Automatic modulation recognition (AMR) of radar signals plays a critical role in electronic reconnaissance. Current AMR algorithms are mainly based on convolutional neural networks (CNN), which can learn the feature hierarchy by establishing high-level features from low-level features. However, for time–frequency analysis-based methods, distinct low-level features in the time–frequency spectrum can already reflect modulation characteristics. Thus, this study develops a novel approach based on low-level shape descriptors via histograms of oriented gradients (HOG) and support vector machine (SVM). Comparison studies with classic CNN-based methods have also been done to reveal the superiority of the designed approach. Experimental results demonstrate that the HOG-SVM approach has a more efficient performance. To further enhance the classification precision under low signal-to-noise ratios, an improved principal component analysis denoising algorithm is developed to improve signal quality under intense noise background. Experiments based on simulated and measured signals demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can accurately distinguish signals under intense noise environments.