High Noon

High Noon is a 1952 western film which tells the story of a town sheriff, about to marry a pacifist Quaker woman and give up his office, who must take on a gang of outlaws on his wedding day, even though the entire town deserts him. It stars Gary Cooper, Thomas Mitchell[?], Lloyd Bridges[?], Katy Jurado, Grace Kelly, Otto Kruger[?], Lon Chaney Jr., Harry Morgan[?], Lee Van Cleef, and Sheb Wooley[?].

The movie was written by John W. Cunningham[?] (story) and Carl Foreman[?]. It was directed by Fred Zinnemann.

Wikipedia contains spoilers

High Noon is a generally praised but somewhat controversial western in which a lawman in a western town feels obliged to face down the bad men coming to town. Cooper's character is betrayed by all the "good" men in town who won't lay down their lives for a good cause. It is often an interpreted as an allegory of contemporary mccarthyism

Grace Kelly played Cooper's Quaker wife, in the film -- a young woman who wants her husband to leave town and has a religious aversion to violence of any kind. Still, she stays with him when he fights -- and even kills one of her husband's assailants herself.

The movie won Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Gary Cooper), Best Film Editing, Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture (Dimitri Tiomkin), and Best Music, Song (Dimitri Tiomkin and Ned Washington[?] for High Noon (Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin')). It was nominated for Best Director, Best Picture, and Best Writing, Screenplay.

High Noon is consistantly on the Internet Movie Database's list of top 250 films, was #33 on American Film Institute's 100 Years, 100 Movies, and has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. Its haunting theme music is still popular.

The 1980 science fiction film Outland borrowed from the story of High Noon for its plot. The movie starred Sean Connery.