Any Gary Cooper Fans?

[CoopfanDan]

Here are some Hign Noon imdb facts some of which I did not know about:

 

Director Fred Zinnemann said that the black smoke billowing from the train is a sign that the brakes were failing. He and the cameraman didn't know it at the time, and barely got out of the way. The camera tripod snagged itself on the track and fell over, smashing the camera, but the film survived and is in the movie.

 

This film was intended as an allegory in Hollywood for the failure of Hollywood people to stand up to the House Un-American Activities Committee during the McCarthy era.

 

Lee Van Cleef does not have a word of dialogue.

 

The pained expression on Kane's (Gary Cooper's) face throughout the film was not acting; Cooper had a bleeding ulcer at the time.

 

Bill Clinton's all-time favorite film. He watched it seventeen times during his two terms as President of the United States.

 

This movie is rumored to be able to be viewed in real time. Several shots of clocks are interspersed throughout the film and they correspond with actual minutes ticking by.

 

Lee Van Cleef's first film.

 

Although the picture takes place between 10:35 a.m. and 12:15 p.m.. slightly longer than the 84-minute running time, this was due to the reediting ordered by both Stanley Kramer and Fred Zinnemann, both of whom were unhappy over the first assemblage. Editor Elmo Williams experimented by using the final portion of the material shot and condensed it to exactly 60 minutes of footage timed to real-time in the film. Thus the film we see is Williams' experimental version, which met with both Kramer's and Zinnemann's approval.

 

Although John Wayne often complained that the film was "un-American", when he collected Gary Cooper's Best Actor Oscar on his behalf at the The 25th Annual Academy Awards (1953) (TV) he complained that he wasn't offered the part himself, so he could have made it more like one of his own westerns. He later teamed up with director Howard Hawks to make Rio Bravo (1959) as a right-wing response.

 

John Wayne strongly disliked this movie because he knew it was an allegory for blacklisting, which he and his friend Ward Bond had actively supported. Twenty years later he was still criticizing it in his controversial interview with Playboy magazine in May 1971. Inventing a scene that was never in the movie, he claimed Cooper had thrown his marshal's badge to the ground and stepped on it. He also stated he would never regret having driven the blacklisted screenwriter 'Carl Foreman' out of Hollywood.

 

Gary Cooper, B movie producer Robert L. Lippert and screenwriter 'Carl Foreman' were set to go into a production company together, after the success of this film. John Wayne and Ward Bond ordered Cooper to back out of the deal, as HUAC was preparing to blacklist Foreman from Hollywood. Shortly afterwards, Lippert was made persona non grata by the Screen Actors Guild, which destroyed his independent production company.

 

Until his death, director Fred Zinnemann fought not to have this film colorized, saying that he designed the film in black and white and that it should be shown that way. He was unsuccessful, however. A colorized version was made by Ted Turner's television production company and was broadcast several times over his several cable outlets.

 

Producer Stanley Kramer first offered the leading role of Will Kane to Gregory Peck, who turned it down because he felt it was too similar to The Gunfighter (1950). Other actors who turned down the role of Will Kane included Charlton Heston, Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift.

 

Writer 'Carl Foreman' was blacklisted by the House Un-American Activities Committee shortly after the film came out. Indeed Foreman had fled to England by the time the film was finished.

 

As 'Carl Foreman' 's script bore certain similarities to John Cunningham's story "The Tin Star", producer Stanley Kramer bought the rights to Cunningham's novel to protect the production against accusations of plagiarism.

 

Grace Kelly was cast after Stanley Kramer saw her in an off-Broadway play. He arranged a meeting with her and signed her on the spot.

 

Gary Cooper was reluctant to do his big fight scene with Lloyd Bridgesm as he was suffering from back pain at the time.

 

A comic relief scene involving town drunk Jack Elam and an entire subplot with James Brown playing another marshal didn't make it into the final cut.

 

Hadleyville is the name of the town. It is never spoken but is clearly visible on the train station wall. Hadleyville was also the name of the town in Gung Ho (1986) but was placed in the northeast U.S. In the west, there is a real Hadleyville, in Oregon.

 

In the fight scene involving Gary Cooper and Lloyd Bridges, Lloyd's son Beau Bridges, then a youngster, was in the hayloft watching the filming. When water was thrown on his father after the fight, Beau could not help laughing, requiring the scene to be shot a second time. Cooper was not well and in pain but was gracious and understanding, according to Lloyd.

