Tres vidas errantes

Desptite the "struggles over accents", the dramaturgy went along well and the stringing together of the events in the lives of the Carmody family kept me watching and enjoying what came along. The sheep shearing was believable, and Mitchum's exhaustion was realistic and was genuine.

Debora Kerr's wife was what I, as a male, sympathized with. Tis is not comparable to "Thousand Mile Fence"having to do with Aboriginal experiences. In a way it is a mirror of it in those who had taken over the land in their struggles to survive. My wife and I were there a few years ago, on the east coast, the barrier reef from Kairns down to Sydney, never getting to the outback, so after that we watched every Australian film we could.

Being an Aussie I was pretty annoyed at some of the reviews in here by Australians. I think you have to be of a certain vintage to appreciate the life of the Australian drover. This was an occupation of former days. Both my grandfathers did it. Not with their families but they took to the road when they needed the work. A nomadic life is what many Australians had to endure as unlike what most people might think, Australians were mostly a poor lot of people with simple comforts. I do believe that Fred Zimmerman has done a brilliant job in capturing a moment in time with the Carmody family. This is my favorite Robert Mitchum movie. His accent was great. The best I have ever heard for an American. Very believable is his character. Deborah Kerr is like many women I once knew. She was also brilliant. I love looking at the scenery to see the beautiful countryside near where I live before it became fenced off with barbed wire everywhere. Great movie, definitely worth watching.

Frequently slow, solemn and simplistic, the films of Fred Zinneman are the work of a director who appears to have equated artistry with neatness, objectivity with aloofness, and significance with decorative, humorless reverence…

"The Sundowners" was perhaps the best 'Australian' film made up to that time, and was, incidentally, a perceptive study of a marriage: Deborah Kerr was the wife who wanted to settle down, and Robert Mitchum the husband who didn't… It reveals much about their life-style and the land in which they live… Their good teenaged son Sean (Michael Anderson Jr.) explains the meaning of a sundowner as someone whose home is wherever he happens to be when the sun goes down…

So Paddy (Mitchum) and Ida (Kerr) are a warm and well-adjusted couple with one grown son, except for one argument—the struggle between his love of being a wanderer and her fundamental desire for the stability of a home… Paddy was a man who couldn't settle in one place… For him, most places were fit only for arrivals and departures…

The film—which constantly endeavored to show the Australian woman's compassion for the problems of women in a big male society—is also a happy celebration with other notable participants being Glynis Johns as an awfully pleasant barmaid-innkeeper who loves men's company and knows how to deal with them; Peter Ustinov as an educated but slightly mysterious Englishman, a likable drifter, a kind of an elderly turtle who wears a nautical cap, with wealth of experience, but not much of a mind to make use of it…This turtle signs on as a drover with Paddy, apparently not so much for a job but for something to pass the time…

Outstanding is a scene in which Ida, as a woman with no makeup, sitting on the wagon, spots in the window of a stationary train a well-dressed woman who obviously has all the things she doesn't... They look at each other for an instance as the rich woman applies powder to her face… Ida gently lifts her fingers over her cheeks… They stare at each other and we rapidly notice Ida's thoughts…

"The Sundowners" is one of the very best of Mitchum's films… In the pub sequence, he is at his best when he sings "Botany Bay" and "Lime Juice Tub."

Deborah Kerr gave the role both a touch of delicacy and a touch of sensuality… She wins, for her impressive performance, her sixth and last Oscar nomination…

The motion picture, splendidly photographed in Technicolor and with a nice atmospheric music, contains fires in the dry forests, shearing contests, fist-fights, the Aussie's love of beer, a game of two-up, a big race meeting, much of the beautiful Australian landscape and the life on sheep farming stations

A great old fashion film , defined by inspired acting and admirable locations, by smart crafted story and about small things, defining Australians simple people - and not only - in essential traits of life.

A film wise for the honest portrait of a reality easy to be recognized, in a form or other, by large audience.

Maybe, this is the basic virtue of The Sundowners - proposing the truths defining each character, truths reflected by ordinary situations, by hard work, dreams, projects, a money jar and an Englishman living as a tortue in Australia.

Splendid portrait of determined Ida offered by great Deborrah Kerr .

In short, just a great movie.

Anyone who enjoys the tales of the pioneers' trials to carve a nation out of the wilderness will enjoy the The Sundowners. The cast as would be expected is superb. It's a treat to see quintessential American tough-guy-with-a-soft-spot Robert Mitchum, one of my all-time favorite actors, pull of an Aussie accent. Deborah Kerr as the long-suffering but loyal wife and devoted mother is also worthy of high praise. Peter Ustinov and his English accent provide great comic relief. All in all, very good entertainment and insight into a lifestyle not familiar to the general American public, 7/10.