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"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!

Interesting settings and a good cast contribute significantly to this solid drama about intrigue in the desert during the Second World War. In features Gene Tierney in a role that, while perhaps slightly oddly cast, makes particularly good use of her elegant beauty, and also gives her a good variety of material to work with.

The story starts with George Sanders, as a by-the-book British official, sent to take over a desert outpost previously run in a rather lax manner by Bruce Cabot's character. The two have to work out their disagreements over native policy while tracking down an Axis plot to supply arms to unfriendly natives. Tierney comes in as a half-Arab, half-English owner of an extensive trading network, bequeathed to her by her father. Both sides are naturally eager to have her work with them.

It's a good setup, and in general it makes good use of it. There are some good action scenes, but there is also some substance in the character development and in the cross-cultural interactions. The pace is steady, though it might miss a couple of good opportunities to switch into high gear, since there is never a feeling of any particular urgency until quite close to the end.

Sanders and Tierney are both in very good form, which is almost enough in itself to make the movie worth seeing. The story is good, and there is hardly a moment when something of interest is not going on.

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...

A surprisingly efficient and startling adventure feature from Africa by Henry Hathaway for being so young and early - this is already Hathaway completely fledged, and it's a very colourful drama although in black and white. Gene Tierney, also very young and fresh, provides the romanticism with glowing colours, and George Sanders for once plays a very unusually honest and heroic role. It's a great adventure, and the cave scenes are gorgeously suggestive in both drama, invention and cinematography. The photo is stupendous, and although rather thin, brief and superficial, it must be deemed as a great film - on a small scale, but nevertheless.