 

Gary Cooper didn't use a stunt double in the fight with Lloyd Bridges.

 

Gary Cooper was responsible for getting soon-to-be-graylisted actor Lloyd Bridges the role of Harvey Pell.

 

Katy Jurado says, "One year without seeing you" in Mexican, to which Cooper replies, "Yes, I know."

 

The wife of Sam, Harry Morgan's character, was named Mildred. In "M*A*S*H" (1972), Morgan's character, Col. Sherman Potter, also had a wife named Mildred.

 

Fred Zinnemann wanted a hot, stark look to the film. Cinematographer Floyd Crosby achieved this by not filtering the sky and having the prints made a few points lighter than normal.

 

Stanley Kramer removed 'Carl Foreman' 's credit as producer. They never spoke to each other again.

 

They used little to no makeup on the face of Gary Cooper, to show his lines and show how worried he was.

 

Took 28 days to shoot the film.

 

There were 10 days of rehearsal.

 

Fred Zinnemann's meticulous planning enabled him to make 400 shots in only four weeks.

 

The film is set in Hadleyville, population 650, in the New Mexico Territory, on a hot summer Sunday. The 37-star flag the judge removes as he prepares to flee shows that the time frame is sometime between Nebraska's admission as the 37th state on March 1, 1867 and Colorado's admission as the 38th state on August 1, 1876.

 

The picture takes place between 10:35 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. slightly longer than the 84 minute running time.

 

They only took between 1-3 takes per scene.

 

Between takes Gary Cooper would chat with the crew or snooze underneath a tree.

 

The character played by Gary Cooper was originally named Will Doane. The name was changed to Will Kane because co-star Katy Jurado had difficulty pronouncing the name Will Doane.

 

"Do Not Forsake Me, Oh, My Darlin'" was the first Oscar-winning song from a non-musical film.

 

Much of the film was filmed in the gold rush town of Columbia, CA. Today it is a state park right by Sonora on Highway 49.

 

Henry Fonda was prevented from accepting the role of Will Kane because he had been graylisted from Hollywood due to his political activism, forcing him to act exclusively on the stage from 1947 to 1955.

 

In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked this as the #27 Greatest Movie of All Time.

[CoopfanDan]

This film was intended as an allegory in Hollywood for the failure of Hollywood people to stand up to the House Un-American Activities Committee during the McCarthy era.

I think some of the facts are not true on imdb as I don't think that the movie was originally intended to tie in with the black list thing but was interpreted by others to mean this after it was viewed.

The pained expression on Kane's (Gary Cooper's) face throughout the film was not acting; Cooper had a bleeding ulcer at the time.

This statement is so untrue as the expressions Gary gives on this movie are like all the different expressions he gives in all of his other movies and were part of his great acting skills he learned from back in his silent movies where Gretta Garbo learned it as well. This is called acting. I don't think they ever accused Garbo or other actresses of having ulcers because they looked like they were in pain.

[CoopfanDan]

Bill Clinton's all-time favorite film. He watched it seventeen times during his two terms as President of the United States.

I never knew that Clinton watched this movie 17 times. I doubt that I have watched it that many times myself altough I can assure everyone I have seen Sergeant York twice this amount of times. I would say I am going on about 40 showings for Sergeant York. I do have just about every single line diaogue memerized for that film. Peter Ibbetson would be next for most frequently viewed movies of Coop's. I have probably seen that one 30 times. I have probably only seen High Noon 5 times at most. It would not make my top 10 list of Gary Cooper's great movies. I seldom seem to like favorites of others or the most popular choice as the one's that I like the most. I am ussually calling films that I like as the highly under rated type with the exception of Bogart in Casablanca as I think that is a world wide favorite. High Noon is the only movie of Gary Cooper's to make the top 100 AFI all time movies. Bogart had like 4 or 5 movies make it. I guess I have always been under the view in our current times that if something is very popular I have to ask myself why am I liking it. Gary was extremely popular when he was still alive but that was then and this is now and there is a huge difference in people's likings from back then to today. I would say that High Noon would make my top 20 list but certainly not one of my top 10 favorites. It is a great movie with Cooper but I know I like between 10 and 20 movies of his better than this one including They Came to Cordura, Man of the West, Friendly Persuasion and many of his movies between 1935 and 1945.

