer spent a month in a veteran’s hospital which set the style in romantic soft-core eroticism for many years researching, while star Marlon Brando lived in its paraplegic to come (as numerous parodies bear witness). Zimmermann was unit. Foreman also wrote the original draft of Brando’s nominated for eight best director Academy Awards: Julia (1977), motorcycle film, The Wild One (1953). The script fell afoul with A Man for All Seasons (1966, won); The Sundowner (1961), The the censors—supposedly because it sought to explain the Nun’s Story (1959), From Here to Eternity (195, won), High motorcyclists’ sense of frustration instead of just portraying them Noon (1952), Benjy (1951), and The Search (1948). Some of his as crazed, violent outlaws. Because of this, Foreman’s original other films are The Day of the Jackal (1973), A Hatful of Rain draft was re-written, to Brando’s bitter disappointment. In the (1957), Oklahoma! (1955), While America Sleeps (1939), and 1950s Foreman has more trouble than failing scripts: He was Tracking the Sleeping Death (1938). blacklisted in the film industry during the “Red Scare”. He was only reinstated in October 1997 along with other blacklisted JOHN W. CUNNINGHAM (b. July 28, 1915—d. June 4, 2002, victims--a bit too late for him, as he died in 1984. Some of his age 86, in Lafayette, California) wrote many Western novels, other films are Young Winston (1972), Mackenna's Gold (1969), occasionally under the name John M. Cunningham. His most The Guns of Navarone (1961), A Hatful of Rain (1957), The famous work, was “The Tin Star”, a short story which appeared Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) (originally uncredited), The in Collier's Magazine in 1947 and is the basis for tonight’s film. Sleeping Tiger (1954), The Men (1950), Young Man with a Horn However, he almost didn’t receive writing credit. According to (1950) and Champion (1949). He was nominated for 5 Academy Rudy Behlmer’s Behind the Scenes, in 1948 screenplay writer Awards (Champion, High Noon, The Men, The Guns of Carl Foreman wrote what he thought was an original story Navarone), and Young Winston and he won the Award for The outline, but his agent noticed a significant resemblance to Bridge on the River Kwai, one of the films on which his name Cunningham’s story. Foreman, unsure whether he had read the could not be used. Both writers Foreman and Michael Wilson story or not, feared that he had unintentionally plagiarized were blacklisted at the time and received no screen credit. They Cunningham and so the production company acquired the film were posthumously awarded Oscars in 1984. rights to solve the problem. Some of Cunningham’s novels include Warhorse (1956), Starfall (1960) and his final output DIMITRI TIOMKIN (b. May 10, 1894 in Kremenchuk, Poltava Rainbow Runner (1992). In addition he wrote the short stories Governorate, Russian Empire [now Ukraine]—d. November 11, “Yankee Gold” (1953) and “Day of the Bad Man” (1958). After 1979, age 85, in London, England) was one of the most versatile the success of High Noon, Cunningham also wrote for a few composers in Hollywood. Whether the genre was Westerns, episodes for TV series including Tales of Wells Fargo (1959), drama, comedy, film noir, adventure, or war documentary, Day of the Badman (1958) and Studio 57 (1957). Tiomkin’s visceral, dramatic underscores helped bring more than 100 feature films to life. The list of respected directors who continuously called on his services is impressive: Frank Capra, Howard Hawks, and Alfred Hitchcock among them. Tiomkin developed his love of music early and was taught by his mother who was herself an accomplished pianist. Tiomkin appeared on Russian stages as a child prodigy and continued to develop into a virtuoso pianist. As a teenager he also gained a keen interest in American music, including the works of Irving Berlin, ragtime, blues, and early jazz. Tiomkin started his music career as a piano accompanist for Russian and French silent films in movie houses in St. Petersburg. When the famous comedian Max Linder toured in Russia, he hired Tiomkin to play piano improvisations for the Max Linder Show. From 1917 to 1921 Tiomkin was a Red Army staff composer, writing scores for revolutionary mass spectacles at the Palace Square involving 500 musicians and 8000 extras. In 1921 he emigrated to Germany, finding work with the Berlin CARL FOREMAN (b. July 23, 1914—d. June 26, 1984, Philharmonic. By 1925, Tiomkin moved again, this time to the Beverly Hills, CA) was a well-respected Hollywood screenwriter US working as the main pianist on Broadway. In 1929, MGM when he was hired to write High Noon (1952). He was, for all he offered him a contract to score music for five films. After these ZInnemann—HIGH NOON—3 films, he returned to New York to premiere his first play on best remembered for his haunting vocalization in tonight’s Broadway. However, the play was a terrible flop and Tiomkin Oscar-winning song. Ritter was known in the ‘30s and ‘40s as once again returned to Hollywood. By that time Tiomkin was the singing-cowboy star of “B” Westerns and later became a disillusioned with the intrigue and politics inside the Hollywood successful country-music recording star. Ritter ha a long string of studio system. Instead, he chose to freelance with the studios hit singles on Billboard's country charts—including the No. 1 rather than accepting a multi-picture contract. He made Alice in hits “I'm Wasting My Tears on You” (1944); “You Two-Timed Wonderland (1933) and then began one of his most successful Me Once Too Often” (1945); and “You Will Have to Pay” partnerships was with director Frank Capra. Pairing together for (1946). Other famous hits included “Deck of Cards” (1948) and Lost Horizon (1937), Tiomkin received his first Oscar “I Dreamed of a Hillbilly Heaven” (1961). In 1964 he was nomination. The partnership with Capra lasted through three inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, and in 1970, he more films culminating with It’s a Wonderful Life (1946). He ran unsuccessfully in Tennessee for the Republican nomination then ventured into all styles of music for movies, ranging from for U.S. Senate. In his later years, he was a disk jockey on mystery and horror to adventure and drama, such as his Nashville radio. He is the father of actor John Ritter. enchanting score, intricately worked around Claude Debussy’s “Girl with the Flaxen Hair,” for the haunting Portrait of Jennie (1948) and the energetic martial themes for Cyrano de Bergerac (1950). He scored three films for Alfred Hitchcock, perhaps the most inventive being for the tension-building Strangers on a Train (1951) with its out-of-control carousel finale. Yet, for all his various work, Tiomkin’s signature scores came from Westerns. His largest success was the original music for Duel in the Sun (1946). For that film, Tiomkin was asked by David O. Selznick’s to “Make a theme for orgasm!” Tiomkin worked for several weeks, and composed a powerful theme culminating with 40 drummers. Selsnick was impressed, but commented: “This is not orgasm!” Horns and lush string orchestral sound are most associated with Tiomkin's style, notably in The Unforgiven (1960), High Noon (1952), and The Big Sky (1952). He also wrote music and theme songs for several TV series, most notably GARY COOPER (b. Frank James Cooper on May 7, 1901, for Clint Eastwood's Rawhide (1959). In 1967 his beloved wife, Helena, Montana—d. May 13, 1961, Beverly Hills, CA) Albertina Rasch, passed away, and Tiomkin was emotionally originally aspired to be an artist. Yet, when he realized he could devastated. Returning from his wife's funeral to his Hancock make more money as a screen extra and stunt man, he abandoned Park home in Los Angeles, he was attacked and beaten by a his art. In his early years, he was introduced to many Hollywood street gang. The crime caused him more pain, so upon figures by Grace Kingsley, a film society columnist for the Los recommendation of his doctor, Tiomkin moved to Europe for the Angeles Times, whom he accompanied on some assignments. rest of his life. In the course of his career, Tiomkin received Agents were unimpressed. “He's too bashful,” was the usual nearly two dozen Academy Award score and song nominations comment. Cooper finally acquired an agent, Nan Collins, who over five consecutive decades. Of these, he took home Oscars for suggested he change his real name from Frank James Cooper to The Old Man and the Sea (1958), The High and the Mighty Gary Cooper. The new name clicked. In 1925 an independent (1954) and two for tonight’s film including one for best score producer, Hans Tiesler, cast Cooper opposite Eileen Sedgewick and one for best original song for “Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My in a two-reeler. After a dozen or more such short subjects, Darlin” shared with Ned Washington who wrote the lyrics. Samuel Goldwyn finally picked Cooper for a part in The Winning of Barbara Worth (1926) starring Ronald Colman and Vilma FLOYD CROSBY (b. December 12, 1899 in New York City, Banky. Then Paramount signed him to a long term contract, and NY—d. September 30, 1985, age 85, in Ojai, CA) began his Cooper was on his way to stardom. For 11 years he was one of career on Wall Street. A chance meeting with anthropologist Hollywood’s highest paid performers. By 1939 he was the William Beebe led to a job as a photographer on the Beebe nation’s highest paid wage earner at $482,819. He drove a Haitian Expedition (1927), whereupon he abandoned finance for Bentley, owned three homes and headed his own production film. For two decades, he specialized in documentaries; in WWII company. Of his 75 major pictures, his most memorable roles he shot training films for pilots learning air routes and landing were as Sergeant York, in 1941, and as the frontier marshal in patterns all over the world (these films are difficult to find today High Noon; he won the Academy Award for each. According to and do not carry credits). After the war, Crosby worked mostly the LA Times: “Long hours in the studios brought Cooper fame on Hollywood "B" movies and shot many of them in the 1950s and fortune and also ulcers. One year his weight fell to 146 lbs. and 1960s, often for director Roger Corman. He won an Oscar He was often told he needed to ‘learn to relax.’ In later years, for Tabu (1930) and a Golden Globe for tonight’s film. Crosby is Cooper's easy-going manner became more than a characteristic. also the father of David Crosby of The Byrds and Crosby Stills It was a way of life. He enjoyed playing tennis and skin diving in Nash & Young. the Pacific, not far from his home. ‘Old Coop,’ as friends have called him since boyhood, also liked to wear old clothes and TEX RITTER (b. Woodward Ritter on January 12, 1905 in could fall asleep anywhere.” Actually, while he was away Murvaul, Texas—d. January 2, 1974, age 68, in Nashville, TN) is “learning to relax” in Europe the studio telegrammed him to say ZInnemann—HIGH NOON—4 they’d found a new Gary Cooper—even going so far as to Francisco International Airport” in 1970-71; the star of “Lloyd reverse the letter order of Cooper’s name. You may have heard Bridges’ Water World” in 1972; street cop “Joe Forrester” in of him: Cary Grant. Cooper acted in almost 120 films, beginning 1975-76; owner of a modeling agency in “Paper Dolls” in 1984; with an uncredited role in Ben Turpin (1925), and ending with and editor Jonathan “Jo Jo” Turner in “Capitol News” in 1990. The Naked Edge (1961). He was nominated for 5 Academy Bridges worked right to the end, winning even more new fans Awards and won 2 of them: Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), with his spoofy portrayals in the movies Airplane! (1980) and Sergeant York (1941) (won), Pride of the Yankees (1942), For Hot Shots! (1991), and their respective sequels. He is the father Whom the Bell Tolls (1942), High Noon (1953) (won). He was of actors Beau and Jeff Bridges. also given an Honorary Award in 1961. Some of his other memorable roles are The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1959), Ten North Frederick (1958), Friendly Persuasion (1956), The Fountainhead (1959), Cloak and Dagger (1946), Meet John Doe (1941), The Westerner (1940), The General Died at Dawn (1936), The Plainsman (1936), Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935), Alice in Wonderland (1933), A Farewell to Arms (1932), The Virginian (1929), and Wings (1927).

THOMAS MITCHELL (b. July 11, 1892 in Elizabeth, NJ—d. December 17, 1962, age 70, in Beverly Hills, CA) was one of the great American character actors, whose credits read like a list of the great films: Lost Horizon (1937); Stagecoach (1939); The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939); Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939); Gone with the Wind (1939); It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) and High Noon (1952). His portrayals are so diverse and convincing that most people don’t even realize it is the same actor. Nominated twice for an Oscar, first for The Hurricane (1938), he won the Best Supporting Actor award for John Ford’s Stagecoach (1939); later, he would be nominated three times for KATY JURADO (b. María Cristina Estela Marcela Jurado on an Emmy Award. He was nominated twice, in 1952 and 1953, January 16, 1924 in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico—d. July 5, for his role in the medical drama The Doctor, winning the Lead 2002, age 78, in Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico) was once Actor Drama award in 1953. Nominated again in 1955, for an referred to by her former husband Ernest Borgnine as “beautiful, appearance on a weekly anthology series, he did not win. but a tiger.” Jurado spent her early years amid luxury until her Mitchell has the distinction of being the first male (Helen Hayes family’s lands were confiscated by the federal government for was the first female) to claim the Triple Crown (Tony, Emmy redistribution to the landless peasantry. When movie star Emilio and Oscar) when he won the Tony for best actor in 1953, for his Fernandez discovered Katy at the age of 16 and wanted to cast role as Dr. Downer in the musical comedy “Hazel Flagg”, based her in one of his films, Jurado’s grandmother objected, on the 1937 Paramount comedy film Nothing Sacred. considering the profession beneath their aristocratic heritage. To get around the ban, Jurado slipped from the grasp of her family's LLOYD BRIDGES (b. January 15, 1913 in San Leandro, CA – control by marrying actor Víctor Velázquez. Jurado eventually d. March 10, 1998, age 85, in Los Angeles, CA) spent his early made her debut in No matarás (1943) during the what has been years killing time at his father’s movie theater. While his dad had called “The Golden Age of Mexican Cinema”. Blessed with wanted his son to be a lawyer, Bridges decided to pursue acting. stunning beauty and an assertive personality, Jurado specialized Bridges made his first films in 1936, and went under contract to in playing determined women in a wide variety of films in Columbia in 1941. He made more than 100 motion pictures, with Mexico and the US. Her ethnic look meant she typically was cast his most memorable roles in supporting parts. He played a as a dangerous seductress, a popular type in Mexican movies. In soldier in a 1949 film about racial prejudice in the Army, Home addition to acting, Jurado worked as a movie columnist and radio of the Brave, and a deputy refusing to aid Gary Cooper's sheriff reporter to support her family. She also worked as a bullfight in the 1952 classic High Noon. Allegations that Bridges had been critic, and it was at a bullfight that Jurado was spotted by John involved with the Communist Party threatened to derail his Wayne and director Budd Boetticher. Boetticher, who was also a career in the early 1950s, but he resumed work after an FBI professional bullfighter, cast Jurado in his autobiographical film clearance. Making the transition to television, Bridges became a Bullfighter and the Lady (1951), which he shot in Mexico. She small screen star of giant proportions by starring in Sea Hunt was cast in her part despite having very limited English-language (1958), at the time the most successful syndicated series. This skills and had to speak her lines phonetically. Luis Buñuel cast popularity led him to be considered for the role Captain James T. her in his Mexican melodrama El bruto (1953), and then she Kirk on Star Trek (1966), which ultimately went to William made her big breakthrough in American films in the role of Gary Shatner. Although none equaled his initial success, Bridges Cooper's former mistress, saloon owner Helen Ramirez, in High appeared in several other television series. He was the Walter Noon (1952). She received two Golden Globe nominations from Mitty-like reporter Adam Sheppard, who became the protagonist the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for tonight’s film for in his own stories, in "The Lloyd Bridges Show" in 1962-63; Rod Most Promising Newcomer and Best Supporting Actress, Serling’s “The Loner” in 1965-66; the manager in “San winning the latter. Her performance historically proved to be an ZInnemann—HIGH NOON—5 important acting watershed for Latino women in American pacifist in High Noon (1952) or the amusedly detached career movies. Jurado's portrayal undermined the Hollywood stereotype girl—a term still in vogue when Rear Window (1954) was of the flaming, passionate Mexican “spitfire.” Previously, made—Grace Kelly carried herself with straight back and Mexican and Latino women in Hollywood films were clipped-voice self-assurance. Yet just beneath the frosty exterior characterized by an unbridled sexuality, as exemplified by such lay a sensuality and warmth that cracked the formidable reserve. diverse actresses as Lupe Velez, Dolores del Rio (who came to It was this delicate balance of contrasts that helped give her loathe Hollywood and returned to Mexico in the 1940s), and Rita legendary status—a remarkable achievement for an actress Hayworth. Of her performance in tonight’s film, the actress said, whose career encompassed only 11 films.” Except for some “I am very proud to make this picture because I look and act like hosting and narrator roles, she retired from filmmaking after her a Mexican - not imitation. Some Mexicans go to Hollywood and marriage to Prince Rainier in 1956. Among her other films are lose career in Mexico, because they play imitation. I don't want High Society (1956), To Catch a Thief (1955), The Bridges at this to happen to me.” Some of her other memorable films are Toko-Ri (1954), The Country Girl (1954) [for which she won an The Badlanders (1958), One-Eyed Jacks (1961), Arrowhead Oscar, a British Academy Award, and best actress awards from (1953), Man from Del Rio (1956) and The Virginian (1962). She the Golden Globes and the New York Film Critics Circle], Rear attempted to commit suicide in 1968, and then moved back home Window (1954), and Mogambo (1953). to Mexico permanently, though she continued to appear in American films as a character actress. Her last American film OTTO KRÜGER (b. September 6, 1885 in Toledo, OH—d. appearance was in Stephen Frears’ The Hi-Lo Country (1998). September 6, 1974, age 89, in Los Angeles, CA) was the grandnephew of South African pioneer and former president Paul Krüger. He made his film debut in 1915 in The Runaway Wife, but it was in the 1930s that Krüger’s polished, urbane characterizations came into full swing. A 1960 stroke forced his sudden retirement when he no longer could remember lines. Some of his more memorable films include Chained (1934) with Joan Crawford, Another Thin Man (1939), Dracula's Daughter (1936, one of the few films in which he played the lead), Hitchcock’s Saboteur (1942), Murder My Sweet (1944) and Magnificent Obsession (1952).

