Watch The Man Called Noon For Free

hyped garbage

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

"The Man Called Noon" (1973) is a Spanish/Italian/English Western starring Richard Crenna as the eponymous character and Stephen Boyd as his pardner. After Noon suffers amnesia from being winged in the head and falling, he teams-up with Rimes (Boyd) and meets a woman named Fan (Rosanna Schiaffino), who takes a liking to him. Farley Granger and Patty Shepard are other characters in the story, which features a hidden cave and fortune.Shot in Spain, the film has the cool style and music of Spaghetti Westerns of the time, but with an arguably better story and characters, likely because the script's based on a Louis L'Armour novel. Unfortunately, as the movie progresses its flaws surface, like an obvious smudge on the lens of one of the cameras, the inexplicable lights in the "bat cave" and an increasingly unbelievable vibe. Despite this, Crenna and Boyd are effective Western protagonists and Rosanna & Patty are agreeable female eye candy. Although mediocre overall, it's worth checking out if you like Westerns from the 60s/70s.The film runs 98 minutes.GRADE: C+

reviewers on this page complain that this is just another ordinary western - that's the same as saying that the Taj Mahal is just another house - which it is - but what a house! OK, this is not the Taj Mahal of anything but it is a western in which somebody took the time to find the right angles to shoot from and the right beautiful music to accompany everything with. This time and care put in, changes this film from being a trivial western into being a nicely mysterious experience with imagery that stick to the mind. The mystery - it is true - is not so much in the dialogue as in the silence between the spoken words. The action is not as important as the scenery in which it takes place.In the end you are left with a feeling of surprising satisfaction for something that on the surface seems trivial indeed.

I just discovered this Western and really liked it. The plot is very "Bourne," and I wonder if Ludlum got some ideas from it. There are some excellent and interesting camera shots. Stephen Boyd, who is quoted as saying "I like to look at people and see them smile - when the face smiles the soul comes through," did indeed make me smile. I loved his accent. Richard Crenna pulled off the role nicely, though I don't think of him in the Western genre. I'm a fan of Louis L'Amour but don't think I read this book - will have to now! Sure, it's a bit slow in places and even loses some continuity, but if you like old Westerns, and the relationship of man and horse, plots about amnesia and integrity, then you'll like this.

There's a thin line between good style and bad style, and this film lands squarely on the wrong side of that line. The director knows a few camera tricks, such as filming scenes from severely low angles with a cowboy boot or wagon wheel dominating the frame (copied from countless other spaghetti westerns) but he has no feel or flow. Oddball cast. Richard Crenna, not exactly the most physical of actors, is hilariously unbelievable as a tough man of action. Your guess is as good as mine as to how he wins all those fist fights. And he's either bionic or a cousin of Bruce Willis' character in "Unbreakable", because he survives a couple nasty falls and countless flurries of gunfire with nary a scratch. In fact, the villains in this movie have to be the worst shots in the history of film. The more I think about it, I'm not sure who or what they were aiming at but it couldn't have been Crenna. There's Stephen Boyd, about a decade past his prime, drawling and mumbling his way through a turn as some sort of a slippery opportunist, the Han Solo role. Actually not a bad performance. And also Farley Granger, 20 years or so removed from his fling with matinee idol stardom. He's a more interesting looking actor at this point with graying hair and richer voice, but he comes off as all kinds of ridiculous in the big dumb, senseless finale. Hard to tell if his acting is much improved with such a poor script.It's also got an inappropriately exuberant music score, bad stunt doubling, a confusing plot with too many names you never can attach to faces, and some gratuitous violence that might have been offensive if it hadn't been so nonsensical. Despite all that, at least it DOES make an attempt to stylize the material and give it a little pizazz. That's more than some films do.