[jemnyc]

Regarding some of the following, on High Noon:

 

This film was intended as an allegory in Hollywood for the failure of Hollywood people to stand up to the House Un-American Activities Committee during the McCarthy era.

 

True. Foreman was supboened during pre-production and he re-wrote accordingly. Some of the sequences in which Kane is reproached or turned down are encounters which Foreman went through.

[coopsgirl]

*Gary Cooper, B movie producer Robert L. Lippert and screenwriter 'Carl Foreman' were set to go into a production company together, after the success of this film.*

 

I'm sad that Foreman got blacklisted but I gotta tell ya, I'm glad their production company thing fell through b/c Robert Lippert made some bad, bad movies. Frank can back me up on this if he's seen any of his films that were used in MST3K episodes. I know they were B movies but that doesn't mean they have to be bad. Lippert just did not know how to put movies together and they usually include scenes that drag on for far too long with just overall poor direction. It's hard to imagine someone as talented as Gary working with someone as untalented as Lippert.

[jemnyc]

Regarding some of the following, on High Noon:

 

Bill Clinton's all-time favorite film. He watched it seventeen times during his two terms as President of the United States.

 

True. Interviewed Clinton for our doc, Inside High Noon. He was so articulate on it, every facet. Often, when interviewing people, they like to have some guidelines, areas of enquiry, not Clinton. I sent him a couple of pages of questions, he didn't try to limit the scope, and when we chatted beforehand about the questions, he told me to feel free to delve into any area I wanted. He could talk about High Noon all day.

 

The pained expression on Kane's (Gary Cooper's) face throughout the film was not acting; Cooper had a bleeding ulcer at the time.

 

This was started in the sixties, I suspect by the auteurist crowd, which loathes High Noon. Anything they can find to erase its popularity, they use. Cooper did have an ulcer during the shooting. However, this makes his perf even more remarkable, since he did not have the pained expression in every scene, only certain ones. And the level of agony was tempered, depending on whether he was alone or with others.

 

Aside: The auteurist crowd has always denigrated Cooper's perf, saying he was whiny, feeling sorry for himself, etc. They miss the point. Cooper gives, in affect, two separate performances in Noon: When he's with others, asking for help, etc., he's firm, in control, shows no sign of weakness; however, when he's alone, when no-one is looking, we see him without that masculine facade, he's afraid, he's angry, he's bitter, he's hurt. It's an extremely naked perf, not in the Brando/Clift sense, but in that it is one of the few times I am aware that a major male star allowed an audience to see the man behind the masculine mask. That's what makes the scene in the Marshal's office right before noon so powerful. He's alone, afraid, hurt, bitter, and he puts his head down on the desk and cries -- can you imagine Wayne doing that?!? But when he becomes aware of the boy, he quickly puts on his strong-jawed masculine mask.

 

Although the picture takes place between 10:35 a.m. and 12:15 p.m.. slightly longer than the 84-minute running time, this was due to the reediting ordered by both Stanley Kramer and Fred Zinnemann, both of whom were unhappy over the first assemblage. Editor Elmo Williams experimented by using the final portion of the material shot and condensed it to exactly 60 minutes of footage timed to real-time in the film. Thus the film we see is Williams' experimental version, which met with both Kramer's and Zinnemann's approval.

 

There is so much written about who edited what, that it's impossible to know at this late stage just who did what. However, Kramer had nothing -- n-o-t-h-i-n-g -- to do with the final cut. A close reading of the shooting script tells anyone that there was very little wiggle room for an editor. And that is because there are clocks in virtually every scene, and you couldn't take a scene with the clock at 11:10 and splice it into a scene where it's now 11:35, and so on. There was a disastrous screening, which mostly had to do with the song, Tex Ritter was warbling in practically every scene. Foreman's orginal script is like a jigsaw puzzle (Zinnemann's term) and pretty much had to be shot and edited as is. And it is, except for the deputy sequence out of town and Jack Elam in the jail.

 

Although John Wayne often complained that the film was "un-American", when he collected Gary Cooper's Best Actor Oscar on his behalf at the The 25th Annual Academy Awards (1953) (TV) he complained that he wasn't offered the part himself, so he could have made it more like one of his own westerns. He later teamed up with director Howard Hawks to make Rio Bravo (1959) as a right-wing response.

