by Thilo Wydra
It is an extremely powerful image of a completely abandoned person. Across this cinematic scene lies a deep sadness. It is a picture of an individual who can rely on only himself. There is no one else there. This is Fred Zinnemann’s tableau of desolation. High Noon’s entire visual vocabulary is very clear, bleak, and sober. It underlies a logical, formal reduction (thanks to cinematographer, Floyd Crosby) and rejects traditional aesthetics. The impression of absolute simplicity prevails, which is intentionally emphasized by the coarse-grained, black and white used in the film.
While writing High Noon, screenplay writer Carl Foreman had the trials of the dark McCarthy Era fresh in his mind. “High Noon was about Hollywood and no other place but Hollywood,” Foreman commented later.111 Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible (1953) also pulled heavily from this chapter in American history.
These proceedings during the early 1950s resulted in an oppressive reality: The McCarthy Era was named after the Republican Senator Joseph Raymond McCarthy (1908–1957). It lasted for almost a decade from 1947 to 1956, and coincided with the early years of the Cold War. This period was also known as the Second Red Scare. It was colored by radical anti-Communism, which gave rise to the harsh persecution of both actual and suspected Communists, left-wing activists, intellectuals, and civil rights supporters.
Although Senator Joseph McCarthy was only politically active and powerful in the early 1950s, following the second trial of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s adviser Alger Hiss, this entire era of paranoid persecutions was named after him. In this period, the US government tracked and persecuted the American Communist Party, as well as its leaders, members, and numerous supposed sympathizers and supporters. After both Harry Dexter White, a senior Treasury Department official, and Alger Hiss were accused of being Soviet agents, loyalty tests became obligatory for government officials and civil servants. FBI founder and director J. Edgar Hoover personally oversaw these examinations of government employees. Since that time, the McCarthy Era has become a metaphor for political persecution and the stigmatization of nonconformist thinkers. A modern-day witch hunt. A metaphor whose relevance is timeless.
Between 1938 and 1942, Carl Foreman (1914–1984) had been a member of the Communist Party. In April 1951, while he was working on the screenplay for High Noon, he was required to appear and testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), as were many of his Hollywood friends. However, the hearing was postponed and eventually rescheduled for September 24, during the filming of High Noon. In addition, exiled intellectuals, such as Thomas Mann, Hanns Eisler, and Bertolt Brecht, also had to testify before the HUAC. Charlie Chaplin fell under suspicion as well. While visiting Europe in 1952, he was denied a valid visa to return to the United States. He was forced to move to Switzerland, where he bought a house on Lake Geneva where he resided until his death. America’s political landscape at this time was deeply ambivalent and rapidly changing. Distrust was rampant.
Cooper himself made a voluntary statement to the HUAC in October 1947 when they had begun to investigate Communist attitudes in Hollywood.112 At that time, Cooper was a so-called “friendly witness,” similar to Walt Disney, who voluntarily testified as well. Ironically, Disney even collaborated with the FBI as a contact, while he himself was under suspicion, a strange situation.
For screenplay author and co-producer Foreman, the crude witch hunt by HUAC was ultimately his undoing. He soon left his American homeland and immigrated to England.
Filmed between early September and mid-October, 1951—the honeymoon period of the McCarthy Era—High Noon clearly reflected the actual political events taking place around the country. There is the town of Hadleyville (Hollywood). There is the murderer Frank Miller (McCarthyism), who along with his three men wants to cause confusion and suffering. And there is Sheriff Will Kane, the guardian of the peace, who even without his tin star is willing to intercede on behalf of the townspeople. Lastly, there is Kane’s wife, Amy. She is the one who tips the balance, deciding at the last moment to side with her husband by shooting one of the bandits in the back. The citizens of Hadleyville are the crowd, the masses, and ultimately, the paranoid mob. They withhold from Kane, their protector, all support and cooperation. Loyalty and integrity—even that of old companions and supporters—disintegrate suddenly. No one will stand by his side as deputy. Everyone is afraid, so instead they gather in the saloon and discuss everything to death. It is a form of denunciation. Prematurely, the barber orders four coffins in the back room of the carpenter’s shop.
