High Noon: Watching the Clocks
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- Опубликовано: 8 сен 2024
- A defining feature of the 1952 classic western, High Noon, is that it is presented in real time. As Will Kane works to build a posse to fight off Frank Miller and his gang, we're right there along with him - every minute of the way.
Today, I'm exploring how close to real time High Noon was able to get by documenting every time a clock appears in the film and matching it up to the time the audience has spent watching the movie.
The last minute before noon is one of the finest pieces of editing I've ever seen.
Rope came out 4 years prior and its has great real-time. One of my favorite films
Absolutely a great movie, a MUST see if you haven't! Thanks for this awesome video... Until next time!
Fascinating, interesting commentary! Well done! Thanks...
... and the somber (fine) voice of Tex Ritter echoes along the clock in the darker moments: "Do not forsake me, O my darling".
__ Unforgetable!
Clearly the 'extra time' is 7-8 minutes of Will Kane riding out into the country and the 7-8 minutes of him riding back. It is certainly not a flaw - when he thinks he is going to run he symbolically 'stops' the clock of the movie and the 'clock' only resumes as he comes back to face his personal 'high noon'.
Yet another great video. Despite having seen the film a zillion times, it never struck me before how closely the movie time synched with real time. A couple of comments ... 1. Anyone like me who lived for 50 yrs before Internet/atomic timing was a thing, will not be surprised to see two analogue clocks in the same town with a 10 or 15 min time difference ... especially in the 19th century! 2. As well as your comment about added scenes, just the continuity of having multiple takes of the same scene must have made accurate syncing a total nightmare ! Keep up the good work !!
Thanks for the clock montage. I noticed the constant cutaways to clocks. I am familiar with several of the clock brands and the Connecticut towns where they were made.
Thanks for this. One of my favorite classics.
I remember watching that movie when I was 7 years old. That night I had nightmares about clocks. I kept seeing clocks in my dream. Its funny at 7 years old I would have picked up on those clocks.
The last nightmare I had was years ago. I was flying a small airplane. It started breaking up. Finally only the cabin was left. I was dropping with my back to the ground. I have never felt that much terror in my life. I started saying the Lords prayer... Gave my soul to God... Started to relax. Felt the death grip I had on the blankets on my bed. Realized where I was. I have never had a nightmare since.
I saw the movie about 60 years ago. This one and "Fate of the Hunter"... Great, but the book is better.
You are very good in explaining about the clocks in the movie.
Excellent premise for discussing the movie!
Excellent Video info Presentation. I always wondered about the difference in time between the movie time and the real time. You answered that question. I really enjoyed your video. High Noon is also one of my favorite films too. Thanks. Out.
Good job. Clocks do dominate this move. It's much about the countdown and this creates suspense. Growing up in the late 1950's and early 1960's we all used wide up clocks. These clocks were never accurate but in daily life it never caused a problem. Resetting the clock was a daily task. We always knew if the clock didn't make sense. Great way to evaluate this movie! Old Cooper had a dead line and a new and beautiful wife. Wow what a movie!!!
In the time this movie takes place when clocks were either spring or weight powered there would usually be a clock shop with a regulator clock that would keep very accurate time. And the train station would also have a regulator clock and check the time daily for accuracy.
Those regulator clocks would be used by the towns people to set their clocks and watches to a fairly accurate time. But even still the clocks would be off throughout the town by several minutes or more depending on the clock and who was tending it.
The close ups of the actors also draw you into the suspense about to unfold. Great movie and one of my favorites !
Good info. Thanks!
G'day Robert, When I wrote my comment (below or above?) I hadn't read any of the other comments. I see we were both on the same tack. I wrote a comment that is way too long, I can't help that, I'm a writer. Anyway, I tried to detail a little of the history of how and why the world, over the space of about 100 years went from unregulated time to, roughly, synchronised time due to two main factors, the Royal Navy's desperate need for a clock that would be accurate while being tossed around in a ship; and how the railways; invented in Britain and then covering Europe; then America became the mechanism of 'carrying' the correct time from the terminus to all stations by the conductors' use of 'Regulator' pocket watches. I'm bound to have made some mistakes as I wrote my comment from the faint memory of a couple of documentaries on this subject I saw several years ago. Feel free to correct me if I messed up any of the details. Cheers, and all the best, Bill. H
well done, never seen that done before
If you haven't seen this movie yet, it's well worth your time....
Vielen Dank! Sehr interessant.
I love High Noon. What a fantastic film and this was an interesting idea for a video.
The Set-up from 1949 is also in real time. A fun film noir worth checking out.
One of my favorite Robert Ryan movies.
9:58 That's an interesting wall clock, there. It tells the time, the day, and the date, as some modern watches do. I wonder if it was correct to the era of the movie, or just the era when the movie was filmed.
Not sure on the history of that specific clock, but calendar clocks similar to it were out by the 1870s (and possibly earlier). That one is a nice one though.
Great Jeff! Well done job!
Thanks for the feedback! Glad you enjoyed it.
At some time in the past (pun intended) I watched a documentary about this film. Apparently Darryl Zanuck claimed the credit for adding all the clocks AFTER principal photography was done. This begs the question . . . what are all those actors looking at if not clocks?
Success has many fathers . . . Heaven's Gate is ALLLL Michael Cimino.
