No judgment. I have the gift of being able to spot errors in everyone's writing but my own. ;)

Have rewatched High Noon a couple of times over the years and increasingly it does seem to be one of the more heavy handed blacklist metaphors that came out during the 1950s. A counterpoint to Elia Kazan's On The Waterfront, a brilliant masterpiece that many argued was Kazan's justification for naming names. In my mind Waterfront works better as a film and if there is a message by those involved it's subtler. In the case of Carl Forman, who was blacklisted, the idea looks a lot more heavy handed in the terms of the WILD wEST. I have my issues with John Wayne's politics but when he told Ebert about his opinion he said: "If I'd been in Cooper's position, I'd have ridden off with my wife and left them all to be killed" he does have a point.

That's why Black Rock works better as a western better than High Noon. Same mesage but in the modern setting it carries more weight. In a way it's a braver film because anti-Communism had been a hue thing even during the War. Throw in our issues with Japanese internment and this is an infinitely bolder piece of work