Soberly and clearly, High Noon reveals the public’s loss of moral values. The witch hunts of the McCarthy era vibrate with this loss. In this respect, the film has never grown old. It is not merely a relic of its generation; it has not lost any of its effectiveness or power. In 1992, exactly forty years after the filming, Fred Zinnemann summarized its importance in a single sentence: “It is a story that still happens everywhere, every day.”113
One thing that connects High Noon with Grace Kelly’s next film Mogambo is that director John Ford conceived of a similar contrasting pair of women. In High Noon, Grace, with her fair, blonde Nordic appearance and white wedding dress and bonnet, contrasts with the black-haired, darker complexioned Katy Jurado, who only appears in black. In Mogambo, Grace and the darker, more voluptuous Ava Gardner embody this contrast. Despite this superficial distinction, the inhibited Amy Kane and the uninhibited Helen Ramirez, each in her own way, are both self-reliant, independent women who develop psychologically throughout the film, as is especially the case with Amy. The scene between the two women has led many to interpret the film through a feminist lens.114
The Mexican actress Katy Jurado, who was the only other woman on the set of this western drama besides Grace, recalled the filming of High Noon: “For Grace Kelly, it was her big break, and for me, it was my first American picture here in Hollywood. I was two years older than she was. I had seven years [of experience] making pictures in Mexico. There was something so different between Grace and I. We could not really explain [why] we could not be very close. But I could see [that she was] a girl with a lot of dignity and a lot of character, because she wanted to be somebody in movies and she worked very hard on that picture. She looked weak and very tiny—but she was a very strong person. I think she was one of the strongest movie stars I worked with. She knew what she wanted—and she did it.”115
Several months passed between the opening of High Noon and Grace’s arrival in Africa in late fall 1952 to film Mogambo with Clark Gable. During this respite, she spent part of the time at her apartment in New York and part of it in Philadelphia and Ocean City with her family. She acted in a few plays: the comedy To Be Continued, which first played in Boston and then in Broadway’s Booth Theater (as is often the custom); and For Love or Money and Accent on Youth in a playhouse in her hometown. She also did a few live television spots. This was the last summer in which she spent significant time in Philadelphia.
She also spent time with Gene Lyons (1921–1974) in New York. Together they attended the premiere of High Noon in July 1952. It is clear that Lyons and Grace were both convinced that she was not meant for Hollywood, which explains why she again turned to theater. At this time, Lyons was mainly working on Broadway and live television. They studied their lines together, helping each other prepare for auditions and parts. Their private and professional lives were a seamless fit. Grace’s connection with Gene Lyons was not greatly different from the one she had had with Don Richardson. Their relationship was close, intense—they had been very much in love with each other since their time in Denver.
However attractive he was, the eight-years-older, Irish Lyons had a second love—whiskey—as had been the case with the title character in Fitzgerald’s play The Rich Boy. And just as the female lead, played by Grace, rejects him despite their feelings for each other, over time Grace increasingly turned away from Gene. She once again confirmed (and not for the last time either) the critical objections and fears of her parents. Through his
alcohol addiction, Gene Lyons destroyed his promising career. His last part was a supporting role in the television series Ironside (1967–1974) before he died at the young age of 53 on July 8, 1974. As Don Richardson before him and Oleg Cassini after him, he was one of Grace’s first romantic partners.
In Spring 1952, probably in April, Grace received a phone call just as she was leaving her apartment in the Manhattan House at the corner of 66th Street and 3rd Avenue. She was on her way to an acting lesson with Sanford Meisner. Meisner was a renowned acting teacher at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theatre, where he taught between 1935 and 1990. His career resembled that of Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler with whom he had worked at the Group Theatre, an independent theater group founded in 1931. All three were prominent New York practitioners of the naturalist theories of Russian acting teacher and director Konstantin Sergeievich Stanislavski. However, the implementation and approach of the so-called Meisner Technique differed substantially from Strasberg’s method acting. Beginning in fall 1951, Grace took lessons from Meisner several times a week in order to become more self-assured and to improve her acting skills—especially after the disappointment she felt toward what she considered to be an immature portrayal of Amy in High Noon.
