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From YouTube: Glenn Frankel on High Noon: The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic
Description
Author Glenn Frankel speaks at the Arlington Public Library on his book, High Noon: The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic. The talk was recorded in Arlington Virginia on June 28 2017.
A
It
isn't
my
first
time
in
Ireland
and
obviously
I.
Actually
I
live
down
the
street
a
bit,
and
this
is
my
Public
Library
and
it
just
seems
to
me:
I've
worked
in
libraries
for
many
years
and
I
have
a
son
and
the
daughter-in-law
work
in
libraries
in
Harrisonburg
Virginia,
and
it's
an
honor
to
be
here.
It
seems
like
there's.
A
A
My
book
came
out
in
February
and
I'm
going
to
talk
a
little
bit
about
this
book
behind
him
with,
though
that
turns
out
that
they're
copies
of
my
paper
backs
of
my
Searchers
book
for
sale
as
well
and
I
just
had
a
a
nice
quick
discussion
with
somebody
who
doesn't
love.
Searchers
very
much
loves
Red
River
more,
but
we
can
continue
that
discussion
later
too,
but
tonight
we're
going
to
talk
about
high
noon
at
least
to
begin,
and
you
know
looking
at
the
audience.
A
As
you
know,
as
most
of
you
know,
that
long
before
Google
and
Harry,
Potter
and
$200,000,000,
you
know
Batman
blockbusters
and
even
before
Donald
Trump,
the
biggest
popular
culture
genre
in
America,
was
the
Hollywood
Western.
These
were
you
know,
beautifully
film
movies,
with
with
you
know,
lands
breathtaking
landscapes
and
cattle
drives
and
gunfights
and
cowboys
and
Indians.
And
of
course
they
also
had
beautiful,
obedient
women.
A
That
and
some
of
these
movies
were
thrilling,
and
some
of
them
were
just
awful,
but
they
were
movies
about
our
country
and
our
sort
of
cultural
identity
and
our
you
know,
American
frontier,
ledge
and,
and
they
were
all
school
about
our
masculinity
and
in
the
1950s
and
1960s
more
than
one-third
of
all
the
movies
made
in
Hollywood
were
westerns.
One
producer
said
you
never
lose
money.
A
Making
a
Western
and
something
like
one-quarter
of
all
the
TV
shows
were
westerns
as
well,
and
one
of
the
very
very,
very
best
of
them
came
out
in
1952
was
High
Noon,
starring,
Gary
Cooper,
so
I
could
guess.
But
let
me
ask
how
many
of
you
seen
High
Noon,
that's
what
I
thought,
but
even
if
you've
never
seen
it
even
for
folks
who
have
never
seen
it
most
of
them.
Even
young
people
today
can
probably
recognize
this
image.
You
know
of
Cooper
long
and
lanky
and
lean
with
the
black
hat
and
the
badge
walking
down.
A
What's
soon
going
to
be
a
deserted
western
street
to
confront
for
armed
killers,
the
title
itself
has
become
a
bit
of
a
legend.
You
know
it
connotes
a
moment
of
truth
when
you
have
to
stand
up
reluctantly,
but
you
have
to
stand
up
against
evil
and
maybe
no
surprise,
but
a
lot
of
presidents
of
loved
High
Noon
do
I
dice
now
are
loved
it
when
it
came
out,
Bill
Clinton
screened
it
something
like
17
times
when
he
was
in
the
White
House
there
there's
something
about.
A
You
know
the
White
House
is
kind
of
a
lonely
place.
I
guess
and
you
feel
sometimes
your
friends
and
your
political
allies
are
abandoning
you
when
the
tough
decisions
have
to
be
made,
and
so
folks
tend
to
identify
with
High
Noon.
It
also
was,
you
know,
even
political
movements.
This
is
solidarity
running
in
the
first
free
polish
election
in
1989
and
there's
Cooper.
There's
the
marshal
he's
carrying
a
the
platform
of
High
Noon
and
he's
got
a
little
solidarity.
Bed
platform
of
solid
air
he's
got
a
little
solitary
badge
above
his
star.
A
A
In
the
middle
of
the
film
shoot,
its
screenwriter
Carl
Foreman
was
called
to
testify
before
the
House
Committee
on
on
American
activities
about
his
former
membership
in
the
Communist
Party
and
Carl,
understood
that
it
wasn't
going
to
be
enough
for
him
just
to
say
yes,
I
was
once
a
member
of
the
party
big
mistake:
I
am
out
of
it.