LON CHANEY JR. (b. Creighton Chaney on February 10, 1906 in Oklahoma City, OK—d. July 12, 1973, age 67, in San Clemente, CA) was the son of silent film star Lon Chaney. The younger Chaney was born while his parents were on a theatrical tour, and he joined them onstage for the first time at the age of six months. Never wanting to live in his father’s shadow, Chaney worked menial jobs to support himself growing up. He was at various times a plumber, a meat cutter’s apprentice, a metal GRACE KELLY (b. November 12, 1929, Philadelphia— 14 worker, and a farm worker. In fact, his father told him he was too September 14, 1982, Monaco, France) had a brief but spectacular tall for a successful career in film. It was not until after his career in Hollywood during which she was voted the second father's death in 1930 that Chaney went to work in films. His first most popular box-office draw in the country. A year later came appearances were under his real name. He played number of her engagement and marriage to Prince Rainier III, and in spite supporting parts before a producer in 1935 insisted on changing of several attempts to woo her back, she renounced the cinema to his name to Lon Chaney Jr. as a marketing ploy. Chaney was become a full-time first lady of Monaco. Her initial interest in uncomfortable with the change and always hated the “Jr.” acting may have come from her uncle, George Kelly, who was a addendum. But he was also aware that the famous name could popular playwright. She studied at the American Academy of help his career, and so he kept it. Most of the parts he played Dramatic Art and was soon offered a film contract, which she were unmemorable, often bits, until 1939 when he was given the turned down, preferring to concentrate on television and role of the simple-minded Lennie in the film adaptation of John modelling. After good parts on Broadway, she was again Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men (1939). This is the role Chaney is approached by Hollywood and made her film debut in 1951 in most remembered for, along with as the tortured Lawrence Fourteen Hours. The following year she played Gary Cooper’s Talbot in The Wolf Man (1941). With this film and the slew of Quaker wife in High Noon. The following year she starred in horror films that followed it, Chaney achieved a kind of cult John Ford’s African melodrama, Mogambo, as a reserved stardom, though he was never able to achieve his goal of Englishwoman who entices Clark Gable away from the more surpassing his father. By the 1950s, he was established as a star animal attractions of Ava Gardner. Her performance brought an in low-budget horror films and as a reliable character actor in Oscar nomination for best supporting actress. However, it was more prestigious, big-budget films such as High Noon (1952). her next relationship with direct Alfred Hitchcock that would Ever as versatile as his father, he fell more and more into cheap cement her career forever. Hitch once called her look ‘sexual and mundane productions which traded primarily on his name elegance’. The New York Times supported this claim: “Whether and those of other fading horror stars, however, he is the only playing the heiress in To Catch a Thief (1955) or the Quaker actor to have played all four of the classic movie monsters: The ZInnemann—HIGH NOON—6

Wolf Man (1941) as the wolf, The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942) played a string of memorably villainous characters, primarily in as Frankenstein, The Mummy's Tomb (1942) as the mummy, and westerns, but also in crime dramas such as The Big Combo Son of Dracula (1943) as Dracula’s son. He is also name- (1955). His hawk nose and steely, slit eyes seemed destined to checked in Warren Zevon’s classic 1978 song “Werewolves of keep him always in the realm of heavies, but in the mid-1960s London”. Sergio Leone cast him as the tough but decent Col. Mortimer opposite Clint Eastwood in For a Few Dollars More (1965). HARRY MORGAN (b. April 10, 1915 in Detroit, Michigan—d. Besides his prominent facial features, Van Cleef was missing the December 7, 2011 in Brentwood, CA) is most well-known for last joint of his middle finger, a disfigurement featured in the playing “Col. Sherman T. Potter” on the TV show M*A*S*H*. climactic gunfight of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). He However, Morgan had a solid film career before transitioning to actually lost it while building a playhouse for his daughter, the small screen. Some of his early work includes The Omaha although there were rumors that it happened in a road accident or Trail (1942), The Ox-Bow Incident (1943), Wing and a Prayer a bar fight. A new career as a western hero (or at least anti-hero) (1944), State Fair (1945), Dragonwyck (1946), All My Sons opened up though the films decreased quality. He slipped out of (1948), Red Light (1949), Outside the Wall (1950) and Dark City the limelight during the 1980s, appearing in films that did not (1950) where he met co-star Jack Webb, who would remain his have a wide release or in cult films such as Escape from New best friends until Webb’s death in 1982. Together they starred in York (1981). the TV show Dragnet as well as in the short-lived TV series, The D.A. He also co-starred with James Garner in Support Your Local JACK ELAM (b. William Scott Elam on November 13, 1920 in Sheriff! (1969) and Support Your Local Gunfighter (1971). On Miami, AZ—d. October 20, 2003, age 82, in Ashland, OR) one television, he is fondly remembered as Spring Byington's of the best-known, and best-loved, character actors in the jokingly, henpecked neighbor, "Pete Porter" on December Bride Western genre. He was a colorful American character actor (1954), where he became the show's scene-stealer. Morgan's equally adept at vicious killers or grizzled sidekicks. Made a biggest role was that of a tough-talking, commanding, fun- career with his eerie immobile eye, which was caused by a fight loving, serious Army Officer, “Col. Sherman T. Potter” on with another kid at age 12. It happened during a Boy Scout M*A*S*H*, when he replaced McLean Stevenson, who left the meeting when another boy took a pencil, threw it, and it jabbed show to unsuccessfully star in his own sitcom. At 60, Morgan his eyeball. Elam initially was a studio accountant, but gave it up was nominated for his first of nine Emmies winning only Emmy as it was too much strain on his eye. When a movie director in 1980, for Outstanding Supporting Actor. He mostly retired friend was having trouble getting financing for three western after this, making occasional cameos such as in 1987 when he scripts, Elam told him he would arrange the financing in reprised his role as Officer Bill Gannon in the Dan Aykroyd and exchange for roles as a “heavy” in all three pictures. In 1949, Tom Hanks remake of Dragnet (1987). made his debut as The Killer in a short film entitled Trailin' West. Within three years, he had made his mark as a villain in Henry Hathaway's Rawhide (1951), and notched up appearances in Fritz Lang's flamboyant Rancho Notorious (1952), which helped launch his long career. Some of this other 206 acting credits are Bonanza: Under Attack (TV Movie, 1995), Lonesome Dove: The Series (TV Series, 1994-1995), Big Bad John (1990), Simon & Simon (TV Series, 1986), Cannonball Run II (1984), Lost (1983), The Cannonball Run (1981), The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams (TV Series, 1978) Black Beauty (TV Mini-Series, 1978), How the West Was Won (TV Mini-Series,1977), Kung Fu (TV Series, 1973), Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973), Gunsmoke (TV Series, 1959-1972), Cat Ballou (TV Movie, 1971), Support Your Local Gunfighter (1971), Bonanza (TV Series, 1970), Rio Lobo (1970), The Virginian (TV Series, 1970), Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), The High Chaparral (TV Series, 1968), Firecreek (1968), The Way West (1967), F Troop (TV Series, 1965), The Untouchables (TV Series, 1960-1962), The Twilight Zone (TV Series, 1961), The Rebel (TV Series, LEE VAN CLEEF (b. Clarence Leroy Van Cleef, Jr. on January 1960-1961), Death Valley Days (TV Series, 1961), M Squad (TV 9, 1925 in Somerville, NJ—d. December 16, 1989, age 64, in Series, 1958), Baby Face Nelson (1957), Wagon Train (TV Oxnard, CA) is one of the great movie villains. Van Cleef started Series, 1957), Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), Jubal (1956), out as an accountant before serving in the U.S. Navy aboard Kismet (1955), The Lone Ranger (TV Series, 1954-1955), minesweepers and sub chasers during WWII. After the war he Wichita (1955), Kiss Me Deadly (1955), Man Without a Star worked as an office administrator, becoming involved in amateur (1955), The Man from Laramie (1955),Vera Cruz (1954), Cattle theatrics in his spare time. An audition for a professional role led Queen of Montana (1954), The Far Country (1954), Rancho to a touring company job in “Mr. Roberts.” His performance was Notorious (1952), Rawhide (1951), High Lonesome (1950), seen by Stanley Kramer, who cast him as henchman Jack Colby Quicksand (1950), The Sundowners (1950), Trailin' West (Short, in tonight’s film, a role that brought him great recognition 1944). despite the fact that he had no dialogue. For the next decade he ZInnemann—HIGH NOON—7