The unexpected call took Grace by surprise. It was an invitation to do a screen test for Taxi (1953) that very day. For this reason, despite previous preparation for the part, she was not ready for the moment. She was neither dressed nor styled for the role. Instead of a dress and her signature white gloves, she was made up for a casual gathering with friends in a blouse, a tweed skirt, and flats. She had no makeup on, and her hair was tightly pulled back. This was how she presented herself to director Gregory Ratoff, who was shooting the film for Twentieth Century-Fox. Ultimately, Grace did not receive the role of Mary Turner in Taxi. The part was given—against Ratoff’s wishes (he wanted Grace at all costs)—to an English actress named Constance Smith, who was under contract with Fox at the time. The film was not a success. However, the black-and-white audition tape must have been impressive, because it soon helped Grace book several roles of incomparably greater significance. Due to the internal studio viewing of the Taxi auditions, Grace was hired by John Ford for Mogambo and afterward by Alfred Hitchcock for Dial M for Murder.
Mogambo
(1953)
Mogambo had three things that interested me: John Ford, Clark Gable, and a trip to Africa with expenses paid. If Mogambo had been made in Arizona I wouldn’t have done it.
—Grace Kelly116
In 1924, a new Hollywood studio was founded: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). For a quarter of a century, Louis B. Mayer was an extremely influential studio head until the early 1950s, when he was replaced by Dore Schary.
Grace Kelly’s fairly disastrous seven-year contract with MGM fell during Schary’s time. In October 1952, Grace signed the contract that in the coming years would become a regrettable pain in the neck. It was John Ford’s project Mogambo (and Ford’s enthusiasm for Grace’s color test for the project) that finally motivated her to sign for the first and last time with a studio. Until then she had consistently refused to sign a contract because she did not want to limit herself to a single studio or group, and she was very wary of multiyear obligations.
However, before signing the contract Grace presented to the studio her conditions—a move that was very unusual at this time, especially for such a young, unknown actress, having only acted in a single supporting film role. The studio executives soon knew that they were dealing with an unconventional, autonomous individual. Things would not be easy with this girl. During the September 1952 negotiations between her future studio, MGM, and her agency, MCA, Grace dictated that every other year she would be allowed a break so that she could have the opportunity to return to the theater. She also insisted on keeping her residence in New York, contrary to the usual requirement to move to Los Angeles or Hollywood where she could be summoned, and controlled, at the whim of the studio. And in an extraordinary move for Hollywood, Dore Schary’s MGM accepted her conditions. Once the contract was signed, Grace received a starting salary of $750 per week—more than she had ever earned as a model.
The Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer British Studios Ltd. in London was responsible for the production of Mogambo. This meant that Mogambo was actually a British production and Grace would need a work permit, which caused a roadblock for her involvement in the project. Furthermore, there was resistance among some of the British MGM executives to the casting of yet another American in the film. Despite this and some protest by the British trade union, Grace was ultimately permitted to work on the project. Excepting Gable and Gardner in the two main roles, the Dublin-born Denis O’Dea in the role of the Catholic bush priest, and the local and indigenous tribesmen cast in the movie, all the supporting roles were filled with English actors. Except for Grace, of course.
The filming under John Ford lasted four long months from the turn of the year through the entire winter: November 17, 1952, to March 20, 1953. Outdoor scenes were shot in eastern African territories, which during the 1950s were still primarily British colonies: Kenya (Nairobi, Thika, Naivasha Lake), Tanzania (Kagera River, Serengeti Desert), and Uganda (Isoila). A few scenes were also filmed in the French Congo, also known as the Congo Democratic Republic (Okalataka). Indoor scenes, which began filming in February 1953, were located in the MGM Studios in the southern English town of Borehamwood. Founded in 1914, the Elstree Studio Lot is located north of London in the County of Hertfordshire.
