Que vienne la nuit

If Otto Preminger's "Hurry Sundown" is guilty of anything, it's biting off more than it can chew. With a 146 minute running time, a clutter of stars and characters, and what seems like a jumble of conflicting themes, "Hurry Sundown" has been seen by many critics as opportunistic rabble-rousing, overtly melodramatic and clunky. But if you look past Preminger's drive to get attention and Michael Caine's questionable southern accent, you may find a wholly entertaining film or failing that, a period piece that encapsulates the feelings of its maker/s at a time when such issues as racism ran rampant.

When a cannery looks to buy large plots of uncultivated farmland, local big cheese Henry Warren (Michael Caine) enthusiastically becomes partners to the plan selling his wife Julie's (Jane Fonda) family's land at a profit. However, to make the deal he must convince his cousin Rad (John Phillip Law) and his wife's old mammy Rose (Beah Richards) to sell their plots as well. When Rose dies of a heart attack, her son Reeve (Robert Hooks) becomes landowner but is then sued for ownership by Henry. Reeve and Rad must then work together to fight battles both real and legal to keep their homes from being destroyed.

The lack of tact in this film is stupefyingly brilliant. With the bluntness of TNT, "Hurry Sundown" creates not characters but caricatures. George Kennedy makes an appearance as a bumbling Sheriff, Burgess Meredith as a bigoted judge and Madeleine Sherwood as the saintly teacher who eggs Reeves on. All you need is a snooty butler and a buxom blonde bimbo and you got yourself a stock character Christmas. Still it's in their simplicity that you find the true virtue of the film. Their is no nuance in racism, nor is their any when you're exploiting friends and family like Henry does. The good guys are good, the bad guys are bad, their is no in-between and for better or worse, Preminger seems to feel very strongly about that fact.

Racism is the primary theme and focus of "Hurry Sundown" but it is by no means the only theme, nor the only controversy during release. sexuality and fidelity have their time in the sun as well. Rad and his wife Lou (Faye Dunaway) enjoy a healthy sex life while Henry and Julie sexually frustrate each other to the point of violence. Preminger really does seem to take delight in toying with the emotions of his characters (as well as taking suggestive camera shots), as shown when Fonda attempts to seduce Henry with his own saxophone. In addition, family relationships, greed, corruption, religion are also expanded on, creating a solid if hyperbolic worldview. Like a splatter painting its messy yet colorful.

All in all, "Hurry Sundown" has the pulpy sensationalism you can expect from an Otto Preminger production. His passion for the material shines through even when the story strays into melodrama. While filming in Louisiana, locals attempted to sabotage filming to the point of sniping a convoy of cast and crew members. It reminds me of an adage I once heard; "If they're shooting at you, you're doing something right."

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I get the impression that most of the comments here are more influenced by the entry in "The 50 Worst Films of All Time" than by the film "Hurry Sundown" itself. Personally I don't give much credit to that book since I consider Michael Medved to be one of the four or five worst film reviewers of all time.

"Hurry Sundown" has been pretty much out of circulation in recent years. I shudder to think how network censors would have butchered it when it was broadcast on TV; anyone who saw it that way saw a different movie. It is now finally available on a good widescreen DVD and also on Amazon and Netflix streaming. I had been wanting to see it for a long time, if for no other reason than it being one of the handful of mainstream Hollywood films to earn a "condemned" rating from the Catholic Legion of Decency.

It wasn't nearly as bad as I expected; in fact I thought it was pretty good. It held my unflagging interest for its almost two-and-a-half hour running time, which is an accomplishment in itself; the worst thing a movie can be is boring. Not a great film, but an entertaining piece of Southern Gothic.

I couldn't get that upset at the casting of Michael Caine. I've certainly heard worse southern accents in movies. How about "Gone with the Wind" in which two of the four leads were played by Brits (and neither Leslie Howard nor Clark Gable even tried to sound southern)? Caine looked and sounded tentative in the opening helicopter scene (maybe that was the first scene filmed) but got more comfortable with the part as it went along. In many ways, Caine fit the role perfectly, since his character was a self-absorbed philanderer just like "Alfie."