 

I will deal with this in a separate post. A great story, on why this happened, told to me by Anthony Quinn. Paramount made us cut this from the Noon doc (as they made us cut every reference to Wayne), they put out Wayne dvds, and felt it wouldn't be good for the sales.

 

Gary Cooper, B movie producer Robert L. Lippert and screenwriter 'Carl Foreman' were set to go into a production company together, after the success of this film. John Wayne and Ward Bond ordered Cooper to back out of the deal, as HUAC was preparing to blacklist Foreman from Hollywood. Shortly afterwards, Lippert was made persona non grata by the Screen Actors Guild, which destroyed his independent production company.

 

More nonsense. Wayne had nothing to do with Cooper backing out. Oh, Wayne was among the disgraceful leaders in publicly going after anyone who tried to work with Foreman n his new company. He formed it after the film was finished, and after he'd been blacklisted, but befre it had become such a huge hit. Cooper became a partner, big headlines in variety and the NY Times. But the ressure grew so intense for Cooper to back out, that Foreman realized it could never happen, and there was no point in Cooper's career being ruined, too. He released Cooper from any legal obligations and moved to England. They remained friends until Cooper's death in 1961.

 

Lippert had been hoping to enter the mainstream film community, after a string of B films. This was going to be his entry. But Cooper was the main partner.

 

As 'Carl Foreman' 's script bore certain similarities to John Cunningham's story "The Tin Star", producer Stanley Kramer bought the rights to Cunningham's novel to protect the production against accusations of plagiarism.

 

Wrong. Foreman bought the rights, and it's what saved him when Kramer triedn to remove him as producer and screenwriter.

 

Henry Fonda was prevented from accepting the role of Will Kane because he had been graylisted from Hollywood due to his political activism, forcing him to act exclusively on the stage from 1947 to 1955.

 

True, Foreman wrote it with Fonda in mind. Peter Fonda told me that John Wayne had his father graylisted -- passport even taken -- after Fort Apache. Kirk Douglas also turned it down, in addition to Peck (good story on this, in a separate post), Brando, Clift and Heston.

 

Much of the film was filmed in the gold rush town of Columbia, CA. Today it is a state park right by Sonora on Highway 49.

 

Most shot on the backlot at Columbia. Only the hillside sequence and the train station shot elsewhere.

 

A tip of the hat to Scott. It worked!!!

 

Message was edited by: jemnyc

[coopsgirl]

*High Noon* was not only Clinton's fave film but it is the most requested film by president's while in office. I can see that too as they must feel like Will Kane sometimes. It's definitely in my top 10 and is probably my #6 fave film of his. I also hate it too when people say he only did such a good job b/c of ulcers. Like you said Dan, he shows the same emotions and wonderful use of his expressive face in all his films and he didn't have ulcers for every single one.

 

My Spanish is very bad so it's cool to know what Helen and Kane said to each other during that scene in Spanish. But that brings up a problem I have with the film. She says it's been a year since she's seen him and he also seemed surprised to find out she and Harvey were a couple. Now the town did not look that big so I don't see how they hadn't crossed paths for an entire year. Also having grown up in a small community I know you can't really hide anything and everyone in town should've have known about Helen and Harvey, including Kane. This isn't a major problem but it just always struck me as odd.

[coopsgirl]

The scene with Gary in his office crying before noon is my fave scene. It's certainly not something you typically see in Westerns where the men are often uber-masculine. It really draws the audience in b/c I imagine most people would feel the exact same way if they were in his shoes.

 

I found an interesting article written about the film back in '05. They discuss how the film is always relevant and never seems to get dated b/c it has both liberal and conservative themes and how depending on the times, it can be interpreted differently which is part of what makes it a classic. Here's the link.

 

http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/47/highnoon.htm

[coopsgirl]

Sticking with the *High Noon* theme this morning here are some pics from the film.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's another link I found to a website of a guy who just watches movies and rates them. I like what he said about High Noon.

 

http://www.bunkosquad.com/100movies/index.phtml?page=high_noon.inc

[CoopsGal]

My goodness, so much information to process in the morning before my first cup of coffee!

 

 

Thank you so much, John, for all your insightful information and for setting some of the rumors straight here on the official Gary Cooper Forum (I think we've earned that title). The internet can be such a helpful tool at times, but it can also set ya' back due to all the rumors and lies people spread around (mostly on the IMDb message boards).

