An eerie pall hangs over this film noir in western duds, with its deserted dirt streets; its frightened townspeople, cowed by the chaos of the criminal element; and its "law," one reluctant sheriff and a worldly-wise judge who's packing his bags. The church becomes a civic hall, and the preacher a cornered citizen: "If I have to send my people out to die, I have to tell you, I don't know..." Outside, the children play tug-of-war. Its memorable set-pieces-Tex Ritter's haunting Greek chorus chanting "Do not foresake me, oh my darling" throughout the non-action; and the magnificent, real-time shootout-have made High Noon a classic of style. But it is also an echt-fifties emblem, as rich in its connection to the grey-flannel-suit movies as to the western. ("Are you a man or a job?" asks Grace Kelly, the film's nagging, naive peacenik.) And richer, also, in retrospect, as writer Carl Foreman had yet to be blacklisted in Hollywood when he wrote the script, which insists that the moral order not rest on one unwilling hero.