High Noon's Oedipal conflict

I hadn't thought about this, and I don't know if it's an original thought, but High Noon was really Freudian. Gary Cooper is a pretty obvious father figure and he's in an Oedipal conflict with Lloyd Bridges who wants to take over as marshal when Cooper leaves. Bridges takes it way too personally that he's not getting the position and Cooper would literally rather die than just let him have the stupid job.

Not only does Bridges want to replace Cooper as marshal, he's also hanging around Cooper's ex-girlfriend, Helen Ramirez (Katy Jurado). Cooper himself is on good terms with Ramirez, but he marries Grace Kelly who is less than half his age. Kelly's character obviously has a Electra complex in a disguised form.

There was other inter-generational stuff. Gary Cooper goes to his predecessor in the job (Lon Chaney, Jr, who was five years younger than Cooper) for help. He tells Cooper he's too old. Then a local eighth grader (Ralph Reed) who's big for his age offers to help.

I wrote about this before, but Shane was made the next year and took it way further.

In the opening scene, the father, Van Heflin, threatens Shane (Alan Ladd) by waving around an unloaded rifle that doesn't work anymore. Pretty obvious symbolism there. They had given the gun to the kid to play with. 

Shane moves in with the family. The wife (Jean Arthur) falls in love with him, the son (Brandon de Wilde) idolizes him and, in the end, Van Heflin announces that he's going to town and will intentionally get himself killed so that Shane can sleep with his wife.