High Noon II

Will Kane and wife Amy return to the town of Hadleyville one year after the events of High Noon. Yes, Will returns to a town that turned its back on him and left him to fend for himself against killers after everything he had done for the townsfolk. Why? Because he's going to buy some horses. A stupid contrivance that completely disregards the point of the first movie's story. Anyway, the town has since gotten itself a new marshal and he's not a nice guy. Will, of course, butts heads with him and decides to stick around town for awhile.

A made-for-TV sequel to one of the greatest westerns of all time? This doesn't have disaster written all over it at all! I watched this with the same contempt as most people who saw the beloved original, but I did try to separate comparisons and view it as its own entity. That's pretty much the only way it can be enjoyed on any level. If you even think of Gary Cooper while watching this, you'll likely turn it off in disgust. As a sequel to a great film, it's a hot pile of garbage. As a story all its own with characters who just happen to share the names of those from the other film, it's a barely watchable, completely pedestrian affair, lacking any originality or complexity. It's like a pilot for a generic TV western from the '50s or '60s. It's directed by the guy who did Starflight: The Plane That Couldn't Land, another made-for-TV gem starring Lee Majors. The script is by Elmore Leonard, although I would never have guessed it. As far as the cast goes, Majors is wooden as ever, David Carradine hams it up as a superfluous character wanted for murder, and Pernell Roberts sleepwalks through his role as the villain. Katherine Cannon gets the unfortunate task of being in the Grace Kelly role. Talk about never being able to live up to a high standard.

It's not a good movie. Yes, I'm taking it on its own terms and not comparing it to High Noon and, yes, I'm judging it on the level of a made-for-TV effort. It's STILL not a good movie. It takes some lame plot any viewer of old TV westerns has seen before and slaps the name of a classic film on it to try and get people to watch it. I have no idea if they were successful at that in 1980 but I hope not. Since we didn't get High Noon 3: Will Kane Strikes Back, I'll assume the public back then responded with the appropriate amount of scorn this deserves.

Gary Cooper indeed. It's a Western Filmed in Tucson on the Old Tucson Movie Set. It's got its own sense of style to it that works. There's a plot that can be followed, although its somewhat predictable. But it was worth the watch. Believe Me, I've seen My share of stinkers & this one doesn't smell that bad. So for You to bash it makes no sense to Me. Why not let people decide for themselves? There's several classic Actors in this Movie. And Henry just so You'll know, Gary Cooper doesn't make Movies anymore because He's Dead! IMDb Says that My Review has to be longer, & that I'm not supposed to pad this. But the problem is they don't appreciate brevity. I said all I needed or wanted to say already! You can't force people to write more than what they wanted or needed to say. That's just not right!

The only thing I could find about this movie that I liked was the performance of Lee Majors. He carried the part very well, but the entire movie had a lot of disappointing acts. They shot at each other and missed too many times. Marshal Ward was suppose to be such a good shot to make such misses at still targets. He had hit Harlan Tyler on a running horse at about 400 yards and before that he had killed another running rider early in the picture. He then missed Will Kane and Ben Irons sitting still at a closer distance, several times. The in-town action was much better than the outdoor scenes. The early scene with Will Kane sitting at a table without a gun talking tough to Irons and Tyler was too unbelievable, I'm sure they would have noticed he wasn't wearing a gun long before he got up out of the chair. However, at the end of the movie Will is wearing his gun in a vest holster. So confusing. Irons later admitted that he had never killed anyone, so why was he willing to kill Will Kane? Movies need to be more realistic especially westerns. This director, Jerry Jameson would be well advised to watch Lonesome Dove before he directs anymore Western movies.

This movie (?) is a disaster, and that's a compliment. It falls from just being very bad to being the worst due to its attempt to play on the greatness of its earlier namesake.

"Thou shalt have no false gods before me", says God to Moses in "The Ten Commandments". A similar comparison and warning apply here. If you loved "High Noon", you will certainly hate "High Noon, Part II". It is a disgrace to the memory of Gary Cooper.

This film essentially begins one year after its predecessor left off with "Will Kane" (Lee Majors) and his wife "Amy Kane" (Katherine Cannon) riding a wagon back into the town of Hadleyville to purchase some horses for his ranch. Once there he meets a former convict he once knew named "Ben Irons" (David Carradine) who asks to purchase the horses he had just bought. Although a tense moment erupts when one of Ben's colleagues named "Harlan Tyler" (Tracey Walter) doesn't like Will's refusal, the situation is diminished once he realizes who he is dealing with. Unfortunately, things quickly get out of hand when the new town marshal "J. D. Ward" (Pernell Roberts) is shown a wanted poster with Ben Iron's name on it. Yet, even though Will assures Marshal Ward that Ben was in prison during this time and couldn't have possibly committed the crime, the marshal insists on tracking him down and killing him. Knowing this, Will soon realizes that he has no other option than to somehow bring Ben back into town to testify in his own behalf. Ironically, this pleases the marshal who sees an opportunity to add to his fame and fortune by killing both Ben and Will at the same time. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that-as is often the case-this sequel failed to live up to the same standard as its lofty predecessor with Lee Majors' portrayal of Will Kane being clearly inferior to that of Gary Cooper's performance 28 years earlier. Likewise, Katherine Cannon didn't have nearly the same on-screen presence as Grace Kelly either. But then, very few actresses could have anyway. Be that as it may, even though this film didn't quite rise to the same level as its predecessor, it still had enough solid acting, decent action and a fair amount of suspense to keep things interesting and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.