Conversation so far:
Did Dimitri Tiomkin win any awards for High Noon?
The film received seven Academy Award nominations and won four awards, including two for Tiomkin: Best Original Music and Best Song.
who directed the film?
Fred Zinnemann.
what was the name of the song he won the Best Song award for?
"Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin'" ("The Ballad of High Noon").
did he work with that director again?
The composer worked again for Zinnemann on The Sundowners (1960).
Was High Noon the only western he scored?
Tiomkin won two more Oscars in subsequent years: for The High and the Mighty (1954), directed by William A.
Wellman, and featuring John Wayne.
Did he work on any other John Wayne movies?
CANNOTANSWER.
Did anything significant happen at this time of his life?
According to film historian Arthur R.
Jarvis, Jr., the score "has been credited with saving the movie..

Question: how did the score save the movie?
Self-contained rewrite: how did the score save the movie The High and the Mighty?