Sorry
I
ever
did
it
and
that
that
would
be
enough
in
order
to
prove
your
loyalty
he
knew
he
was
also
going
to
have
to
accuse
other
people
of
being
subversive
of
being
communist.
A
You
know
to
rethink
his
screenplay
for
a
high
noon
and
turn
it
into
an
allegory
about
the
blacklist
and
the
Red
Scare,
and
the
Marshall
is
now
Carl
himself
and
the
gunman
coming
to
kill
him
or
members
of
the
house
on
American
Activities
Committee
and
the
hypocritical
and
cowardly
citizens
of
hadleyville.
Where
is
folks
and
Hollywood
friends
and
business
partners
who
either
was
standing
by
passively
or
actively
betraying
as
I,
was
writing
the
screenplay?
It
became
insane
because
life
was
mirroring,
art
and
art
was
mirroring
life.
A
Now
I
guess
I
could
just
stop
here
and
say
if
you
want
to
find
out
what
happens,
there
are
copies
of
the
book
there
and
I'll
sign
them
and
you
can
find
out,
but
I'm
not
going
to
do
that,
but
but
before
I
go
back
to
what
happened.
I
want
to
set
the
stage
a
little
bit
and,
and
since
this
is
a
movie,
let's
start
with
Gary
Cooper.
This
is
his
home.
A
The
in
fact
the
place
where
he
was
born
near
the
State
Capitol
and
Helena
Montana
at
night,
and
it
was
in
1901
and
Cooper
arrives.
23
years
later,
in
Hollywood
1924,
when
he's
23
years
old
comes
from
his
hometown.
He's
the
son
of
British
immigrants
who
had
come
to
Montana
in
the
1880s
they'd
actually
met
in
Montana
and
they'd
stayed
to
settle
there
and
had
two
kids
and
being
a
movie
star
was
the
furthest
thing
from
Cooper's
mind.
A
He
actually
wanted
to
be
an
artist
one
of
his
fondest
childhood
memories
was
when
his
father
took
him
to
see
this
mural
painted
by
the
famous
Western
artist,
Charles
Russell,
it's
of
Lewis
and
Clark,
and
their
encounter
with
the
Flathead
Indians
in
Montana.
This,
this
mural
still
hangs
in
the
State
Capitol.
Behind
the
speaker's
chair
in
the
House
of
Representatives
and
Cooper
was
inspired
by
this.
Now
his
father
was
a
lawyer.
A
A
A
He
was
tall,
he
was
handsome
yet
a
killer,
smiley
of
smoldering
blue
eyes,
very
quiet,
laconic,
sexy
charisma
and
he
started
getting
bit
parts
as
a
stunt
writer
in
westerns,
almost
immediately
in
silence,
because
he
actually
could
ride.
He
was
the
real
thing
and
although
he
had
no
formal
training
as
an
actor,
he
quickly
became
a
movie
star
over
the
course
of
three
or
four
years.
You
know
people
like
John,
Wayne
and
Humphrey
Bogart.
A
They
took
a
decade
or
more
of
working,
indie
movies
and
slowly
developing
the
sort
of
little
touches
and
and-
and
you
know,
trademark
things
that
eventually
made
them.
You
know
developing
their
celluloid
personas
Wayne
learned
how
to
walk.
He
learned
how
to
talking
that
slightly
break
the
sentence
in
half
thing
and
that
crooked
smile
that
he
would
give
right
before
he
punched
you
in
the
face,
but
Cooper
Cooper
rose
right
away.
A
His
name
was
above
the
title
by
1927
of
just
of
every
movie
he
was
in
and,
and
it
stayed
that
way
for
more
than
30
years,
he
really
was
the
ultimate
product
of
the
Hollywood
studio
system.
He
made
two
or
three
movies
a
year.
He
seduced
many
of
his
co-stars
in
just
about
every
other,
attractive
woman.
He
met
in
Hollywood
and
a
few
men
as
well,
and
he
made
wonderfully
successful
films
like
mr.
A
deeds
comes
to
town
and
meet
John
Doe,
the
pride
of
the
Yankees
and
for
Whom
the
Bell
Tolls,
and
he
won
the
Academy
Award
for
Best
Actor
in
1941
for
sergeant
York,
and
that
same
year,
The
Associated
Press
reported
his
annual
salary
was
483
thousand
dollars.