 

 

Thank you again! I can't wait to hear more.

[MissGoddess]

Ha ha! I had to laugh at some of the things that writer at the BunkoSquad link wrote...he's funny! Especially when he wrote about Lloyd Bridges' character, the "wannabe weenie," hee heeeee!

 

Official Gary Cooper Forum---I quite agree that we've earned that monicker.

[coopsgirl]

The guy at the bunko squad site set up his site b/c he wanted to watch all the movies in AFI's top 100 movies list and then write his own reviews instead of just going by what everyone else says. I like what he said about *It Happened One Night* too. He really enjoyed that one and here's one of my fave things he said.

 

The first night that Peter and Ellie bunk together brings us the legendary no-undershirt scene. Can't you just picture it? It's the Depression. Millions of Americans, dulled by poverty, repression, boredom and the fact that everything was in black-and-white, crammed into theaters. And Clark Gable says, "Perhaps you're interested in how a man undresses." And millions of Desperate Thirties Housewives simultaneously inhale, handfuls of popcorn frozen in midlift. Amazing that the country didn't just grind to a permanent halt right there and then.

 

While that scene does nothing for me, I can imagine it did get the reaction that he described. Now if it had been Gary, then yeah my little world at least would grind to a halt - ha!

[MissGoddess]

I love that scene with Gorgeous Gabe and the way that guy describes it is too funny---"Desperate Thirties Housewives" and being sick of everything being in black-and-white, ha ha haaaaa! I mean, picture the couple going home after the movie and the husband sitting around in his bvds, with a belly...after what she just saw on the screen I wonder if the divorce rate went up even as undershirt sales went down.

[jemnyc]

Such crystal clear High Noon pix. Nice stuff, Angie.

[jemnyc]

Mrs. C:

 

Regarding:

 

I can't wait to hear more.

 

Here's how Wayne ended up accepting GC's Oscar for High Noon. It always baffled me, didn't seem to make sense, given what went on with Wayne and High Noon. When I spoke with Anthony Quinn in the spring of 2001 (some six weeks before his death), as I was lining up potential talking heads, he went into detail about how it happened.

 

Cooper was Quinn's idol. As he told me, he was in awe of Cooper, everything about him was worth aspiring to. On Quinn's first day on a film set, at 19, for The Plainsman, before he ever uttered his first line, he refused to say the lines. Claimed they were all wrong, not what an Indian would say at that moment. De Mille erupted and fired him on the spot. As Quinn said, his career was over before it ever began. But then came a voice out of the back of the sound stage: "The young man is right, C. B. His lines don't make sense. Better listen to him" It was Cooper, who then stepped into the lights. De Mille wasn't about to dispute his star and the lines were rewritten, Quinn stayed on board, and he and Cooper became lifelong friends.

 

Cut to the set of Blowing Wild, March 1953, Mexico. Both Cooper and Quinn were nominated for Academy Awards. Quinn wanted to go up to LA for the awards, but when he found out Cooper wasn't, he decided not to -- "If Coop wasn't going, neither was I." So, comes the day of the awards and production set up a radio feed and had a party. Quinn said how excited he was, very nervous. But then, he catches sight of Cooper and Stanwyck, both grabbing bottles of wine and heading out the door. Quinn yelled out to Cooper, "Aren't you listening to the Oscars?" Cooper shook his head and he and Stanwyck disappeared through the door, with their wine. Quinn told me that he really wanted to listen, but if Coop wasn't listening, neither was he. So, he grabs a bottle of wine and follows them up a hill where the three of them settle in to drink their wine and while away the evening.

 

It was dark and Quinn said Cooper gave them a lesson on the stars, pointing out which was which, the genesis of the names, etc. Pretty soon, the three of them are on their backs, gazing up at the night sky, quaffing their wine. Then Cooper starts chuckling to himself, and soon has to sit up, he's choking on his laughter. Quinn said he and Stanwyck exchanged mystified glances. Finally, Quinn asked Cooper what was so funny. "I ran into John Wayne over in Cuernavaca couple of weeks ago." Quinn said, :Did you pop him one?" Cooper: "Nope, but I asked him if he'd pick up my Oscar if I won." Quinn: "You nuts! What'd you do that for?"

