The Sun Shines Bright

'The Sun Shines Bright' is my all-time favourite movie and, though it is now more than 50 years old, there is not one better that has been made since. I first saw it on BBC TV way back and, having taped it for my own use, I never tire of it. The plot, based on stories by Irvin S. Cobb, is beautifully acted out, especially by Charles Winninger as Judge Billy Priest. The evolving drama is most moving. The post-Civil War period setting and atmosphere are perfectly caught by the greatest of all movie directors, John Ford, and the 'moral' (an apparently out-dated word, but still as relevant today as in the 1950s when the movie was made) of this splendid entertainment is still worth marking, learning and inwardly digesting. If Kentucky is still as it is pictured, even if in black-and-white, may I please move there right now?!

It is a lovely film to watch. Archie Stout one of fords favorite cameraman, shot it. The last scene where Judge Priest is seen in the doorway echos the last scene in the Searchers. It is a film about loyalty, honor and redemption. But there are scenes where the black people of the town are shown to be childlike, and in awe of their white leaders. This marks the film as a product of a time long past. Some of the scenes of the black people are demeaning. But over all, Judge Preists sense of honor, his fairness to all, his sense of decency looms over the film. Ford makes Judge Priest (played by Charles Winninger in his best role) a heroic figure. But a figure that is isolated even in a crowd. A former bugler he is left to carry on the codes of honor and fairness that the old south thought it contained. People vote for him, return him to office year after year, yet he goes into his home alone. He is man out of his time. A man of the community but set apart from it by his strict adherence to his code. Some of the acting in the film is over acting. But the last fifteen minutes are lovely to watch.

It would be nice to be able to discuss this film without having to refer to its politically incorrect depiction of blacks, but it's impossible to do so. The film, which is a remake of director John Ford's own Judge Priest from the 30s (in which Will Rogers played the title role), must have seemed curiously dated even when it was released, and feels like it was made in the early forties rather than the mid-fifties. Whether that's because of its outdated attitude towards blacks and the presence of slow, scratchy-voiced Stepin Fetchit is open to conjecture – it could just be that the fog of nostalgia that hangs over the entire work is the reason.

Charles Winninger makes an amiable old judge whose quiet wisdom puts to shame the hypocritically puritanical attitudes of his small town's people and the racist assumptions of an unruly lynch mob out to hang a blameless teenage Negro. The storyline is kind of meandering, reflecting the apparently relaxed pace of life in the turn of the century Deep South, and you do really get a taste of Southern gentility – whether accurate not. Its various sub-plots are linked together by the judge's bid for re-election, which serves to emphasise the importance of standing by one's principles no matter what the possible personal costs may be. Of course, the truth is Billy Priest is too good to be true, but I don't think anyone was out to make him a more realistic figure in this milieu than Santa Claus or God would have been.

John Ford's notorious sentimentality is in danger of becoming cloying at times, but he just about manages to rein it in at key moments. The film says as much about Hollywood's take on American social attitudes in the mid-50s as it does about the same in the Deep South at the turn of the century, which isn't in itself a bad thing. I suppose it's even possible that one day films like this will be shown in classrooms to demonstrate the gigantic positive strides made in the cause of racial equality in the latter half of the 20th Century. Better that than they are wilfully ignored in the name of political correctness.

John Ford had a fondness for The Sun Shines Bright. It's a beautiful tale of an honorable old man who even while facing a tough re-election for town judge refuses to be a hypocrite or play up to a lot of his town's hypocrites.

The film was done before as Judge Priest with Will Rogers in the title role. As good as The Sun Shines Bright is, it would have been even better had John Ford not chosen to use Stepin Fetchit in the same part he had in the original film. Stepin Fetchit is, well Stepin Fetchit. Funny thing is that a whole lot of black players are used in this film and their roles are not as stereotypical as his is.

Charles Winninger is every bit as good as Will Rogers in the lead. If you can imagine Captain Andy from Show Boat had he taken up the law instead of show business, you get some idea of what Judge William Pittman Priest is all about. Justice is blind in his courtroom, but it isn't deaf and dumb also. In Winninger's life as well as his courtroom.

He's up for re-election in his small Kentucky county and he's got a hard fighting opponent in prosecutor Milburn Stone. Priest is a proud Confederate veteran, but he's not above saving an innocent black kid from a lynch mob.

Nor is he above a little Christian charity when it comes to seeing a fallen woman who just came to town to see her daughter before she died given a proper funeral service. When no accredited minister will do the service, Winninger fills in at the pulpit and has some choice words taken from the parable about the woman caught in sin.

My favorite scene in The Sun Shines Bright is the funeral procession for the same woman. Winninger is the head of the local United Confederate Veterans and Henry O'Neill is the head of the local Grand Army of the Republic chapter. They are friends and friendly rivals. Yet on that day Republican O'Neill and Democrat Winninger both lead the funeral procession. Too bad our Republicans and Democrats of today can't agree on some common values.

How does this impact on Winninger's election? You'll have to watch the beautiful and poetic The Sun Shines Bright to find out.

One of the odd aspects of this film is the post Civil War background that looms large to a greater or lesser degree throughout. This takes the form of a blatantly obvious pro Confederate stance, and an almost religious idolatry of 'Dixie'. Halliwell tells us that Judge Priest, the moral heart of the film, "has trouble quelling the Confederate spirit" - but the opposite is the case - the judge is absolutely central to maintaining and celebrating that spirit. The oddness comes because, it seems to me at least, we are not used to seeing such a character defending black rights, preventing a lynching, etc. Even more peculiar is to see such a 'happy' black population - particularly the quite disturbing courthouse scene where 2 black characters suddenly burst into a grotesque song and dance routine. "Mississippi Burning" this certainly isn't! But certainly a film worth watching, and the prostitute's daughter's funeral scene is excellently done. It somehow feels older than 1953.