Inferno nel deserto

Veteran Hollywood cameraman Charles B. Lang peaked early in the Oscar stakes by winning his only statuette for the 1932 version of 'A Farewell to Arms'.

Twenty years before his magnificent desert photography on 'One-Eyed Jacks' lost to 'West Side Story', Lang's incredible cloudscapes (when at least he was up against 'Citizen Kane'!) for 'Sundown' (set in Kenya when it was in British East Africa but shot in Arizona and New Mexico) lost out to 'How Green Was My Valley' (set in Wales but shot in California).

So much for the Academy Awards...

"Sundown" (1941): Starring Bruce Cabot, George Sanders, and… here's why I like this movie in the "guilty pleasure" category: it also stars Gene Tierney, the most beautiful woman of the 1940's. (THEN come Dorothy Lamour, Rita Hayworth, Veronica Lake, and others…) The video box reads: "A jungle woman…" (Tierney): well, there is NO JUNGLE or JUNGLE WOMAN in this movie, "…helps the British in defeating the attempts of the Nazis…" (there are NO Nazis in this movie), "…to take over and occupy the jungle!" (There is NO JUNGLE!). So, OTHER THAN THAT load of crap, there IS a DESERT, there is WWII for the British (not the U.S. yet), and there IS Pinup-olicious Gene Tierney. Another odd piece of junk is that "the main bad guy" is Dutch. IF you know anything about that war, the Dutch were Allies, folks, ALLIES. You know, hiding Ann Frank, etc.? Some of the photography is good, acting is average at best (and awful at times – watch the actor's eyes (who plays the "bad guy") as he reads his lines left to right, left to right, left to right. Whatta shmo. If you've ever wondered what Gene Tierney's belly button looked like, THIS is your chance. She also has a nice, statuesque walk. Guilty pleasures arise and be proud!

I found SUNDOWN to be an enjoyable film. It seems sort of a cross between a jungle flick and a World War II espionage thriller, a kind of a TARZAN VRS THE NAZI'S. The story involves the British trying to prevent the Germans from secretly supplying the native Africans with weapons for a rebellion. Plenty of action and political incorrectness, plus Gene Tierney's ever so sexy overbite. Simply a must for Bruce Cabot fans everywhere.

This old-fashioned desert adventure set during WWII features a very good cast (Gene Tierney, Bruce Cabot, George Sanders, Joseph Calleia, Harry Carey, Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Reginald Gardiner, Marc Lawrence, Gilbert Emery) and solid production values but is not particularly distinguished or even memorable. Even so, the film did manage to earn 3 Academy Award nominations for Alexander Golitzen's art direction, Charles Lang's cinematography and Miklos Rosza's music.

While Tierney is the film's nominal star, she actually doesn't have that much of a role playing a native girl who goes to work as an agent for the British against the Germans. Hardwicke, then, only appears at the very end, as a pastor delivering a stirring sermon in a dilapidated church which prefigures Henry Wilcoxon's similar role in William Wyler's MRS. MINIVER (1942). Harry Carey, too, is not given much to do but Marc Lawrence makes for a menacing treacherous native and Cabot and Sanders are their usual reliable selves in competing for the attentions of Ms. Tierney. Surprisingly, however - or perhaps not, having previously wooed Mae West in MY LITTLE CHICKADEE (1940) - it's our very own Joseph Calleia (playing an Italian P.O.W. who acts as cook to his captors and is given to hollering operatic arias every once in a while - Calleia had, in fact, been a professional opera singer before moving to Hollywood) who is Tierney's confidante. Being Maltese, I have to say that it was a joy for me to watch him in the company of such an alluring star, not to mention playing against one of my favorite character actors George Sanders. Intriguingly, the IMDb states that Dorothy Dandridge (as a teenage native about to be forced to marry a wealthy older man), Rory Calhoun, Woody Strode and even future Cult Italian director Riccardo Freda make an appearance in this one but, apart from Dandridge, I didn't catch them!

Despite Henry Hathaway's reputation as one of Hollywood's top action directors - having made, among others, the seminal THE LIVES OF A BENGAL LANCER (1935) - here he is let down by a second-rate script (courtesy of Barre' Lyndon and Charles G. Booth) which is ultimately just a rehash of GUNGA DIN (1939) and updated to the WWII era. A competent escapist adventure and time-waster, then, but regrettably enough given the talent at hand, nothing more...

On the wall of my foyer hangs a framed issue of "Life" magazine dated November 10, 1941. Its front cover features a B&W photo of an impossibly beautiful, 21-year-old Gene Tierney from her new motion picture, "Sundown." Well, needless to say, I have wanted to see this film for years, but every time it pops up on one of the local PBS stations here in NYC late at night, it always seems to be in a lousy-looking 16mm print. Thank goodness I waited for this supremely crisp-looking DVD to be released! "Sundown" turns out to be a pretty well done WW2 action movie, dealing with an English outpost in Kenya, those nasty Nazis supplying guns to the natives, and a young caravan trader (Tierney) who helps the Brits out. And what a cast we have here: Bruce Cabot, George Sanders, Harry Carey and Cedric Hardwicke are their usual fine selves, and (sneeze and you'll miss 'em) Woody Strode and Dorothy Dandridge add interesting support. But it is top-billed Tierney, here in her 5th film, who steals the show. Decked out in harem girl attire for most of the picture, she really is something to behold. In her 1979 autobiography "Self-Portrait," Tierney reveals that "Sundown"''s authentic-looking locales were actually filmed at Ship Rock Hill, New Mexico, and that she couldn't stand the hot weather and the reek of camels during the shoot. She also tells us that one of the camels tried to nip her on the derriere. Finally...a camel after my own heart!