He
was
the
best
paid
actor
in
Hollywood
at
that
point,
but
after
World
War,
two
that
the
studio
system
in
Hollywood
starting
to
decline,
you
know
audiences
are
finding
other
places
to
spend
their
entertainment
dollars.
A
The
big
movie
houses
are
still
downtown,
whereas
people
are
increasingly
moving
out
to
the
suburbs.
In
1948,
the
Supreme
Court
ordered
the
studio's
to
divest
themselves
of
probably
what
was
the
most
profitable
profitable
part
of
their
business,
which
is
to
say
the
movie
theater
chains
that
they
owned
over
the
country
and
then,
of
course,
the
biggest
destructive
force
coming
over.
The
horizon
was
a
little
thing
called
television
and
between
46
and
49,
the
average
attendance
at
movie
houses
dropped
from
90
million
people
a
week.
A
They
made
a
wave
of
thought-provoking
socially
conscious
films,
including
the
gentleman's
agreement,
the
best
years
of
our
lives,
which
was
about
this
may
recall
the
World,
War,
2
veterans
coming
home
and
having
a
difficult
adjustment
to
be
back
in
peacetime
and
all
the
king's
men
and
body
and
soul.
These
were
tough,
interesting
new
movies
of
the
late
40s
Cooper
was
just
50
years
old
in
1951,
but
by
then
his
career
was
beginning
to
fade
along
with
the
studio
system.
The
rules
he
was
being
offered
were
increasingly
mediocre.
A
A
He
did
he'd
had
a
bad
back
from
childhood
that
he
never
got
over
ulcers,
a
hernia
and,
of
course,
and
he
was
chained,
smoking
three
packs
of
cigarettes
a
day
and
his
marriage
was
unraveling
he'd
separated
from
his
wife
of
17
years,
and
he
was
coping
with
his
tempestuous
beautiful
25
year
old,
mistress,
the
actress,
Patricia,
Neal
and
frankly,
Gary
Cooper
needed
a
break.
He
needed
something
different
and
fortunately,
for
him,
a
break
was
on
the
way
with
the
old
studio,
some
slippin.
A
In
this
way,
a
number
of
small
little
independent
film
companies
were
getting
started.
You
know
today
we
call
them
entrepreneurial
startups.
You
know
nimble
and
agile,
and
all
of
that,
and
they
were
making
cheaper,
smarter
films
and
one
of
the
most
successful
was
led
by
an
ambitious
young
filmmaker
named
Stanley
Kramer,
mrs.
Stanley,
with
Marlon
Brando
in
1950
Stanley,
had
arrived
in
Hollywood
in
1936,
just
out
of
college,
and
he
worked
his
way
up
through
the
system.
He
did
just
about
every
job.
A
You
could
do
every
every
low-level
job
from
sawing
and
hammering
you
know
to
build
building
sets
to
cutting
film
everything.
There
was
in
World
War
2.
He
served
in
the
Army's
documentary
film
unit
where
he
met
Carl
Foreman,
who
also
served
in
documentary
films
of
the
time,
and
these
guys
were
too
young,
ambitious,
fast-talking,
Jewish
intellectuals
from
New,
York
and
Chicago.
They
were
both
the
sons
or
grandsons
of
immigrants
from
Eastern
Europe.
They
both
were
very
ambitious.
A
A
He
told
me
he
was
mesmerized
by
Carl
Foreman
screenplay
and
he
was
determined
to
play
the
part
of
the
antihero,
even
though
his
agent
tried
to
steer
him
away
too
much
more.
You
know
lucrative
second
or
third
roles
in
major
Hollywood
films,
but
Douglas
wanted
this
so
much
that
when
he
came
to
Stan
Lee's
office
to
audition,
he
ripped
off
his
t-shirt.
To
show
these
guys
that
he
had
the
muscles
that
it
would
take
to
play.
A
boxer
and
champion
was
an
immediate
hit.
A
It
cost
something
like
five
hundred
and
fifty
thousand
dollars
to
make
attempt
to
make
and
it
made
more
than
ten
times
that
amount
at
the
box
office
and
it
was
nominated
for
six
Academy
Awards,
including
Best
Actor,
for
Douglas,
in
what
was
his
first
starring
role
and
Best
Screenplay
for
Carl
his
first
nomination
and
suddenly
Stanley
and
Carl
were
hot
prospects.
