The Sun Sets at Dawn

"The Sun Sets at Dawn" is a B-movie. Back in the 1930s-50s, B-movies were meant as a cheap second film in a double-feature. Because they were made quickly and inexpensively, they usually clocked in at about 55-70 minutes, had mostly unknown actors and are often today thought of as bad films. Well, the last part is definitely not true--as some B- movies manage to convey an excellent story and are quite entertaining. This is definitely the case with "The Sun Sets at Dawn", as it's extremely effective and entertaining--even without the frills of an A- picture.

When the film begins, the state is about to execute a young man. He's been convicted of murder and still insists he's not guilty. This much isn't unusual--but what is unusual is that everyone that seems to meet him and his girlfriend believes this as well. But the governor won't stop the scheduled death and it looks pretty hopeless. Can something manage to stop this possible miscarriage of justice?

The movie excels in many ways. The performances are awfully good, the writing quite nice as well (though some today might find some of it a bit heavy-handed) and the story really makes you think twice about the morality of the death penalty--especially in cases where it was never 100% proved that the condemned is actually guilty. Well made and worth seeing.

Incidentally, somehow this film slipped into the public domain and is available for a free download at archive.org.

If there's an object lesson in the gap between expectation and reality, The Sun Sets At Dawn may be it. A product of the Holiday Pictures division of Eagle-Lion Films (which is sort of like saying Starvation Alley off Poverty Row), and the work of a director, Paul Sloane, whose career began in the First World War and who hadn't worked for 11 years (and who had one more – Japanese – movie left in him), it doesn't inspire much confidence. But it has an imaginative narrative structure and a mood and, so much as its pitiful resources would allow, even something of a look.

Patrick Waltz (here billed as Philip Shawn) is a young man awaiting execution on death row. Though of course he protests his innocence, there's not much news there. But it so happens that he'll be the first consumer of the anonymous state's newly-installed electric chair (replacing the old-fashioned, and possibly more humane, garrotte). This shift of lethal mediums has the warden and the executioner and the staff all a-twitter, leaving them little time or empathy for the human side of the story – which also involves the condemned man's girlfriend (Sally Parr), who has been brought to the prison but whom he refuses to see.

The newfangled hot seat has drawn a large cadre of newspaper reporters (Percy Helton is but one of the many noir stalwarts among them), gathered at Pops' Place. This is a last-ditch bus depot/greasy spoon/post office/truck stop and motel out in the sticks, where they wait for a jitney to transport them to the prison. And here's where the movie takes its most arresting turn. In dialogue that might almost have been lifted from a Eugene O'Neill reject, the ink-stained wretches start reminiscing and speculating, cumulatively telling the story of the convict whose death they're shortly to witness – and other stories which start to intersect with it.

The plot moves slowly, as piece after piece drops into place. Sloane (who also wrote the script) intercuts between the terrified young man awaiting his quietus and these old hacks who think they've seen it all (they haven't). Meanwhile, a trusty from the prison comes to collect the mail, and spots a wanted poster on the bulletin board which sets him to thinking, too....

Basically, The Sun Sets At Dawn remains little more than another death-row beat-the-clock thriller. The plot, which accommodates more than a twist or two in a 71-minute running time, is admittedly contrived, but Sloane has the decency (and wit) to justify his every contrivance. And even if its turnings leave you unimpressed, you'll have to admit that the movie's dialogue-free opening, at night at Pops' Place, is as bleak and transfixing as just about anything in the noir cycle (shoestring-budget division). The Sun Sets At Dawn proves itself a keeper, and a fitting memorial to the unsung Sloane.

The direction of this 1950 movie I found unrelieved by excessive mawkishness, gloom and melodrama.Like a piece of music all written in a minor key or a picture painted in dark forbidding colours with no light patches.The low budget film studio could not afford to pay famous star actor/director fees to bring in the punters so had to produce and cast the film on poverty row.I suspected as such when I did not recognise one star name in the opening credits.

The danger of executing someone wrongly convicted of murder when the sentence cannot be revoked after capital punishment is ever present in a society which uses this form of justice and which evolves over time.Up until 1965 we had capital punishment in our country and although MP's are given a free vote, since then, the restoration of capital punishment has been debated but never reintroduced.This is how Ian Brady & Myra Hindley (the moor murderers) escaped the gallows.The national feeling of this case was so intense, successive Home Secretaries maintained life sentences on these two criminals until they died of natural causes.

To illustrate how bad the direction was, in "The Sun Sets at Dawn" the set had the condemned and cast members all apparently walking through the Warden's private office, almost like a t.v. black comedy with the electrical process continually not working; when in reality such people would have been kept apart until a more appropriate moment.Adequate 5/10.

Time seems to stand still in this sluggish suspense snorer that could use some juice from the old sparky awaiting to fry the wrong man in The Sun Sets at Dawn. Even at a slim 71 minutes it still manages to grind interminably along as it trudges from one doom and gloom scene to the next.

It looks like Bill is about to be executed for a murder he did not commit. His girl, the warden, a priest know better and suffer along with him as the hours count down. At the bus depot down the road cynical reporters assemble with guards from the prison having supper, a prison trustee and as luck would have it the real killer making himself conspicuous. While the reporters unravel the case through speculation the trustee tries to get the the guards attention about the convenient presence of the killer but they'll have none of it - neither should the audience.

Dawn auteur Paul Sloane's first casualty is credulity with its ridiculous staging and premise. The dialog is trite with the tortured scenes between Bill and the priest cloying and stilted. The "Front Page" press box lacks the snappy patter and is strictly second string though it does offer up the best of what can be found in Sloane's disagreeable montage stew.

Okay I'm a big sap but I liked this!

A young man (Patrick Waltz) awaits his execution, the first in the state to use the electric chair, even as he proclaims his innocence. A Chaplain (Walter Reed) prays with him and attempts to help him meet his fate.

Meanwhile his girlfriend (Sally Parr) is inconsolable as they ready the chair, which isn't working correctly yet.

At a bar/roadhouse a mile away, reporters wait for a bus to take them to the execution; they are told the bus will be late. They play cards and talk, one noticing an old wanted poster on the wall, that of a murderous dead convict famous for emptying his gun into a victim, similar to what the young man did.

I'm not born again or anything like that but I loved the spiritual messages the Chaplain imparts, and how he tries to convince him that he didn't live in vain.

The director, Paul Sloane, was a silent film director who assembled former silent actors (Houseley Stevenson, Charles Meredith, Percy Helton) for the production. This actually comes off as a silent film the way it was done.

As one of the reporters, King Donovan was delightful, very relaxed and natural. Helton's distinctive voice was instantly recognizable.