Viertel, a fellow Viennese, on Man Trouble (1930) and The Spy (1931). Viertel, trained in the German theatre, “had a certain amount of difficulty with camera technique, and, in that sense, I think I helped him,” Zinnemann recalls. “I also learned a great deal from him, watching how he handled actors. That was big news to me. I didn’t know anything about them.” At Viertel’s home, Zinnemann met the great documentarist Robert Flaherty and asked if he could work with him. Flaherty agreed, and Zinnemann spent six months with him in Berlin planning a documentary about a little-known nomadic tribe in Soviet Central Asia. Nothing came of this because the Russian authorities wanted a propaganda film remote from what Flaherty had envisaged, an elegy for a dying way of life. Nevertheless, Zinnemann has always regarded this brief association with Flaherty as “the most important event of my professional life.” In an interview with Michael Buckley in Films in Review (January 1983), he said: “Bob taught me more than anyone else—to concentrate on subjects I know and to make a film the way I see it.” Back in Hollywood, Zinnemann rejoined Viertel, who had moved to Paramount, assisting him on two vehicles for Claudette Colbert, The Wiser Sex and The Man from Yesterday. This humble phase of Zinnemann’s career ended at Goldwyn’s. where he assisted Busby Berkeley with the camera setups for Leo McCarey’s The Kid From Spain (1932). Another period of unemployment followed and then a tedious job as a script clerk, from which Zinnemann was rescued from World Film Directors, VI. Ed. John Wakeman. H. W. by his friend Henwar Rodakiewicz. The photographer Paul Wilson Co. NY 1987. Entry by Doris Toumarkine. Strand had been invited to produce a documentary for the new American director, born in Vienna, older of two sons of revolutionary government in Mexico. Rodakiewicz had been Oskar Zinnemann and the former Anna Feiwel. His father was a assigned to direct as well as write the film, but at his suggestion prominent physician, and he was encouraged to follow the same the latter responsibility was offered to Zinnemann. profession. At first, he set his heart on a musical career. He The result was Redes (The Wave, 1935), filmed on became a competent violinist but, according to Richard Griffith location in the Gulf of Vera Cruz. Local fishermen and their in a Museum of Modern Art pamphlet about Zinnemann, he families acted out a story, set before the revolution, about a recognized “the difference between competence and young man who persuades his comrades to form a fisherman’s renown...[and] turned to the study of law at the University of union and is finally murdered by the government. As Zinnemann Vienna.” He graduated in 1927. Meanwhile, he had seen three says in a Focus on Film interview (Spring, 1973), “the situation films that influenced him profoundly: Eisenstein’s Potemkin, is similar to the one that Visconti used in La Terra Trema, but Stroheim’s Greed, and Vidor’s The Big Parade. Under their The Wave was a much more modest venture. It was a sixty- influence, he says, “I made up my mind to forget all about law minute film which was shot silent. But we spent a year in the and in some way break into motion pictures with my sights set jungle making it. It was one of the happiest years of my life. In upon someday becoming a director.” the jungle one was thrown on one’s own resources.” The Technical School of Cinematography opened in Redes was made twelve years before La Terra Trema Paris in 1927 and Zinnemann, overcoming his family’s and can be claimed as a forerunner of neorealism in its use of determined resistance, immediately enrolled. He studied there for real locations and non-professional actors to tell a story of eighteen months, learning the fundamentals of optics, economic exploitation and political oppression. Richard Griffith photochemistry, developing, and printing. He got his first job writes that Zinnemann, like his mentor Flaherty, “must use the while still a student, contributing a few shots to Eugène untrained fishermen of the village of Alvarado to play Deslaws’s avant-garde documentary La Marche des Machines themselves in a drama based on actual happenings in the locality. (The March of the Machines, 1927). But, unlike Flaherty, he had a plot to unfold, a conclusion to In 1928, armed with a letter of introduction to the head reach....The solution adopted by Zinnemann and Paul Strand of Universal, Carl Laemmle, Zinnemann set out for Hollywood. differed from the Flaherty method....They made the players Laemmle gave him a job as an extra in Lewis Milestone’s All simple units in massive and monumental photographic Quiet on the Western Front, doubling as a German soldier and a compositions expressive of grief, pride, anger, despondency—all French ambulance driver. ”Even in that very modest way,” he the emotions which the actors themselves could not portray. This says, “I was very happy to be part of it,” but after three weeks he method was not followed consistently—in some scenes the was fired for talking back to an assistant director. players did awkwardly try to ‘act’—and it may be thought more Some months without work followed, and then appropriate to still photography than to the moving image, but it Zinnemann was hired by Fox as assistant to the director Berthold ZInnemann—HIGH NOON—8 gave Redes a beauty and power which brought it an international “Dog Bites Axis” was Cecilia Ager’s headline for her audience.” review of Zinnemann’s second B-movie, Eyes in the Night According to Zinnemann, Redes “played in art theatres (1942), in which a Nazi spy (Stephen McNally) is exposed by in the United States and became very well known in Europe, Bayard Kendrick’s blind detective Duncan Maclain (Edward particularly in France; and, as I understand it, the Nazis burned Arnold) and his seeing-eye dog. John Howard Reid, in his article the negative—which was in Paris—so prints are now very hard about Zinnemann in Film and Filming (May, 1967) thought his to come by.” In spite of the succes d’estime, however, “realistic, documentary” approach inappropriate to this Zinnemann could find no work when he returned to the United extravagant leodrama The, but most rviewers enjoyed the movie. States. He and Rodakiewicz filled in the time writing a Zinnemann graduated forthwith to his first A movie, The Seventh screenplay, Bonanza, set in Mexico. It was sold to MGM but Cross, adapted by Helen Deutsch from the best-selling novel by never produced. Anna Seghers. Zinnemann was married in The film is set in Hitler’s 1936 to Renee Bartlett, born in Germany in 1936. Seven men escape England but raised in Chile, and then from a concentration camp and the working in Paramount’s wardrobe Nazis, in their sadistic arrogance, erect department. In 1937 Zinnemann was seven crosses in the camp to receive naturalized as an American citizen, them as they are recaptured. Six are and the following year, having shown brought back and crucified, but George part of Redes to Jack Chertok, head of Heisler (Spencer Tracy), a man who MGM’s short subject department, he believes in nothing and nobody, is was hired as a director. Between 1938 succored and aided by a chain of “good and 1942 Zinnemann made eighteen Germans.” Little by little Heisler learns one- or two-reel shorts for MGM, hope and charity, and the seventh cross including contributions to several waits for him in vain. regular series—the Pete Smith The people who help Heisler Specialties, Crime Does Not Pay, John (and those who do not) form a cross- Nesbitte’s Passing Parade, and the section of German society under the Carey Wilson Miniatures. One of the latter, That Mothers May Third Reich. They include a theatrical costumer (Agnes Live, telling the story of the obstetric use of antiseptics, won an Moorehead), a rich architect (George Macready), a barmaid Oscar as best short subject of 1938. (Signe Hasso) and a pro-Hitler workman (Hume Cronyn, who MGM used its short subject department as a training receivded an Oscar nomination for his performance). “In those ground for novice directors, and Zinnemann considers this one of days,” Cronyn recalled, Freddie was insecure. He hadn’t made a the most instructive phases of his career. “We had quite a group major picture. And he was struck with an absolute bastard of a of us—Jules Dassin, George Sidney, Jacques Tourneur, Gunther cameraman, Karl Freund, who had done lote of films and didn’t von Fritsch, Roy Rowland—and it was marvelous training.” As make it any easier for him.” Cronyn and his wife Jessica Tandy he told Gene Philips, “you had a comparatively small amount of “took a tremendous shine to Freddie” and would go at night to time and money to do a short....I remember doing the life of his office “and walk through the next day’s shooting-the two of George Washington Carver from the time he was kidnapped by us playing all the parts. In those days, rehearsals were very rare.” slave-traders as a baby until he was ninety-five in ten The Seventh Cross was generally very well received, minutes....These shorts had a regular production crew like any praised for its “crackling tensions and hard-packed realism.” On feature picture, except that the whole thing had to be shot in six the other hand, Time’s reviewer thought it “two hours of days. You could never use a moving camera because that handsome, earnest inadequacy….George Heisler is presented in required too long to light the set. You had to previsualize this cautious film as wholly non-political except for his distaste everything you were going to do in order to make the best for Nazism, so are his friends in the underground. With the loss possible use of the time....It was a challenge, really.” of this political energy the film not only loses its truth as a When MGM promoted Chertok to features, he took tribute, it also sacrifices , even as melodrama, its vitality.” More Zinnemann with him. The director’s first fiction film was a recently. In a British National Film Theatre program, note, Neil grade-B crime story, Kid Glove Killer (1942) with Van Heflin in Sinyard pointed out that the picture was one of the few his first lead role. Much of the action takes place in a police Hollywood films of the time to offer a compassionate picture of laboratory, where forensic scientist Heflin uses his skills to nail German society,” adding that “its precarious affirmation of the DA’s killer (Lee Bowman). It was an auspicious debut, human decency is characteristic [of Zinnemann], and very showing what Zinnemann had learned as a director of shorts. The moving.” New York Times called it “a little crackerjack of a picture, Zinnemann was next assigned to direct Judy Garland in compact and tight as a drum,” in which, “out of routine tests of The Clock (1945), but was replaced by Vincent Minnelli, whom chemicals and spectographs, Mr. Zinnemann has created a good Garland married the same year. Rather surprisingly, MGM then deal of suspense.” The review closed with the suggestion that “it put Zinnemann back on a B movie, Little Mr. Jim (1946), a might be good idea to send some directors of super-colossal domestic tearjerker featuring the child star Jackie “Butch” specials back to the shorts department to learn a lesson in Jenkins. Out of routine material Zinnemann made a picture of conciseness.” some subtlety and charm, but he could do nothing with Morton Thompson’s stodgy script for My Brother Talks to Horses ZInnemann—HIGH NOON—9