 

Cooper: "What's the sunuvabitch going to say if I win!"

 

Cooper laughed to himself all over again. Quinn told me that Coop thought he'd really put Wayne in an impossible situation. But as Quinn said, he hadn't counted on Wayne's chutzpah. Because Wayne told the audience he was going to find out why he wasn't offered High Noon, this great script by Carl Foreman, etc. There's terrific footage of this, must have been the first Oscar televised. And it is sheer hypocrisy from Wayne.

 

Quinn had so many great stories about Cooper -- and Hemingway -- he knew both men. But he died in June 2001. He was an amazing man, Anthony Quinn.

[jemnyc]

Angie, thanks for the link to the High Noon article -- conservative/liberal, changing over time.

 

It's interesting how few people pick up that it doesn't matter if you are pro-McCarthy

or anti, liberal or conservative, the meat of the film is about civic complacency. A

citizenry which abdicates its rights as citizens can no longer call itself free.

 

Nor will it be.

[coopsgirl]

Great story about Quinn on *The Plainsman* set. From stories I've heard it sounds like Gary was probably one of the best actors to work with not only b/c of his wonderful talent, but also b/c he seems to have treated everybody with respect and stood up for the little guys too. I really admire people who use their celebrity and influence to help others instead of using it to just get as much as they can for themselves and acting like divas.

 

One of the flat out dumbest things I've heard that I believe Hawks (I think it was him and not Wayne) said about *High Noon* was that if Kane was a good enough marshal he wouldn't need help from the townspeople. Well the film is set in the old west when towns didn't have police forces like they do today. They had a marshal and maybe some deputies but regular people still had to help out in the forms of posses when more men were needed for certain situations. That's what happens in *High Noon*. They've had a peaceful town for years so they cut back on the number of deputies they had. Now when trouble rears its ugly head they need more men. That's a perfectly reasonable situation for this film. It seems to me like he was just nit-picking trying to find something to bash about the film.

[coopsgirl]

*I wonder if the divorce rate went up even as undershirt sales went down.*

 

Good question!!

[MissGoddess]

I read somewhere about a guy who was a young man at the time It Happened One NIght came out and how suddenly, men were not considered "cool" or the equivalent, by women if they wore undershirts.

 

Ironically, I actually prefer that men do wear them, and apparently so did Gable himself because he always dressed that way, very properly.

[butterscotchgreer]

well coincidentally i watched High Noon last night while everybody was asleep. heehee!

 

i didnt know about bill clinton's favorite movie being High Noon, that is very interesting, me not being a fan of him to begin with, but anywho its interesting.

 

i already talked to angie about this, but i listened to the icon show with robert osborne talking about gary's acting finally. i love robert osborne, but i must say i got sort of angry when he said all those things about how gary didnt look ike he was acting greatly while robert was watching him behind the camera. i had read from many places that some people said gary didnt seem like he was acting greatly while the camera was rolling, but then when they saw it when it was released it was amazing. i just wanted to turn the sound off when robert kept on talking about it, but isnt it funny how that is though? it really doesnt matter how you seem to look, when filming, but when you see the finish of it, you are amazed how it looks. me and angie were wondering how the directors didnt fear they couldnt get through a movie if that is really how it went down. i dont believe that is how gary was while filming, but if the director thought that, why did so many of them enjoy working with gary?

[MissGoddess]

The same things were said about Garbo. They seem to not to be "projecting" and that can throw some people off and make them think "this scene is falling apart..." Ingrid Bergman apparently felt the same when she would do a scene with Gary, she said in her autobiography that it seemed as if nothing was coming out of him, but then she would see the rushes....

 

It's just that some people have something special that the camera picks up and magnifies. Others perform in a different way, more obvious to those around them.

 

Garbo and Gary were both very "interior" sort of performers, I think. Their eyes and the God-given planes of their faces are what conveyed the subtlest and deepest of emotions. With other actors, voice and gesture have to be included to do the job.

 

Imagine the confidence in yourself you had to maintain when a director, feeling frustrated, asks you to "give more, please" to a scene---you have to be tough enough to stick to what you know, namely, that the camera is already recording everything necessary and to let the audience do its own "projecting".

[butterscotchgreer]

thats so funny april, i read that too a long time ago, and didnt remember ever reading it until you just said that. heehee! o remember finding that so funny, b/c i always thought that men were expected to wear undershirts always, and when i read that, i was like, woah!! heehee!