Sat in the row in front of Lee Van Cleef in Studio City kahleefonyah. He was all by himself. I'll always remember that. I don't remember what the movie was
INTERESTING.
the more i see this movie the more I love it
The Movie runs 85 Minutes. They had to Speed up Time, because he had aprox 85min from the Message they released Miller until the Train arriving at High Noon. But then the Duell just starts, wich takes another 10 Minutes or so. Btw, when a Movie shows what happens in a Minute and plays/shows different Location in between this Minute, the Scenes may sum up to 3 Minutes in Real Time. For example the ticking Clock in Goldfinger, where Bond ist roped to the Atomic Device in Fort Knox.
La mayor leyenda del western, el ícono más grande de todos los tiempos, gary cooper, que estas en el cielo ,humildemente, 💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎🥂🥂🥂🥂🥂🥂🥂🥂🥂🥂🥂🥂🥂🥂🥂🥂🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
If I had a choice between Amy Fowler and Helen Ramirez, It would be Helen in a heart beat. That woman has fire in her eyes.
I can see that, but Grace is always going to be near the top of any list for me.
The actriz that made to Helen Ramirez is mexican. Her name is Katy Jurado.
@@rafaelmaganasanchez3016 If I was Will Kane, I would have stayed with Helen Ramirez and dumped Amy Fowler. Helen Ramirez had fire and courage.
Well, I guess somebody had to do this. As in High Noon, better you than me.
I learned with a lap dissolve feature on my Super-8 camera that you can really stretch time out, or compress it.
If you ever get get the feeling that you want to cover the Hollywood Ten, slow down a notch and read a few books on the subject. There are some great writers, directors and actors involved, but there are few 'good guys' and 'bad guys.' It's a really interesting bit of history, and there are a lots of movies, like High Noon, that are 'about it,' and lots of subtle and not so subtle references in movies. (Like the extra whistling the Internationale in an elevator lobby.)
What other movies shown in real time do you love?
I don't remember the horses going that fast😂
Sencillamente sublime . Y estamos hablando del ícono más grande de todos los tiempos en el western. Y posiblemente este sea el mejor western de la historia del cine. Y solo para los mejores cinéfilos del mundo te lo dice el juezdeoeste diamantes para este western. 💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎💎🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩
G'day Jeff, This is a film ahead of its time (only after typing this I realised what an awful pun that was; but there's no other way to say it). Ahead, only in the sense of filmmaking. There aren't many films that use 'real time' as a kind of plot device. Also, historically, as it turns out.
In Britain and then the rest of Europe and, eventually, the US; it was the railways that forced the concept of exact time settings for entire geographical regions.
North America, like Russia, Australia etc. have different time zones because they are so big... like an oceans.
Before the advent of railways, it was the Royal Navy, in Britain, that had a serious requirement for accurate time keeping. When an English carpenter, with no previous knowledge of clock making, invented the first, accurate naval clock (it took him almost 25 years), this allowed for the correct notation, on sea charts, of longitude for the first time. Meaning that almost 'pinpoint' navigational calculations could be made.
In a real sense, this allowed the RN and all other ships with maritime clocks to find tiny islands in vast oceans and the most efficient long distance travel out of sight of land.
Up until then, ancient sea travel had to be in sight of land, wherever possible, so that ships knew, generally, where they were. This is why 'Latitudes' were recorded before 'Longitudes'.
Even with the 'high-tech' invention of maritime clocks; back on land there was no such thing as a common, correct time over large and small distances.
Back to the railroad network of Britain, Scotland and Wales. The UK 'island' had no standardised time even as hundreds of miles of railway tracks were being laid down all over the countryside. This was also the case in Europe at the same time that railroad networks began to grow.
Outside of London, each outlying town, village or hamlet kept their own times. Generally, towns had churches with clocks, so the town or village took their time from churches, the time, usually being 'broadcast' via church bells.
Even in different parts of London, out of earshot of 'Big Ben', when it was finished, had slightly different times. The many church bells of London, made famous by the child’s 'jingle' 'Oranges & Lemons', would ring slightly differently in time right across London.
Trains that ran at almost exact speeds, repeatedly, around the rail network would encounter different times at many stations along their journey.
At first the conductors or train drivers would tell each station what the correct time was back in London. Then, someone in the railways had the idea of giving train conductors well made, expensive timepieces, these large pocket watches were called 'Regulators', all set to 'London Time' (Greenwich time).
From this point on Britain became used to having one standardised time. It's something we take for granted in the age of atomic and computer clocks but back then standardised time was a spectacular improvement that had positive effects in the working day, and countless other commercial and domestic uses.
Talk about 'burying the lead', now to 'High Noon': perhaps the filmmakers didn't think this 'real time' concept through sufficiently. Yes, it was OK for all the clocks in one town to be 'roughly' in sync. (in this particular town they seem to have a huge number of timepieces and a 'Clock Shop'). But then, how would the Station Master have a pocket watch that was in sync with a train that, obviously, was coming from a long way off. The watches of the train driver and conductor would have been set at the time wherever was in their terminal city.
Neither I, or apparently, the filmmakers were aware of what year 'High Noon' was set in; but I'm guessing it was before the time when all railway schedules in the US were in sync.
You even mentioned it yourself, Jeff.
When there was the shot of the train, in the distance, blowing its whistle, it was deemed to be 'High Noon', even though the train was, clearly, at least, couple of minutes from actually arriving at the station. This, I think, proves my 'guess' that this story was set before time was standardised in America, especially 'out West'.
Sorry to bang on for so long with this comment but I thought it important to first explain how and why times, back then, were not 'automatically' the same; as they are today.
Cheers, and thanks again for another fascinating video linked to a famous movie. Bill H.
Movie starts at 10:35 a.m.
Too bad we don't get any dialogue. Does this cinema analyst watch movies like this all the time?
Yes. I tend to notice way more than I need to.
Very tedious.
well done, never seen that done before