tieman64
Otto Preminger followed the remarkable "Bunny Lake is Missing" (1965) with the ridiculous "Hurry Sundown" (1967), a Tennessee Williamsesque drama in which wealthy landowners conspire to scam poor farmers of their land.Elia Kazan directed "Wild River" in 1960, a somewhat sophisticated look at class, race and property in the American South. "Sundown" aims to do something similar, but the result is overblown, condescending and dull. Filled with unnecessary subplots, and marred by a shapeless script, tasteless sexual innuendos and bad casting (actor Michael Caine's American accent is atrocious), the film was based on a novel by K. B. Gilden. This novel was widely ridiculed, but Preminger was determined to turn it into gold. With this aim he hired screenwriter Horton Foote, who'd scripted "To Kill a Mockingbird" some years earlier. No luck. Both Foote and Preminger would later admit to have been dissatisfied with the film's ultimate screenplay."Hurry Sundown" stars Jane Fonda as a wealthy Southern woman and Burgess Meredith as a mean, racist judge. Knowingly melodramatic, both seem to be the only actors in Preminger's production to understand the tone required of such material. Whilst everyone bathes in sanctimony, Fonda and Burgess embrace trash.5/10 – Worth one viewing.
rixrex
I saw this film when very young back in the 70s, and didn't remember much about it except that it had some sort of big problem. Saw it again recently, and realized what the problem was right at the end of the film.Other than being quite melodramatic with many caricatures, Michael Caine with a southern accent, uneven and moving between seriousness and lampooning, I realized the ending was really miserable.All the other things could be forgiven since the film does capture a viewer's interest, but the ending is such that it seems about 20 or 30 minutes of film was left on the cutting room floor. We have a tragic incident where a white farmer's son is killed in an ill-planned blasting by a KKK styled group of men, and barely a minute after he is set out on a neighbors table, the father is back outside promising to rebuild with no sense of anyone grieving.Then a couple more minutes pass, and he and his black neighbors are marching to his property with tools and implements, pushing past the Sheriff, to put the farm back into order, with no resolution or prosecution of those responsible for killing the child. It's as if a whole sequence is missing, meaning the boy's funeral, an investigation and the capture of the main character who caused the death, or at least that he has some sort of retribution for his murderous act. It just seems like the editors were told by the producers to make cuts because the film was already too long.Besides this weird and unsettling rushed ending, the whole setup of the film seems much more like the 1960s when it was filmed rather than the 1940s when it supposedly took place. Had it been about a Vietnam Vet returning home and fighting against a corrupt and bigoted system, rather than a WW2 Vet, it would have been more believable. Even some of the attitudes and clothing, and soundtrack seem more 1960s, when it was filmed, than 1940s. Indeed the battle against racial inequality as presented here is more believable as a 1960s attitude, as it seems more modern than the attitudes of the 1940s.Other than these two problems, the film is a fairly mediocre but entertaining melodrama, with capital M.
jjnxn-1
This mint julep melodrama is a hooty delight. I suppose that at the time it was meant to shine a light on racial injustice in the south but it just comes off as an over-baked soap opera. Preminger was the wrong director for such a piece of honeyed excess, this is the type of thing at which Douglas Sirk excelled and could make trenchant observations while still entertaining the masses. Still worth watching for the cast alone. Jane Fonda gives the most enjoyable performance even if her honeychile accent comes and goes. And even as a sharecropper's wife with four kids Faye Dunaway manages to look ravishing. If you like overdone melodramas with lots of stars and little sense than this is for you, if not stay away!
JasparLamarCrabb
Otto Preminger really missteps with this half-hearted expose of racism in the US south shortly after the end of WWII. It's really about a money hungry land grabbing scheme and quite a bit less about racism than one would think. Michael Caine (sporting the worst southern accent imaginable) is married to wealthy Jane Fonda and wants to sell her land (and two adjacent lots) to a developer. He's stopped by farmers John Phillip Law & Robert Hooks. Despite the inflammatory issues that are raised, Preminger pulls his punches and instead of making anything as socially relevant as IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT, he makes a glossy soap opera with one caricature after another paraded out. Law and Hooks are the noble poor, Caine is nearly psychotic, Burgess Meredith (as a bigoted judge) is a complete travesty and Madeline Sherwood (as his social climbing wife) comes across as community theater version of Big Mama. Dismal in the extreme and featuring what may very well be the least erotic seduction scene ever filmed (Fonda "plays" Caine's saxophone in hopes of luring him into bed). Blech! The typically large Preminger cast includes Faye Dunaway, Diahann Carroll, George Kennedy, Robert Reed, and Jim Backus.
AD