They
went
on
to
make
home
of
the
brave'
a
movie
about
racism
in
the
Army
during
the
war,
the
men
which
was
Marlon
Brando's.
A
First
movie,
it's
about
paraplegic
war
veterans
at
a
VA
hospital
in
southern
california
and
cyrano
de
bergerac,
an
adaptation
of
the
Broadway
hit.
It
wasn't
just
the
hard
hitting
mostly
contemporary
subject
matter.
It
was
also
the
way
these
movies
were
made
on
skin
tight
budgets
in
black
and
white,
with
a
very
talented
team
of
craftsmen,
you
know
doing
the
editing
doing
the
directing
doing
the
music
and
Kramer
recruited
a
gifted
director
named
Fred
cinnamon
to
join
the
company
on
a
three-picture
deal.
A
Fred
came
from
Vienna
his
family,
his
family
was
a
Jewish
doctor
and
his
wife
very
high
upper-middle
class
folks.
Eventually
they
were
both
killed
in
the
Holocaust,
but
Fred
came
over
in
the
mid
30s
and
he
worked
for
MGM.
He
got
a
job
at
MGM
and
worked
there
for
more
than
a
decade
and
he
was
known
at
MGM
for
his
meticulous
craftsmanship
and
his
documentary
style,
visual
style
and,
of
course,
for
his
utter
undisguised
contempt
for
the
studio
executives
he
was
working
for
and
they
were
rather
happy
to
see
Fred
to
go.
A
I
known
had
a
lot
working
against
it.
Carl
Foreman
had
never
written
a
Western
before
Fred
Zinnemann,
never
directed
one.
The
screenplay
Carl
wrote
didn't
have
any
beautiful
vistas,
no
cattle
stampedes.
You
know
no,
no
gun
violence
until
the
very
last
reel,
but
what
it
did
have
were
beautifully
drawn
characters
and
taught
realistic
dialogue
and
a
suspenseful
story
that
unwound
in
real
time
exactly
85
minutes
or
80
minutes
between
the
time
the
retired
marshal
who's.
A
Just
gotten
married
on
a
Sunday
morning
gets
a
telegram
informing
him
that
his
nemesis
is
coming
back
to
town,
to
kill
him
and
the
arrival
of
the
noon
train
is
going
to
bring
this
guy
in.
Where
he's
going
to
be
met
by
his
three
armed
thugs
and
the
script
of
bounds
with
clocks,
a
jewelry
call,
you
know
each
scene
sort
of
begins
or
ends
with
a
clock.
Was
the
clock
ticking
as
we
make
our
way
towards
noon.
It
also
had
a
haunting
theme
song.
Do
not
forsake
me.
A
Oh
my
darlin,
written
by
Dmitri
champion
in
Cinelli,
who
is
a
Ukranian
Jew
and
Ned
Washington
and
performed
by
the
great
Tex
Ritter
this
played
throughout
the
picture.
Now
Tex
is
not
a
Jewish
immigrant.
He
grew
up
in
in
the
northeast
corner
of
Texas,
went
to
a
one-room
schoolhouse
lived
in
a
very
small
ranch
house,
but
Texas
I
found
out
as
I
started
researching.
This
went
to
law
school
at
the
University
of
Texas
and
got
it
and
had
a
law
degree.
A
So
he
started
becoming
a
singer
when
he
realized
he
could
make
more
money
doing
that,
but
he
was
no
dummy.
The
movie
besides
that
and
this
song
was
highly
unusual
as
you'll
recall,
the
lyrics
advanced
the
story,
they're
told
from
the
marshals
point
of
view
and
he's
singing
to
his
new
bride
and
trying
to
explain
to
her
and
son
what
he
actually
can't
explain
in
the
movie.
It's
too
bad
the
bride
couldn't
listen
to
the
soundtrack.
A
A
Kramer
signed
a
young
actors
to
play
the
marshals
new
bride,
Grace
Kelly
was
only
21
years
old,
and
this
was
her
first.
You
know
series
movie
role,
but
she
already
was
a
very
experienced
stage.
Performer
New,
York
Kramer,
liked
her
fresh,
beautiful
look,
and
he
also
liked
the
fact
she
was
willing
to
work
for
$750
a
week.
The
same
was
true
of
Katya
Otto
of
sultry
young
Mexican
actress
hired
to
play
the
law
man's
former
mistress
and
who
was
already
a
movie
star
in
Mexico
at
age
24.
