High Noon by Glenn Frankel

Each generation has read into the film its own politics and values. Yet what has largely been forgotten is that High Noon‘s original creator set out with a very specific meaning in mind.

– from High Noon: The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic by Glenn Frankel

There’s a story in my family that when my mother was a young girl, my grandmother wouldn’t allow her to join the Girl Scouts because my grandmother was convinced they were communists. Whenever I heard this story, I would chuckle to myself and simply think, “crazy ol’ Nanny.”

Then earlier this year, I caught an interview with author Glenn Frankel on the Fresh Air podcast. (I listen to a lot of podcasts). He had written a book on the making of the iconic Western movie High Noon starring Gary Cooper. I had not yet seen the movie. According to Frankel, the screenwriter Carl Foreman wrote the story as an allegory of the Hollywood blacklist that was happening in the 1940s and ’50s as a result of America’s Red Scare, a cultural phenomenon that clearly influenced Nanny and her judgment of the Girl Scouts.

This book is a fascinating read into the Golden Age of Hollywood and its studio system, the rise of the key players of the film including Foreman, Stanley Kramer, and Gary Cooper, as well as a criticism of the political and cultural landscape that permitted the House Un-American Activities Committee to destroy so many families, friendships, and careers.

The book is a timely read as Frankel compares the Red Scare to our present-day nationalism. The Red Scare was a time of radical backlash against a progressive President, anger toward unshared-in prosperity, and fear that the very fabric of our nation was being eroded by outsiders. Then it was communism, today it’s Islam. But hysteria is still hysteria and this book provides a great opportunity to learn from our history and avoid our past mistakes.

I like the book and recommend it. It’s available on Amazon or your local library.

Oh, and I’ve seen it now and High Noon is a really good movie. This book helped me enjoy the film all the more.