(1946), another Butch Jenkins vehicle about a boy who gets After that, Zinnemann signed a three-picture deal with acting tips literally from the horse’s mouth. After that the independent producer Stanley Kramer, who shared his [Zinnemann turned down three bad scripts in a row. MGM put interest in social realism. Their first collaboration was The Men him on suspension for three weeks, during which, he says, (1950), which launched the film career of Marlon Brando. He “everybody seemed to treat me as though I’d just got the Purple plays a paraplegic veteran, consumed with bitterness, who slowly Heart.” and painfully comes to terms with his permanent disablement. The suspension ended when a Swiss producer, Lazar Brando spent three weeks at the Birmingham Veterans Hospital Wechsler, offered Zinnemann a script that excited him, The in California in preparation for the role, often confining himself Search, inspired by Therese Bonney’s photographs of displaced to bed or traveling by wheelchair with real paraplegics to a children in Europe’s Children. MGM not only let him go to nearby bar (where on one occasion he dumbfounded an Europe to make the film but put up evangelist by demonstrating the truth most of the money. The Search of her assertion that, with faith, he (1948) tells the story of a GI could rise from his wheelchair and (Montgomery Clift) stationed in walk). Most of the film was then shot occupied Germany who befriends a in the hospital, where Zinnemann was lost and mute Czech boy (Ivan such a constant presence that he came Jandl), little by little winning his to be regarded as an unofficial member trust and teaching him to speak of the staff.... again. The boy is finally reunited Zinnemann returned to MGM with his mother (played by the for Teresa (1951), about the problems singer Jarmils Novotna). of European war brides brought to the ...As he always does, United States by returning GIs.... Zinnemann began by carefully Zinnemann’s second film for researching his subject. Influenced Kramer was the Western High Noon by the Italian neorealists, he (1952) regarded by many as his wanted to fuse the conventions of masterpiece. Another Carl Foreman fiction with documentary into a form he called a “dramatic script, it is set in a frontier town in 1870. Gary Cooper plays Will document.” The fictional story, shot on location in the ruins of Kane, an aging lawman. As the film opens, he has just celebrated postwar Germany, is intercut with harrowing footage of real war the end of his successful term as marshall by marrying Grace orphans in UNRRA camps. Zinnemann used many of these Kelly, a Quaker opposed to all violence. It is 10:40 a.m. and they children as extras because “they alone could understand and are about to leave on their honeymoon. And then they learn that a project the feeling of animal terror.” One profoundly disturbing vicious killer…whom Kane had once sent to jail will arrive at scene reconstructed an incident that actually took place during noon to settle accounts, supported by three other thugs. Noon is filming, when the children ran in horror from Red Cross the moment the marshall’s contract expires; from then on there ambulances, mistaking them for the vehicles used by Nazis in will be no law in Hadleyville. The townspeople want Kane to gas chamber roundups. run, but being a man of principle and courage, he knows what he This was Montgomery Clift’s screen debut; Red River, must do. shot earlier, was released later. Zinnemann found him “terribly The eighty minutes between 10:40 and high noon are sensitive; difficult, but so exciting that it didn’t matter.” The roughly the actual duration of the film, which observes all the director’s regard for verisimilitude is reflected in his distrust of classical unities (though time is in fact skillfully manipulated— the star system; he has always been ready to take chances on accelerated and then slowed down—to increase the tension). unfamiliar faces in major roles and in this way has launched Kane, his authority visibly evaporating, makes the rounds of the some brilliant careers, Clift’s performance in The Search earned town, trying with growing urgency to find someone who will him an Oscar nomination. There were nominations also for stand with him against the forces of evil. But no one wants that Zinnemann’s direction and for the film’s story and screenplay kind of trouble—not his pacifist wife, nor his fiery ex-mistress credited to Richard Schwetzer and the producer’s son, Davis (Katy Jurado), nor his jealous deputy (Lloyd Bridges), nor Wechsler (though Clift reportedly wrote all his own dialogue and Thomas Mitchell’s querulous official, nor Lon Chaney’s several scenes). Ivan Jandl (whom Zinnemann chose from a hopeless former marshal. Certainly not the cynical hotel clerk school in Prague) eceived a special Academy Award for his (Howard Chamberlain), who openly expresses what others “outstanding juvenile performance.” conceal—the belief that there is more money to be made in a Bosley Crowther called The Search “a major revelation wide-open town than in a law-abiding one. in our times,” and Penelope Houston wrote that it had been In the end, having made what preparations he can, Kane “directed with a style at once natural and exciting, which gives it has to go out alone to face his enemies. John Howard Reid found quality above its emotional appeal.”... the long take as Kane walks out to the depot one of the most The Search was financially successful and established memorable in the film. “The camera, tracking with Cooper, Zinnemann as an important director. MGM, which had dropped begins to draw away from him and rises to show the deserted him in an economy drive, promptly rehired him for Act of street, the whole town apparently empty.” In the showdown that Violence (1948), one of the studio’s few attempts at film noir and follows, a crucial shot is fired by Kane’s Quaker bride, whose Zinnemann’s only work in that genre, though it continues his love for her husband overcomes her belief in nonresistance. pursuit of quasi-documentary realism.... ZInnemann—HIGH NOON—10

Zinnemann had not always been well served in the past Zinnemann hero—a principled loner who believes that “a man by his collaborators, but here he had not only a fine cast but who don’t go his own way is nothing.”...From Here to Eternity Floyd Crosby as cinematographer, Elmo Wiliams as editor, and was a great financial success, and the most honored of an excellent score by Dimitri Tiomkin (who also wrote the Zinnemann’s films....In all, the film received thirteen Oscar folkish theme tune “Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling”). nominations and won eight of them—best director, best picture, Zinnemann had said that he wanted best supporting actor (Sinatra) and the film “to have a conflicting flow supporting actress (Donna Reed, as the of visual concepts,” like the prostitute Prewitt loves), best screenplay, numerous shots of dark figures best black and white cinematography, best against white skies—visual sound recording, and best editing. corollaries of the picture’s moral This triumph confirmed conflicts, He also wanted it to “look Zinnemann’s position in the forefront of like a newsreel would have looked if Hollywood directors....In search of light they had newsreels in those days.” relief, perhaps, Zinnemann then turned to He and Crosby studied the Civil War the musical, a new genre to him....His photographs of Matthew Brady and version of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s tried for similar effects. “Crosby Oklahoma! (1955) was, moreover, the first used red filters and gave the sky a film made in wide screen Todd-AO. ... white, cloudless, burnt-out look He used flat lighting and that gave the film a grainy quality. From A Hatful of Rain, made for Twentieth Century-Fox in the first day the front office complained about the poor 1957, was another adaptation from the stage....Zinnemann photography….but Floyd went ahead anyway. returned to form with The Nun’s Story (1958), produced by his own company releasing through Warners....Albert Johnson called High Noon collected Oscars for best actor (revitalizing the film “the best study of religious life ever made in the Cooper’s career), best