A
A
And
so
it
was
like
instructing
a
human
jigsaw
puzzle.
You
know
had
to
get
folks
together
to
do
their
scenes
at
certain
points
and
move
things
around.
Everything
had
to
fit
perfectly
and
it
did
it
really
did,
but
there
was
there
was
one
obstacle:
Carl
Foreman
could
not
overcome
so
the
House
Committee
on
on
American
Activities
had
held
its
first
public
hearings
into
alleged
communist
infiltration
of
the
motion
picture
industry
in
1947.
They
were
held
in
Washington
over
there
on
the
far
left.
I
don't
have
a
pointer,
but
that
smiling
guy.
A
So
looking
over
there
toward
the
bottom,
that's
Gary
were
one
of
the
friendly
witnesses
in
1947,
but
there
were
also
so-called
unfriendly
witnesses.
There
were
ten
people
who
direct
screenwriters
for
the
most
part,
but
also
a
director
and
producer
who
got
contempt
of
Congress
citations
for
refusing
to
cooperate
with
the
committee.
All
ten
of
them
had
been
members
of
the
American
Communist
Party,
and
most
of
them
still
were.
A
But
the
fact
is
that
at
first
they
had
a
lot
of
support
from
the
Hollywood
community
Humphrey
Bogart
Lauren
Bacall
Danny
Kaye
and
a
planeload
of
movie
star
liberals
flew
from
Hollywood
to
Washington
to
protest
outside
the
committee
room,
even
Ronald
Reagan
then
head
of
the
Screen
Actors
Guild
questioned
the
committee's
bully-boy
tactics,
but
by
1951
the
atmosphere
was
very
different.
The
ten
had
been
convicted
of
contempt
of
Congress
they'd
all
been
sentenced
in
prison
for
up
to
a
year
and
the
convictions
had
been
upheld
by
the
Supreme
Court.
A
A
A
You
know
nuclear
arms,
race,
Julius
and
Ethel
Rosenberg
and
their
alleged
co-conspirators
had
been
arrested
for
stealing
atomic
secrets
by
1951
by
September
51.
When
Karl
was
called
to
testify.
More
than
83,000
American
troops
had
either
been
killed
or
wounded.
Fighting
communists
in
Korea
and
at
home.
The
old
progressive
Democrat
led
coalition
on
their
FDR
was
beginning
to
unravel
under
his
successor,
Harry
Truman,
self-styled
Americanists.
A
That's
what
they
call
themselves
believed
that
Outsiders
were
taking
control
of
our
country's
civil
institutions
and
our
culture,
and
even
our
government,
usurpers
liberals,
Jews
communists
in
those
days
had
stolen
our
country
and
our
culture,
and
the
self-appointed
guardians
of
American
values
were
determined,
the
clawed
back
and
their
anger,
and
their
rhetoric
was
just
as
corrosive
and
vicious
as
anything
we're
hearing
today.
That,
incidentally,
as
I'm
sure
you
can
probably
guess,
is
a
very
sincere
young
Richard
Nixon
with
fellow
members
of
the
house
on
American
Activities
Committee
in
47.
A
It's
almost
like
the
hearings
were
a
training
ground
for
future
Republican
presidents,
in
fact,
for
many
Americans
communists
posed
even
an
even
more
alarming
threat
than
say.
Terrorists
do
today,
I
mean
communists.
After
all,
could
be
anybody,
your
neighbors,
your
friends,
your
close
friends,
your
relatives,
maybe
even
your
spouse,
maybe
even
my
spouse.
They
looked
and
sounded
like
us,
but
they
were
agents
of
a
ruthless
foreign
power
that
was
out
to
destroy
our
way
of
life.
They
were
the
enemy
within
the
masters
of
the
sea,
as
Jagger
Hoover
put
it.
A
Here's
a
quote:
a
communist
is
a
completely
transformed,
unrecognizable
and
dedicated
man.
Thus,
according
to
a
spokesman
for
the
American
Legion,
while
he
may
retain
the
physical
characteristics
of
the
rest
of
us,
his
mental
and
psychic
processes
might
as
well
be
from
another
planet--.
In
other
words,
they
were
the
walking
dead
but
super-smart.
A
The
truth
is
the
Communist.
Party
was
never
very
large
or
influential
in
Hollywood,
and
it
was
down.
There
may
be
a
hundred
active
members
by
1951,
one-third
of
whom
were
probably
FBI
informants,
didn't
matter
the
studio's
decided
to
fire
and
blacklist.
