Director Kenneth Branaugh’s introspective film on his childhood, Belfast, includes two scenes from High Noon (1952) and subsequently uses the film’s title song, “Do Not Forsake Me,” sung by Tex Ritter several times.

Dimitri Tiomkin received Academy Awards for both the Song and Music score for High Noon.

After seeing the film at the Telluride Film Festival, film critic Stephen Farber wrote, “I could have done without the repeated use of the Dimitri Tiomkin theme from High Noon (playing on television) to draw a dubious parallel to the showdown on the streets of Belfast.”

The movie struck a different chord with critic Philip Martin who had an “eerie moment” when Tex Ritter started singing, “Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darling.” “It was a song my father used to sing. One of very few.” Martin believes the song fits the context of the movie.

“The Ballad of High Noon” was named song of the week by the blogger, The Great Oscar Baiter, who after seeing Belfast wrote, “But one aspect of the film I don’t see a lot of people mention is the way it incorporates footage from other films-most notably Fred Zinnemann’s High Noon, using not only a scene from the movie itself but scoring two pivotal scenes with the film’s theme song, the aptly-named (and Oscar-winning) “The Ballad of High Noon.”

Belfast has been nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture. The Academy Awards will take place on Sunday, March 27, airing on ABC live from the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

READ: 60th anniversary of Tiomkin’s famous Academy Awards acceptance speech, March 30, 2015

Sources

“‘Belfast’: Film Review | Telluride 2021,” by Stephen Farber, Hollywood Reporter, September 4, 2021

“Opinion | Philip Martin: Memory on Screen,” by Philip Martin, www.nwaonline.com, November 28, 2021

“Song of the Week #6: “The Ballad of High Noon,” thegreatoscarbaiters.com, November 29, 2021