Remaking 'High Noon' filled with challenges

BYLINE: Mike Hughes; Gannett News Service -- It's tough enough to remake a good movie. It's even tougher, however,to remake a cowboy classic. The people doing "High Noon" (8 p.m., EDT, Sunday, Aug. 20, on cable's TBS) needed nerve or ignorance.

The 1952 film tells the tale of a sturdy sheriff who, on his wedding day, faces a vengeful gunman.

The attitudes of the people remaking it include:

-- Awe: "I was raised in darkened rooms on westerns," says director Rod Hardy.

-- Resignation: "I don't think any of us ever had a prayer of trying to make this film as good as the original," says Michael Madsen, who plays the villain.

-- Obliviousness: "I didn't even know the (original) movie existed," says Maria Conchita Alonso, who co-stars.

Still, there are some natural advantages to a remake. The original was filmed (in black-and-white) on a studio lot. The remake is larger, more lush and was filmed near Calgary.

"They've got the Canadian Rockies in the background," says Susanna Thompson, who plays the bride-to-be of the sheriff (Tom Skerritt). "The sight of that took my breath away."

Thompson doesn't seem intimidated by a remake or by anything else. She has portrayed a number of characters that were from different periods of time -- boldly going into new eras.

As the ex-wife of Billy Campbell in "Once and Again," the character she played was living in the present. She's done the future in every available "Star Trek" series. There were small guest roles in "Star Trek: The Next Generation," a large one -- including a same-sex kiss -- in "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" and she played the Borg Queen in the television series "Star Trek: Voyager."

Now she's traveling back in time for "High Noon."

"The costumes help a lot," Thompson says. "There are the period pieces and the corsets. It affects the body posture and it starts to affect you."

Alonso agrees. "They make you walk like a lady; they make you feel like a lady. ... I think I would have been a tomboy in that era."

Some people think Westerns capture a simpler time, but Alonso disagrees. "I don't think it was a simple time at all; it was a bad time, a very tough time."

The women's difficulties are accentuated because the remake dwells more on the two female characters than the original version.

"The females in the story have a great deal of strength," Hardy says. "One of my favorite scenes is between (those) two."

Alonso plays Helen Ramirez, the richest woman in town. "She was too far ahead of her time," she says. "She mingled with the aristocracy, but she was never really accepted" because of her race.

Thompson plays Amy Fowler, a Quaker pushing nonviolence during a violent era. "They were real activists," she says. "They believe there is no time for violence. I wanted to play her with more of a spiritual light."

Thompson began researching frontier women in order to bring the character's attitude to life.

Tall, slim and outgoing, Thompson seems ready to tackle any new situation -- a facet that may spring from her childhood. She was one of seven children of a chief petty officer in the Navy. That meant moving around a lot -- Okinawa, Korea, etc. -- before settling in San Diego.

It was the perfect background for an acting life that requires her to go anywhere and be anyone.

That flexibility was particularly important for a guest-starring role in "Star Trek: The Next Generation." In it, Thompson played a Romulan sidekick in one episode and was "sort of in an insane asylum" in another.

In "Deep Space Nine," her character was involved in a complex relationship in which she had to kiss another woman. The story received some attention because of the kiss, but Thompson brushes that aside. "To me, it was this beautiful love story."

She has opposite duty on "Voyager," playing the powerful Borg queen.

"Just doing the technical dialogue is so difficult," Thompson says. "Kate Mulgrew (the ship's captain) can whip through it, but I don't know how she does it."

From that 24th-century role, Thompson leaps back to the 19th century for her role in "High Noon." She goes from portraying someone who was all-powerful to being a simple woman on a man's frontier.

This was a difficult bit of time travel, just like the daily commute when "High Noon" was shooting.

"We'd travel 45 minutes out of Calgary" to get to the movie's set, Thompson says. "Then you're in nature that's just overwhelming."__Gannett News Service (August 10, 2000)