Anyone
who
refused
to
cooperate.
You
know,
in
truth,
Hollywood
was
just
a
mere
sideshow
to
the
larger
struggle.
A
I
think
I
can
say,
authoritative
that
no
atomic
secrets
were
bought
or
sold
in
Beverly
Hills
and
no
acts
of
sabotage
or
espionage
took
place,
but
the
symbolic
power
of
Hollywood,
it's
extraordinarily
high
profile
and
it's
abiding
role
in
our
national
culture
and
our
and
our
fantasies
made
it
an
irresistible.
Battleground
few
people
would
equip
themselves
well,
not
the
committee,
certainly
which
fire
exceeded
its
constant,
the
constitutional
limits
of
its
powers
and
sort
of
served
as
judge,
jury
and
executioner.
They'd
call
you
to
testify.
You
couldn't
bring
a
lawyer.
A
The
press
would
print
whatever
they
said
about
you,
whatever
accusations
were
made
and
there
you
were,
and
you
had
that
there
was
no
way
to
rebut
that
unless
you
cooperated,
certainly
not
the
you
know.
So.
The
committee,
the
executive
branch,
Truman
and
Eisenhower
laid
back
and
and
and
certainly
and
didn't,
intervene,
the
courts
upheld
the
decisions
took
a
decade
or
more
really
to
sort
of
curb
the
committee's
abuses.
A
The
studios
caved
out
of
fear
for
their
profits
and
their
prestige
and
political
liberals
who
trap
between
the
bullying
committee
on
the
one
hand,
and
the
dogmatic
communist
targets
on
the
other
wound,
up,
aiding
and
abetting
the
blacklist
in
many
ways
and
nor
journalists.
I
have
to
add
now
some
were.
A
You
know
some
on
the
right-wing
cheered,
the
committee
from
the
sidelines,
but
even
mainstream
journalists,
even
in
places
like
my
own
alma
mater,
the
Washington
Post
as
I
said
earlier,
tended
to
print
the
accusations
made
in
the
public
hearing
without
even
bothering
to
get
in
touch
with
the
people
who
were
named
and
that's
how
it
went
up
and
down
the
line.
People
lost
their
jobs,
their
businesses,
partnerships,
unraveled,
friendships,
were
destroyed,
families
even
turned
against
each
other
and
the
bitterest
conflicts
I
found
out
weren't
between
political
enemies.
A
I
mean
you
didn't
expect
that
you
know
the
committee
was
going
to
be
nice
to
you,
but
bigger
bitterest
conflicts
were
between
friends
at
former
allies
and
colleagues
and
some
of
those
remain.
You
know
raw
and
unsettled,
even
today,
among
their
children,
when
Carl
Foreman
was
first
subpoenaed
at
night.
In
the
summer,
51
Stanley
Kramer
gave
him
his
full
support,
but,
as
the
time
drew
near
for
Carl
to
testify,
Stanley
grew
fearful.
A
He
and
his
business
partners
had
just
signed
a
very
lucrative
6-year
contract
with
Columbia
Pictures,
and
they
were
all
going
to
make
a
lot
of
money
from
this,
including
Carl,
but
they
were
afraid
that,
if
Carl
refused
to
cooperate,
Columbia
would
cancel
the
deal
they
couldn't
be
seen.
You
know
having
a
long
term
contract
with
a
company
that
had
an
ex
economy,
wasn't
cooperating
with
committee
as
one
of
the
partners
just
wasn't
going
to
happen,
so
the
fear
was
real.
A
A
A
Testimony
took
less
than
an
hour
and
the
next
day,
Stanley
Kramer
issued
a
statement
citing
a
total
disagreement
between
Carl,
Foreman
and
myself,
and
he
pledged
to
take
action
and
soon
after
that
he
fired
Carl.
They
didn't
wait
is
what
Carl
would
say
later.
They
quit
right
then,
and
there
and
threw
me
to
the
wolves
and
Stanley
and
Carl.
Remember
former
business
partners
and
close
friends
never
spoke
again.
A
Carles
widows
Eve
told
me
that
her
husband
and
family
many
years
later
ended
up
in
the
same
elevator
of
Columbia
Pictures.
They
didn't
look
at
each
other,
they
didn't
say
a
word.
