This is Fresh Air.

I'm Dave Davies in for Terry Gross.

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the 1952 classic Western High Noon.

We're going to hear about the film and its relationship with the Hollywood Blacklist

and the investigation of the House on American Activities Committee.

We're going to listen to Terry's 2017 interview with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist

and former Washington Post reporter Glenn Frankl, who wrote the book High Noon

about the Blacklist and the making of the film.

After World War II, the American government turned against some of America's most talented

filmmakers and actors, accusing them of being communists or communist sympathizers.

The so-called subversives were called to testify before the House on American Activities Committee,

where they were asked to confess to communist ties and give the names of others in Hollywood

they suspected of being communists.

Anyone who didn't cooperate was put in jail or on a Blacklist that would make it impossible

to work in Hollywood.

The screenwriter of High Noon, Carl Foreman, was one of those called before the committee,

and he had to decide whether to violate his principles by complying or face the consequences.

He intended High Noon to serve as an allegory about Blacklisting.

Terry and Glenn Frankl began with the scene from High Noon.

The film stars Gary Cooper as the Marshal of the small town of Hadleyville.

Hours after marrying a young quaker, he learns that a killer he sent to prison, Frank Miller,

has been released and is on the noon train heading to town, where three of his gang members

...