People have scoffed at Burgess Meredith's racist judge, but let's face it, folks – people like that really existed in the South back then (and maybe still do; is that Arizona sheriff much different?). Was Meredith's portrayal much more over-the-top than Ed Begley's in "Sweet Bird of Youth", which won an Oscar? I got the impression that Meredith might have been basing his character on George Wallace (the pre-1968 version), and he wouldn't have been far off.

As for the poor having better sex than the rich, well that's one of those clichés that just might have a bit of truth in it, especially when the poor girl is Faye Dunaway.

Were the black characters over-idealized? Perhaps, but that is the way Hollywood handled race issues back in the civil rights era. See, for example, pretty much anything starring Sidney Poitier. I don't remember anyone trying to make a film of William Faulkner's "Light in August," in which the central character is a mixed-race psychopath.

"Hurry Sundown" is a good choice when you want a nice juicy wallow in southern decadence. The color photography is pretty good, as is the musical score by Hugo Montenegro.

Lousy Otto Preminger film from K. B. Gilden's bestseller (adapted by Thomas C. Ryan and, of all people, Horton Foote!) concerns a greedy white land-owner in Georgia planning to dupe his wife's black guardian and her sharecropper husband out of their real estate, setting off a race war. Everyone is here, from Faye Dunaway to Brady dad Robert Reed, but the script is such a mess--and Preminger is so ham-handed--that nobody survives "Sundown" without looking foolish. Jane Fonda flirts with husband Michael Caine using his saxophone (!) while Beah Richards pantomimes a heart attack as if this were a stage-play. Preminger goes out of his way to make the rich whites despicable and the black folk saintly and reasonable--so much so that the picture might have started its own race war in 1967 (probably the exact type of controversy the director wanted). It certainly gave work to many underemployed, sensational actors like Madeleine Sherwood, Diahann Carroll, Rex Ingram and Jim Backus, but results are laughable. *1/2 from ****

I'm really not understanding why folks are so down on this film. Hurry Sundown is far from the masterpiece of Otto Preminger's career. But he did assemble a good cast who as an ensemble do quite well in their roles.

Michael Caine and John Philip Law are cousins. Caine used to work on a shrimp boat but married into southern gentry when he wed Jane Fonda. He's now trying to be a big shot businessman putting together parcels of land. Only two won't sell out Law and black neighbor Robert Hooks.

Law has just returned from World War 2 to wife Faye Dunaway and their kids. The war has taken him away from the south and given him an itch to wonder. He might sell, but Caine relies too much on the blood connection and approaches him all wrong.

Law does the unheard of thing in the post World War 2 south, he partners with Hooks and they dig some needed irrigation ditches using explosives.

That sets off all that follows because law and with some trepidation goes into a partnership with a black man. Something that just wasn't done in Georgia of 1946.

Both Fonda and Dunaway are ravishing and both are coming into their own as name players. Caine follows in the tradition of British actors playing southerners that seems to have started with Leslie Howard and Gone With The Wind. Law is the key character in this drama, it's his decisions are what turn the plot and he runs a good range of emotions doing it.

Hurry Sundown is not a bad picture of the south just before the civil rights revolution. Believe me pay no attentions to the bad reviews.

I won't argue with someone who says, "I hated this film". Clearly many people (including film critics) did. But, I disagree with those who say the acting performances were bad-----they were spot on. I disagree with those who say the "trashy" racist characters were over-the-top caricatures-----you haven't met some of my relatives. And, I disagree with those who say that real people never act like these characters do-----pick up a newspaper sometime, either 1950 or 2011. Yes, parts of the movie made me squirm and want to look away-----because the scenes were TOO real and heartbreaking. I, for one, do NOT want racism, past or present, swept under the rug. Show its ugliness. Make people squirm. Hollywood would never make "Hurry Sundown" today, because it is "politically incorrect". The film says our parents, children, neighbors, law enforcement officers, and politicians could be capable of violent racism. Really! No! Surely only in the movies!