[MissGoddess]

Lol! Yes, isn't that funny, Theresa---I can just see, too, how parents probably had to suddenly harass their teenage sons to wear their undershirts, because they thought it was cooler to go without one.

[CoopfanDan]

Angie, High Noon is probably only 15 on my favorite list and is not because of Gary Cooper's performance or the story as both this and Sergeant York were well deserving of winning oscars for best actor and in my opinion two of his best. However, I am not a very big Grace Kelly Fan and the other lady that was in the movie and I guess there is enough said on that. Gary Cooper certainly deserves more than just this movie to make the top 100 AFI greatest movies. I am absolutely shocked at most of the choices that made it on that list for best movies. If anyone watches that list I can garantee that they will not be watching the 100 greatest movies ever made by a long shot. In fact Gary Cooper had at least 30 of the 100 greatest movies ever made all by himself in my view.

[CoopfanDan]

Here's how Wayne ended up accepting GC's Oscar for High Noon. It always baffled me, didn't seem to make sense, given what went on with Wayne and High Noon. When I spoke with Anthony Quinn in the spring of 2001 (some six weeks before his death), as I was lining up potential talking heads, he went into detail about how it happened.

 

Cooper was Quinn's idol. As he told me, he was in awe of Cooper, everything about him was worth aspiring to. On Quinn's first day on a film set, at 19, for The Plainsman, before he ever uttered his first line, he refused to say the lines. Claimed they were all wrong, not what an Indian would say at that moment. De Mille erupted and fired him on the spot. As Quinn said, his career was over before it ever began. But then came a voice out of the back of the sound stage: "The young man is right, C. B. His lines don't make sense. Better listen to him" It was Cooper, who then stepped into the lights. De Mille wasn't about to dispute his star and the lines were rewritten, Quinn stayed on board, and he and Cooper became lifelong friends.

 

Cut to the set of Blowing Wild, March 1953, Mexico. Both Cooper and Quinn were nominated for Academy Awards. Quinn wanted to go up to LA for the awards, but when he found out Cooper wasn't, he decided not to -- "If Coop wasn't going, neither was I." So, comes the day of the awards and production set up a radio feed and had a party. Quinn said how excited he was, very nervous. But then, he catches sight of Cooper and Stanwyck, both grabbing bottles of wine and heading out the door. Quinn yelled out to Cooper, "Aren't you listening to the Oscars?" Cooper shook his head and he and Stanwyck disappeared through the door, with their wine. Quinn told me that he really wanted to listen, but if Coop wasn't listening, neither was he. So, he grabs a bottle of wine and follows them up a hill where the three of them settle in to drink their wine and while away the evening.

 

It was dark and Quinn said Cooper gave them a lesson on the stars, pointing out which was which, the genesis of the names, etc. Pretty soon, the three of them are on their backs, gazing up at the night sky, quaffing their wine. Then Cooper starts chuckling to himself, and soon has to sit up, he's choking on his laughter. Quinn said he and Stanwyck exchanged mystified glances. Finally, Quinn asked Cooper what was so funny. "I ran into John Wayne over in Cuernavaca couple of weeks ago." Quinn said, :Did you pop him one?" Cooper: "Nope, but I asked him if he'd pick up my Oscar if I won." Quinn: "You nuts! What'd you do that for?"

 

Cooper: "What's the sunuvabitch going to say if I win!"

 

Cooper laughed to himself all over again. Quinn told me that Coop thought he'd really put Wayne in an impossible situation. But as Quinn said, he hadn't counted on Wayne's chutzpah. Because Wayne told the audience he was going to find out why he wasn't offered High Noon, this great script by Carl Foreman, etc. There's terrific footage of this, must have been the first Oscar televised. And it is sheer hypocrisy from Wayne.

 

Quinn had so many great stories about Cooper -- and Hemingway -- he knew both men. But he died in June 2001. He was an amazing man, Anthony Quinn.

This is the greatest story ever told by you. What a priceless gem of information told to you by Anthony Quinn before he died. It would have been a travesty if information like this was lost for all time after Quinn's death. I hope you got it on a filmed interview and also hope that this story is included in full on the next High Noon Documentary that you have already completed but are now just waiting for Paramount to get the rights back to the picture on.