score, best song,,.and best editing. It was American cinema.: chosen as best film by the New York Film Critics and topped Having won Oscars for two short films and From Here Film Daily’s annual poll. Many regard the film as one of the to Eternity, the director won another for A Man for All Seasons greatest of all Westerns. Others insist that it is not really a (1966), adapted by Robert Bolt from his own stage play, and Western at all but (as Pauline Kael put it) “a sneak civics lesson,” made on a modest budget in England. Paul Scofield repeated his albeit a good one. André Bazin placed it with Shane as “the two stage performance as Sir Thomas More, friend of Henry VIII and films that best illustrate the mutation in the Western genre as an Chancellor of England. More is a man of wit and principle, and effect of the awareness it has gained of itself and its limits.” his reluctant but absolute inability to sanction the king’s divorce Louis Giannetti, in his Masters of American Cinema, and remarriage to Anne Boleyn leads inexorably to his says that High Noon, one of the first of the so-called execution—a kind of Tudor High Noon. Robert Shaw gave a ‘psychological’ or ‘adult’ westerns of the early 1950s, began a robust performance as the king, Orson Welles was a clever and trend in the demythologizing of genres….Zinnemann treated his mountainous Cardinal Wolsey, and Vanessa Redgrave made a Western hero as though he were a real human being, one who brief but telling appearance as Anne Boleyn. feels panic, fear, and even some moments of cowardice….He “By carefully circumscribing his cinematic limits,” sweats profusely under the glare of the sun. He gets dirtier, more wrote Hollis Alpert, “Zinnemann has been able to concentrate on stooped, and haggard as the urgency of his situation fine detail, on performances, and on extracting an existential increases….Zinnemann’s realistic innovations helped to bring meaning from More’s act of martyrdom....The film symbolically about a new attitude toward the genre. Setting the stage for such uses the Thames as a highway of history, employs settings that later ‘revisionist’ westerns as Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch, are relatively modest but richly suggestive of authenticity, and Penn’s Little Big Man, and Altman’s McCabe and Mrs. rings with words and more intellectual and psychological Milleri.”Others have seen High Noon as a political allegory excitement than are normally common in movies.”... about the effects of McCarthyism, and the screenwriter Carl It was another seven years before Zinnemann completed Foreman has confirmed that this was “the only time I consciously another film. Believing that a director “should never compromise wrote a polemic. It was my story of a community corrupted by on important things” had cost him more assignments in the fear—the and of Hollywood.” course of his career than most filmmakers have ever been Zinnemann’s own favorite among his films is said to be offered. ...In the late 1960s and the 1970s Zinnemann tried but The Member of the Wedding (1952)…. This completed failed to film the story of Heloise and Abelard and an adaptation Zinnemann’s contract with Kramer, and then he joined Columbia of Solzhenitsyn’s The First Circle. Perhaps the worst blow of all for From Here to Eternity (1953), Daniel Taradash’s adaptation was MGM’s cancellation in 1970 on economic grounds of Man’s of James Jones’ sprawling novel about life, sex, and death on a Fate, a version by Han Suyin of Malraux’s novel on which Honolulu army base on the eve of Pearl Harbor. Zinnemann cast Zinnemann had worked for three years, assembling a “dream” Montgomery Clift as Prewitt, champion boxer, aspiring bugler, cast, picking his locations, and spending some $3 million on and loyal professional solider. He is the quintessential preproduction. ZInnemann—HIGH NOON—11

When the director finally completed another film, it the shy homosexual in Day of the Jackal are unnerving precisely featured an unlikely version of the Zinnemann hero, the because Zinnemann refuses to dissipate the tension by cutting to professional assassin played by Edward Fox in Frederic a variety of shots. In other words, the unedited shot itself can be Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal. The seemingly impossible goal a kind of spatial and temporal prison from which there’s no towards which he strives is the murder of President de Gaulle. escape.” Most reviewers praised the film’s air of detailed documentary authenticity and its taut editing, and Neil Sinyard called it “a despairing parable in which torture, treachery and terrorism are seen as the accepted currency of modern politics.” The filming of Julia was marred by Zinnemann’s conflicts with his producer, Richard Roth, and also with Lillian Hellman, who wrote the autobiographical memoir on which Alvin Sargent’s script is based. Jane Fonda plays Hellman, Vanessa Redgrave her friend Julia, a rich intellectual who committed herself to the anti-fascist cause in the years before World War II, losing first her leg and then her life. The film centers on an incident in 1937 when Julia drew Hellman into her dangerous world, asking her to smuggle $50,000 into Nazi Germany “to bribe out many in prison.” Jason Robards impersonates Lillian Hellman’s lover and literary mentor Dashiell Hammett. Julia was warmly praised by most critics, especially for Fonda’s performance, but by some with reservations. Pauline Kael, for example, wrote that “to say Julia is well-lighted doesn’t do Douglas Slocombe’s cinematography exact justice. It’s from Fred Zinnemann An Autobiography A Life in the Movies. perfectly lighted, the images so completely composed they’re Charles Scribner’s Sons NY 1992. “High Noon (1951)” almost static….This is conservative—classical humanistic— Having read the first-draft screenplay upon receiving moviemaking, where every detail of meaning is worked out, right the offer to direct High Noon, I thought it nothing short of a down to the flicker of light in the bit player’s eyes. The director, masterpiece—brilliant, exciting and novel in it approach, I could Fred Zinnemann, does all the work for you….He does it hardly wait to come to grips with it. Friends were quite puzzled beautifully—and there are very few directors left who know how by my enthusiasm over what they thought to be the script for just to do it all….Julia is romantic in such a studied way that it turns another Western; but when I told the story to Renée, who is a romanticism into a moral lesson.” good movie audience, she immediately said, “You must do it.” Another seven years passed before Zinnemann made The story seems to mean different things to different Five Days One Summer (1982). Set in the Swiss Alps, which people. (Some speculate that it is an allegory on the Korean Zinnemann had loved as a youth, and based loosely on a story by War!) Kramer, who had worked closely with Foreman on the Kay Boyle that the director had long admired, this was a very script, said it was about ‘a town that died because no one there personal picture. Sean Connery plays a married and middle-aged had the guts to defend it’. Foreman saw it as an allegory on his doctor on an illicit vacation with his young cousin (Betsy own experience of political persecution in the McCarthy era. Brantley), and Lambert Wilson is the handsome guide…. With due respect I felt this to be a narrow point of view. First of all, I saw it simply as a great movie yarn, full of enormously All of Zinnemann’s Austrian relatives died in the interesting people. I vaguely sensed deeper meanings in it; but holocaust and, though he sometimes visits Vienna, he can never only later did it dawn on me that this was not a regular western bear to stay there for long.... myth, There was something timely—and timeless—about it, As Giannetti says, Zinnemann’s favorite theme is a something that had a direct bearing on life today. conflict of conscience, a conflict that may be enacted in the To me it was the story of a man who must make a public world or restricted to the private soul (as in The Nun’s decision according to his conscience. His town—symbol of a Story): “Generally his protagonists choose solitude over a democracy gone soft—faces a horrendous threat to its people’s corrupted solidarity. Hence, many of Zinnemann’s movies end in way of life. Determined to resist, and in deep trouble, he moves a note of disintegration, loneliness, and shattered hope....His all over the place looking for support but finding there is nobody plots are generally constructed like traps, which close in who will help him; each has a reason of his own for not getting menacingly until the protagonists have no other choice but to flee involved. In the end he must meet his chosen fate all by himself, or confront the inevitable.” his town’s doors and windows firmly locked against him. “Unlike most realists,” Giannetti goes on, “Zinnemann’s It is a story that still happens everywhere, every day. techniques emphasize closed forms, with many claustrophobic The scenario, ingeniously developed from a two-page medium and close shots and tightly framed compositions which magazine story called ‘The Tin Star’, presented densely permit little freedom of movement. The edges of his frame are compressed scenes of people in danger, forced to reveal often sealed off, and the ceilings are oppressively low, visually themselves by nothing more than the exasperating presence of reinforcing the sense of confinement....The director’s famous the hero (as in The Seventh Cross). The entire action was lengthy takes, like the alley fight in Eternity and the murder of ZInnemann—HIGH NOON—12 designed