High Noon, Part II: The Return of Will Kane

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.

I hated this movie when I watched it, and after watching it again now I know why I hate it so much.

High Noon, Part II: The Return of Will Kane had virtually nothing to do with the original High Noon. It cashed in in the original to give us a title character and that was about all. Near the beginning we get a gratuitous slaughter of a pen full of horses as the bounty hunter tries to catch a guy he knows could not have committed the crime he's charged with. Since the guy is in with the horses, just shoot the horses to find the guy, right? I wasn't angry with the guy who shot the horses, I was angry that the writer and producer thought that disgusting and unnecessary scene would be worth including in the movie. I don't care that they of course didn't REALLY shoot the horses, it was still gratuitously sick. It didn't make me hate the bad guy (which he earned on his own), it made me hate the movie. And, it never got any better afterward.

Lee Majors as Will Kane was horrible. Talk about a stiff, cardboard, unsympathetic portrayal. Pernell Roberts came across as the biggest jerk on the planet. Sure, you're not supposed to like the 'bad guy' but in this case it went beyond 'dislike' to 'I despise this movie because the bad guy is so annoying.' (Actually, Richard Jaeckel, Skip Homeier and Richard Boone played numerous bad guys who I still enjoyed watching even though I wanted them to 'get theirs'.) I don't know how Majors or Roberts has ever been a success in acting; neither of them can play a character I care one iota about.

I think though that I could tolerate Majors and Roberts and the storyline a lot better if there wasn't this tenuous attempt to connect this story with High Noon. It could have stood on its own as a story and in my opinion would have been much better had it been a story in its own right than with the attempted High Noon tie-in. Lee Majors compared to Gary Cooper is like Tom Selleck compared to Clark Gable. This movie's biggest annoyance is that they tried to cash in on the name of a classic Western, for no good reason. Now, if we saw a much older Will Kane having to face the sons of the men he had to kill, that would be a relevant story to make a Part II; this however is ruined by trying to make the connection. I'm changing my '1' rating to a '4', but really this was a very misguided effort.

I just can't believe all the nasty comments about this movie. Everybody seems to think this movie actually has to measure up to the classic with Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly. Well, it doesn't. It doesn't even claim to. IT'S A TV MOVIE FOLKS!! Indeed for a TV movie it does a good job. It has a great cast. The acting is actually very good. Pernell Roberts, in an extreme departure from his Bonanza role, steals the show. His Marshall Ward is the the quintessential villain that you love to hate. Nasty and cool at the same time. In a slightly smaller role, J.A. Preston does a great job of portraying the conflicted black man who assists Ward in tracking down the good guys. The always reliable David Carradine is quite likable as the one-time outlaw who makes you root for him.

Much criticism is directed toward Lee Majors' acting in the other comments. "Stiff?" "One dimensional?" Has Majors ever been accused of being a Shakespearean actor? He is Lee Majors. The guy who plays quiet strong characters and relies on his looks for likability. Within that limited range, he is very good. I can see why he was picked to portray the same strong and quiet Will Kane that Gary Cooper portrayed in the original.

I have only two little problems with this picture. First, the original happens at high noon, thus the title. This one establishes neither the climax nor any major part of the plot as occurring in midday. Having failed to do so and still retaining the High Noon title it does open itself up to the unfair criticism of being a rip off of the original. My other issue with this movie is with the ward-robe folks who dressed Majors in almost the same outfit as he wore as Heath Barkley in The Big Valley. That, in my opinion, makes it a bit more difficult for us to accept him as Will Kane. The characters make frequent verbal references to the original High Noon story, so there is a deliberate effort here to make us remember it. Therefore, dressing Majors in a darker outfit reminiscent of Cooper's Will Kane would have served far more effectively to help us make the necessary emotional connection to the original.

If you want to watch a deep drama with a lot of character development you will be disappointed. In fact characters mostly start the same and are the same at the end of the story. What little character development there is happens with Preston's Alonzo. Also, the aforementioned references to the original seem to be merely a buildup to re-examining, albeit too briefly, the courage (or lack thereof) of the town folks who left Kane alone in his predicament in the first story. Here, was an opportunity lost when the filmmakers shortchanged us By not expanding enough on that particular point.

If you want to watch the simple story of an incident in a western genre that's done well you will not feel robbed of two hours of your life. All in all, this is an entertaining western which I would not mind, if ever on DVD, purchasing and placing right next to my cherished copy of the original.

This made-for-TV sequel was available at one of my local video rental shops way back when I was a teenage, but I never rented it in part due to the bad reputation that it had. Just recently I was reminded about its existence again, and doing some subsequent research, I saw that the legendary Elmore Leonard write the teleplay, and he certainly wrote some good western stories in his career. Unfortunately, this particular oater doesn't stand up to his other efforts. While there are many criticisms I could list about this movie (such as the weird sight of Lee Majors trying to act in a Gary Cooper style), the main problem with the movie is that it not only does its story plod along at an extremely slow pace, there is usually no significant energy generated in any particular scene. The movie really suffers in comparison to the original in this regard, made worse by the fact that the story this time around doesn't feel like a story that needs to be told.

However... if you look at the movie without comparing it to the original, and seeing what it basically is - a 1980 made-for-TV western - it does come across somewhat better. And unlike other made-for-TV movies of the time, it does have the novelty of David Carradine and a few instances of somewhat more colorful dialogue than usual. Though even with this viewpoint, there isn't enough to make this a must-see. Even as a viewing when entertainment options are extremely limited is also questionable.

I enjoyed the movie very much. I thought Lee Majors captured the essence of Will Kane better than Gary Cooper. David Carradine was great as a likable, not so bad, not so good, down on his luck guy, who wasn't real particular about the letter of the law. Bonanza's "Adam" was a particularly unlikable bad guy as the law officer who conducted himself and the duties of his office to satisfy his own personal greed and needs. The theme of a wrong, for which the good guy seeks recompense, was good and evident throughout the movie, as it evolved into a theme of "standing up to evil." Lee Majors was great as Will Kane, just trying to do right and finally not being able to walk away from evil, knowing he had what it takes to fight it.