For the outdoor scenes, the film team, actors, technicians, doctors, and cooks all traveled to Africa. They were a group composed of several hundred people (estimates range from 300 to 475). On site, there were several dozen tents, a hospital, a restaurant, a leisure tent with a dartboard and a ping-pong table, and a portable movie theater with two 16 mm projectors, which showed a different movie every day. In addition, a landing strip was built for the pilots who were transporting technical equipment and food from Nairobi. This production operated at a scale typical of only Hollywood’s most monumental films. Home base was the New Stanley Hotel in Nairobi, where the actors, director, and various crew members stayed.
Everyone met each other here at the New Stanley Hotel. Grace was by far, at the age of twenty-three, the youngest of the entire cast of Mogambo. Gardner and Gable already knew each other, since they had worked together on the films The Hucksters (1947) and Lone Star (1952). Filming Mogambo was stressful, lengthy, and complicated; it brought together actors with extremely different, sometimes clashing, sensibilities.
“Mogambo is a soulful remake of Red Dust.”117 Red Dust (1932) had been made exactly twenty years before under the direction of Victor Fleming for MGM. In that movie, Clark Gable played the part of an adventurer caught between two vastly different women. One of them, played by Jean Harlow, is a brash, provocative blonde. In Ford’s remake this part was acted by Ava Gardner. The other, played by Mary Astor, corresponded to Grace Kelly’s role. In Red Dust, Gable manages a rubber plantation; in Mogambo he is a big game hunter and trapper. He manages his own wild game reserve and lodge, and resembles—in both his manner and clothing—Ernest Hemingway. The location of the story was changed from Indochina to Africa.
Both screenplays were written by John Lee Mahin and based on Wilson Collison’s play, although Mogambo was enhanced with elements of Hemingway’s style and themes, as borrowed from his short story, “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” (1936).
John Ford employed two cameramen: Robert L. Surtees and the Englishman Frederick A. Young. During the course of Mogambo, John Ford had Surtees take several close-up shots of Grace Kelly during the especially emotional scenes. These scenes relate to Linda Nordley’s (Grace Kelly’s role) growing attachment for Victor Marswell (Clark Gable), and the close-up shots of Grace’s face reveal Linda’s inner conflict. One of these scenes takes place on the veranda of Marswell’s lodge. After getting caught in a downpour while walking by herself in the jungle, Linda is brought back t
o the lodge by Marswell. On the way back, she briefly leans back against a tree; sweat and rain run down her neck. She stands there in a short-sleeved blouse and a gray skirt, topped by a brightly patterned Hermés handkerchief, and gazes at Marswell with astonishing directness. When they finally reach the door of the veranda, behind which is the Nordleys’ room, Marswell suddenly grabs the handkerchief from her neck—a uniquely explicit moment.
Another scene between Clark Gable and Grace takes place at the top of a waterfall on the riverbank. Here they kiss, and Grace clings closely to the much taller Gable. Despite the arguable triviality of the plot, these are scenes of latent eroticism, an eroticism that can be felt throughout the entire love-triangle drama. The penetrating look with which Grace responds to Gable’s actions, the intense gaze of her wide blue eyes, is demanding and full of a cool lasciviousness.
Bound by John Lee Mahin’s screenplay, Grace had to deliver some unfortunately banal lines, such as: “I didn’t know that monkeys could climb trees,” when the expedition group reaches the forest in which the gorillas live and she sees them in person for the first time.118 Ava Gardner had markedly different lines.
However, Mogambo was not an insignificant achievement in Grace’s film career. In 1954, she was nominated for an Oscar, as Best Supporting Actress, and a Golden Globe.
John Ford (1894–1973), Grace Kelly’s third director, is a legend in the American film world. Ford’s career began in 1917, during the early years of film production, with his thirty-minute, silent movie The Tornado, and ended with Seven Women in 1966. Overall he made 112 feature-length films, along with numerous mid-length and short films. It would be accurate to call him one of the greatest western directors of all time. Films such as Rio Grande (1950), The Quiet Man (1952), The Searchers (1956), and The Horse Soldiers (1959) are not only important standouts in Ford’s body of work, but are also considered classics in the canon of cinematic masterpieces.