High Noon maker Stanley Kramer dead

The death has been announced in Los Angeles of the film-maker Stanley Kramer.

He was eighty-seven, and had been suffering from pneumonia.

Kramer is best known for the classic western, High Noon, in which a sheriff prepares to confront an evil gang, even though his friends among the townspeople abandon him one by one.

But Kramer also made many other films dealing with enduring political and social issues -- including Guess Who's Coming To Dinner -- about a liberal white couple whose daughter brings home a black fiance.

His films drew eighty Oscar nominations and sixteen awards -- though none for best film.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service