by Foreman and Kramer to take place in the exact meant that we would have to shoot completely out of continuity. screening time of the film—less than ninety minutes. (The first two days were in fact spent on the church scene, which At that time, in 1951, the McCarthy era was at its is situated midway through the script.) As there was not going to height, bringing enormous pressures and anxieties to the unstable be time for hesitation on the set, I had to memorize every shot Hollywood community, and its exact place in the overall raising anti-Communist picture; this would affect the hysteria to a point where building of sets, rental of props, people stopped thinking and hiring of horses and dozens of became emotional, a prey to other details. Fortunately, from the wildly exaggerated rumors. old days in MGM’s Shorts People looked at each other Department, I was used to with suspicion, on the sets the ‘making’ the movie in my head crew as well as the actors long before the actual shooting. were polarized into hostile The first image that occurred to groups. me was of the railroad tracks The studios pointing straight to the horizon, capitulated to the politicians. the symbol for an enormous ‘Fellow travellers’ had to looming threat. appear before a Congressional In casting the main parts, Committee and give the the deciding voices were Kramer’s names of people they thought might be Communists. If they and Foreman’s; my veto was honored and my choices were refused they became ‘unfriendly witnesses’; they lost their jobs accepted when feasible. Jack Merton, the casting director, was and their films could not be shown anywhere in the United most helpful. States. Many innocent people were persecuted and their lives We were thrilled when Gary Cooper, who seemed ruined. predestined for the role of the Marshal, accepted the part; the There existed an unofficial industry-wide blacklist; local vultures were predicting that his career was finished, as his attempts were made to enforce a ‘loyalty’ oath, which many of us last two pictures had no been successful. refused to take on principle. In the Directors’ Guild things soon Working with this most gentle and charming man turned got to the point of ‘who is not with us is against’ us. The board out to be one of the happiest experiences of my life. Not once did was led by Cecil B. DeMille during the temporary absence of Joe he make an attempt to look younger than his years. Gaunt, Mankiewicz. somewhat stooped and walking a bit stiffly, he was exactly the A ballot for or against establishing the oath in the right shape for the character. In spite of his arthritis, he managed bylaws was sent to the Guild’s membership, together with a the fist-fight with Lloyd Bridges, the excellent actor who played strongly-worded letter from the board, recommending a ‘yes’ his deputy, without a stunt double. When on location, his favorite vote. The personal intimidation, such as heavy hints of relaxing position between scenes was lying flat on the ground, unemployment for those who would not conform, was so intense his long legs jack-knifed over each other, his Jaguar sports car that 547 members voted ‘yes’, 14voted ‘no’ and 57—including waiting beside him. Audiences watched him as they would watch myself—refused to vote. Thereupon an incredible attempt was a baby or a white kitten on the screen ‘the camera loved him’, the made by the board to frighten the membership into becoming a prototype of the vanishing American. political instrument. A long cable was sent to everyone, As the Marshal’s ex-mistress, Katy Jurado, the fiery demanding a vote to force the resignation of Mankiewicz who, in Mexican actress, an exuberant woman with a volcanic sense of opposition, had uttered the word ‘blacklist’ from the chair. humor and full of the joy of life, was an inspired addition to the Fortunately, having discovered that twenty-five cast. I was lucky to have excellent actors—Otto Kruger, Lloyd members in good standing had the right to demand an Bridges, Tommy Mitchell, Lou Chaney, Jr and Henry Morgan extraordinary general meeting, we took the loyalty oath in a among them. group which included George Stevens, John Huston and other Even before Cooper had considered the script his illustrious directors, fully aware that the less well established and Quaker bride was cast, from a distance. The budget figure for the therefore more expendable directors among us were putting our part was very low, but the role was not demanding; we simply own careers on the line. needed an attractive, virginal-looking and inhibited young In a memorable open debate, led by George Stevens and actress, the typical Western heroine. An ambitious agent from John Ford, our side won. The board was forced to resign and a MCA, young Jay Kanter, came to see Stanlet Kramer with a new board was elected, Foreman’s political position became postcard photo of a very pretty girl. ‘There’s this girl playing increasingly difficult as the start of filming grew close. As the summer stock in Denver,’ he said. ‘She’s done nothing except a associate producer, he was forced to resign halfway through small bit for Henry Hathaway. She’s from Philadelphia, her shooting and to appear before the Congressional Committee. name is Grace Kelly.’ Kramer looked at the photo and signed her Shortly afterwards he went to live in England. more or less on the spot. I asked to meet and interview her; Miss Kelly arrived a few days later and came to see me, beautiful in a I was working under the terms of a standard employee prim sort of way and indeed seeming rather inhibited and tense. contract. The budget for the entire picture was $750,000, based Wearing white gloves, a thing unheard of in our low- on a gruesome production schedule of twenty-eight days, which class surroundings, she answered most of my questions with a ZInnemann—HIGH NOON—13

‘Yes’ or ‘No’ and, as I am not good at small talk, our his very first job, Tabu, which he photographed in Tahiti for conversation soon came to a halt. It was with a sense of relief Murnau and Flaherty.). that I sent her on to Foreman’s office. She fitted the part I believe this particular treatment to have played a large admirably, perhaps because she was technically not ready for it, part in the effect the film has on the viewer. which made her rather tense and remote. The couple’s great age difference, thirty years, worried me somewhat, but the die was A DC-3 plane took the entire company to Sonoma, hundreds of cast. In the event, no audience ever complained about it. Next miles away. The planning department and my assistant, Emmett came the job of choosing locations. I wanted a town in the Emerson, together with Percy Ikerd, had done a spectacular job. middle of nowhere, with miles of Taking off at 7.00 a.m., we were shooting empty space at the end of each just three hours later. street and a railroad track pointing On that location something interesting straight into infinity. The art happened to Floyd Crosby and me while director and I spent a week making a shot of the approaching train. ‘auditioning’ such tracks all over We needed it to come from very far away, the Southwest. There was a great a tiny dot on the horizon, and to stop as spot on the Santa Fe line near close as possible to the camera which was Gallup, but New Mexico was too far lying flat between the rails. away from home; we couldn’t Floyd and I were lying on our afford it. Finally, we shot a large stomachs while most of the crew waited a part of the picture in the standing few hundred yards away at the station. I Western street on the Columbia gave the signal to start the train, and on it ‘ranch’ (the company’s back lot in came. It looked beautiful, moving rapidly Burbank, quite close to the Warner with white smoke billowing. Then it let Brothers studio). There was one our black smoke, which looked even great advantage: the smog. It made better. What we didn’t know was that this the sky look blindingly white, just was signal that the engine’s brakes were the way I wanted it as a backdrop, failing. in contrast to the Marshal’s black We kept on watching happily as clothes. the train kept coming closer and closer We settled for a fine piece until we realized that it wasn’t going to of straight railroad track near Sonora, in northern California, and stop. At that exact moment everything went into slow motion: I for a few street shots in the nearby town of —Columbia! Money saw Floyd rising and slowly, slowly picking up the camera and was so tight that the set designer had to keep using the same then the tripod’s hooks getting caught on the rail and the camera wallpaper for any number of wildly different sets. slowly floating back down in front of the engine, which was suddenly there, roaring and flashing past and blotting out Floyd, When it came to choosing the visual style, Floyd who reappeared after the last car had thundered by, staring at the Crosby—a great photographer—agreed with me that it should shattered camera on the tracks. For the life of me I can't look like a newsreel of the period, if newsreels had existed remember how I got out of the way of that train. It all happened around 1870, which of course they didn’t. In preparation we so fast there wasn’t time to get scared. The camera was studied Matthew Brady’s photographs of the Civil War, the flat hopelessly beyond repair, but the magazine was OK. The film light, the grainy textures, the white sky. We put our studies into was developed and the shot is in the picture, black smoke and all. practice on the smog-ridden Western street in Burbank. (Each The location went well, despite the enormous pressures studio had a permanent Western