It
just
looked
straight
ahead:
Karl
soon
after
he
lost
his
job
announced,
he
was
going
to
form
a
new
independent
film
production,
company
and
Gary
Cooper,
even
though
he
was
a
staunch
anti-communist
and
conservative
Republican
announced
that
he
was
going
to
be
part
of
it,
that
he
would
buy
stock
in
it
and
they
were
going
to
make
hopefully
make
a
picture
together.
A
He
was
shunned.
He
couldn't
get
work,
he
couldn't
write
a
script
under
his
own
name
and
a
few
months
later
he
leaves
for
London
where
he
lived
for
the
next
25
years
and
one
of
his
great
achievements,
while
in
London
he
writes
a
number
of
scripts
for
under
pseudonyms,
and
one
of
the
best
was
one
that
he
co-wrote
with
a
fellow
blacklisted
colleague
named
Michael
Wilson,
the
bridge
on
the
river
kwai,
and
it
wins
the
1958
Academy
Award
for
Best
Screenplay
hard
to
see
down
there.
Though
the
problem
was
neither
their
names
are
on
it.
A
The
name
is
Pierre
Boulle,
the
French
novels
to
wrote
the
bridge
over
the
River
Kwai,
a
man
who
spoke
no
English
but
managed
to
write
a
screenplay
in
English.
It's
a
miracle
and
it
took
another
27
years
or
so
for
the
Motion
Picture
Academy
to
recognize
the
fact
that
and
deliver
Oscars
recognizing
the
Carl,
Foreman
and
Michael
Wilson
had
wrote
this
screenplay
and
they
gave
the
Oscars
to
Michel
and
Carl's
widows,
because
both
men
were
gone
by
then.
A
Besides
the
political
warfare,
there
were
a
lot
of
creative
conflicts
over
high
noon
once
the
surprising
little
movie
did
well.
Everybody
wanted
to
take
credit
for
why
it
was
so
good.
Stanley
said
that
Fred
zuman's
cut,
you
know,
directors
cut
was
flabby,
and
then
he
added
it
personally
to
give
it
that
suspenseful
charge.
It
has
Elmo
Williams.
The
film
editor
says
he's
the
one
who
did
Fred
and
Carl
both
disagreed
strongly.
It's
not
uncommon
for
folks
in
Hollywood
to
argue
over
this
kind
of
thing.
A
I
think
they're
still
arguing
over
the
use
of
the
mechanical
shark
and
jaws,
but
it's
fair
to
say
that
the
conflicts
over
high
noon
were
nastier
and
more
brutal
because
of
the
political
bloodshed
of
the
blacklist.
So
my
book
tells
the
story
of
the
making
of
this
of
this
classic
film.
Against
the
backdrop
of
this
tumultuous
era
of
our
history,
whose
meaning
still
remains
raw
and
unresolved,
no
one
was
put
up
against
the
wall
and
shot
during
the
blacklist,
but
it
was
a
time
of
hysteria
and
persecution
and
a
lot
of
innocent
people
were
hurt.
A
I
can't
pretend
to
have
answer
to
all
the
questions
surrounding
it,
but
I
was
lucky.
You
know
you
get
on
the
orange
line
and
you
can
go
straight
well.
You
have
to
change
trains
to
go
to
the
National
Archives
and
a
lot
of
the
committee's
formerly
confidential
papers
will
have
been
released
after
the
50-year
period
and
so
I
had
a
chance
to
look
at.
A
Those
I
also
was
able
to
uncover
some
unpublished
interviews
with
Carl
Stanley
and
some
of
the
others
involved
in
making
the
movie,
and
that
I
think
so
allowed
me
to
present
a
more
plausible
account
of
who's
responsible
and
deserves
the
credit
for
how
what
a
wonderful
movie
it
is,
and
the
short
answer
I
think
they
all
do.
I
think
High
Noon
really
was
a
collaborative
effort
among
a
very
talented
group
of
people
and
ultimately
that's
what
my
it's
about.
It's
about.
A
A
highly
talented
group
of
people
who
came
together
to
make
a
compelling
creative
work
and
what
happened
to
them
when
they
came
up
against
the
machinery
of
political
repression,
and
you
know
it
raises
the
question:
the
history
demands
of
everyone
if
we
were
confronted
with
the
same
terrible
choice
that
these
people
faced
in
this
case
between
betraying
our
principles
or
losing
our
livelihoods.
In
other
words,
when
the
clock
strikes
High
Noon,
what
would
we
do.