street in constant use; I used it of budget and schedule. The northern Californian countryside again, dressed as a Hawaiian street, in From Here to Eternity.) was ravishingly beautiful; it was great to be in the open from Our approach ran counter to the then fashionable style dawn to dusk. The training in MGM’s Shorts Department had of Westerns—the pretty clouds in a filtered sky, the handsome been an enormous help. Yet, in spite of all the planning, we did magnetic figure of the fearless young hero. Our hero, middle- run out of time and money on this distant location and this aged, worried and very tired, was constantly moving against that pleased me no end. It happened at the start of a ‘protection’ white sky. This upset quite a few people and soon screams of sequence that I hated, as I felt it was not only unnecessary but anguish about the lousy quality of photography were heard. destructive; it was a brief sub-plot located outside the town, Floyd stood his ground and never wavered. No filters, no soft- dealing with a young deputy who tries to recruit help for the focus lenses for the actors’ close-ups. He didn’t change an iota in Marshal. This would have destroyed the unity of time and place his lighting; no spotlights, mostly just flat front light. It took a lot which was so enormously important. Fortunately, we were of courage on his part; after all, he had to remember that it was obliged to abandon the sequence after three or four shots and we not I who was paying his salary. (Floyd had received an Oscar on returned to home base. We never went back to those scenes and the film remained forever anchored inside the town. ZInnemann—HIGH NOON—14

When the picture was finally put together there were entire population into the most primitive and savage responses. people, including Harry Cohn, head of Columbia Studio, who All reason disappears, and ideas that seemed preposterous thought it was one of the worst dogs they had ever seen. I heard yesterday can become holy gospel overnight. that Kramer had thought about selling Finally, a few technical the distribution rights to him. Cohn ran comments which may perhaps be of it and thought it was just ghastly. He interest. In developing the visual passed it up—though I must say he style I used three separate elements: saw it without the music. Years later, One: the threat—hanging when Cohn and I were doing From over the entire movie, the motionless Here to Eternity and had arguments railroad tracks, always static. and I wanted to torture him, I would Two: the victim, looking for say, ‘Harry, you certainly made a help, in constant movement, black mistake. You could have made five against the white sky. The tension is million dollars with that movie.’ And enhanced by: he suffered. Poor Harry. It was a blow Three: the urgency—time to his ego. He had a chance to make perceived as an enemy, shown by money and he passed it up. Of course, obsessive use of clocks (as indicated a man like Harry Cohn, who had so in the script); clocks looming larger many shrewd judgments to his credit as time slips by, pendulums moving could afford to pass up one or two. If more and more slowly until time you are established and successful in finally stands still, gradually creating your own field you can live with a an unreal dreamlike, almost hypnotic failure or two; in fact, it is good for effect of suspended animation. Shot you. At least that’s what it was like in above normal speed, the buggy those days. Now, one single mistake carrying the two women to the can mean the end of yoru career. station seems to float by the standing Kramer had brilliant, original figure of the Marshal. The climax ideas about the musical style of the movie, especially the use of a follows in a fairly spectacular shot (impossible to obtain with a theme song, which he insisted should be a western ballad. He zoom lens) starting close to the Marshal and moving into the kept asking the composer Dimitri Tiomkin, to try and try again, longer possible boom-shot of the entire town, the empty street until he had come up with the tune to Ned Washington’s lyrics and the tiny forlorn shape of the man turning and starting to walk ‘Do not forsake me, O my darling’. This became one of the first, toward his destiny. (We made this tricky shot with the longest if not the first, song to be heard over the main title. Audiences, Chapman crane, borrowed for one day from George Stevens, If used to the sound of full-blown orchestras at the start of a you look closely you can see in the upper frame, the Warner picture, reacted rather nervously. I’m told that during the first Brothers studio in the distance.) This was one of the few moving sneak preview people were laughing at hearing the singing voice. shots in the picture; in planning the visual style I remembered Still, there is no question that the musical treatment—just like the what John Ford said to me after watching my first movie: ‘You black and white photography—added tremendously to the overall could be a pretty good director if you would stop moving the depth and impact of the movie. goddam camera all the time. There has got to be a reason for At first, High Noon did not do very well at the box moving it. Use the camera like an information booth.’ office, although Cooper and Tiomkin’s Oscars helped a good My one regret was that we had run out of time to shoot deal; it took a long time for it to take hold of the public’s a blank clockface—without numbers or hands—to be cut against imagination. Interestingly, its popularity waxes and wanes; a close-up of the Marshal at his desk. It would have intensified people become very aware of it at times of decision, when a the feeling of panic. (I had seen that kind of clock outside Utter- major national or political crisis is threatening. Absurd as this McKinley’s mortuary on the Sunset Strip.) may seem, during the panicky McCarthy era a number of people One more comment on Carl Foreman’s script: it was found High Noon subversive (!) on the grounds that the Marshal constructed like a huge jigsaw puzzle, from a multitude of small had deliberately thrown down the Tin Star, the symbol of Federal pieces, many of them were quite meaningless in themselves, and authority, into the dust (‘and stepped on it’ some said, which of they made sense only when fitted into a pre-planned spot next to course was not true). The Marshal’s action was simply a gesture other, similar pieces. The story emerged in this way; the passing of contempt for the craven community. The nervousness about of time was dramatized by the clocks which are seen in most key subversion was perhaps not even political, but rather a scenes. subconscious worry that the classic myth of the fearless Western The construction of the screenplay happens to follow hero, the always victorious superman, was in danger of being the ancient rules of Greek drama—the three unities of Time, subverted. The Marshal was not fearless, he was scared; he was space and action. Each unity works only if the other two are not a mythical figure—he was human. respected: if you were to cut away outside the town, the broken Just the same, it is astounding to see how easily the unity of space would also destroy the relentless sense of time mind can be bent to believe the wildest notions, no matter how running out; the unity of action would also be diluted by creating irrational, if conditions are ripe. Panic of financial collapse, of a subplot outside the town and distracting the audience from their unemployment, of inflation, of political conspiracy, can push an involvement with the main characters. A year later, the city of ZInnemann—HIGH NOON—15

Reno, Nevada, honored us with their Silver Spurs award for the fiercely independent artist, who confirmed for Zinnemann his best Western of the year, given to us as a main event in their already innate tendency to rely primarily on his own judgment three-day May festival. Monty Clift stood in for Coop who and his belief in film artists’ need to be as independent as couldn’t come. The master of ceremonies was a young leading possible from producers....Zinnemann told Gene Phillips and man from Warner Brothers, by the name of Ronald Reagan. others that Flaherty “was the single influence on my work as a filmmaker.” Fred Zimmermann Interviews. Ed. Gabriel Miller. University Working with Flaherty also solidified Zinnemann’s Mississippi Press, Jackson, 2005 predisposition for the documentary/realist style, the approach that ...Zinnemann’s central formative experience was the marked his best work, especially High Noon, From Here to year he spent with documentary filmmaker Robert Flaherty, with Eternity and The Nun’s Story. whom he went to Berlin in 1931 to make a documentary about a nomadic tribe in central Asia. The film was never made, but ...Zinnemann said often that he finds “questions of conscience Zinnemann learned much from the example of Flaherty, a very photogenic” (American Film Institute)

COMING UP IN IN THE SPRING 2018 BUFFALO FILM SEMINARS XXXVI March 6 Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, Singin’ in the Rain 1952 March 13 Satyajit Ray, The Big City 1963 March 27 Ingmar Bergman, Persona 1966 April 3 Ousman Sembène, Black Girl 1966 April 10 Sidney Lumet, Dog Day Afternoon 1975 April 17 Robert Bresson, L’Argent 1983 April 24 David Lynch, Mulholland Drive 2001 May 1 Martin McDonagh, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri 2017 May 8 Jacques Demy, The Young Girls of Rochefort 1967

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Solidarity poster, 1989, with Gary Cooper wearing the Solidarity (Solidarnosc) logo over his badge, no gun, but a ballot in his hand.