Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

Reptileenbu Did you people see the same film I saw?

CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Gary The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

calvinnme In 1946 Georgia, Henry Warren (Michael Caine) is setting up a land deal to make himself richer and put his town on the map. To complete the deal, he just needs two landowners, Reeve Scott (Robert Hooks) and WW II veteran Rad McDowell (John Phillip Law) to sell their land to him. Neither one will sell. The rest of the film is about Warren's attempts to make them sell, and about how everyone in this economic backwater is affected by that and racism.The main problem here is a rambling, diffuse script that attempts to fit a 900 page book into just over two hours. When Preminger first announced he would be filming this book, he said it would be a four hour film; the final cut was two hours and twenty minutes. Some performances have been noticeably cut; characters drop out of sight from the film without warning, plot threads are set up, then abruptly dropped. The performances are all over the map in terms of effectiveness.However, Jane Fonda, as Julie Warren, is unexpectedly good as the Southern girl who grows up and finally sees what a louse she's married to. When angered, she oozes sarcasm overlaid with a dose of charm. Madeleine Sherwood, as Eula Purcell, the woman who won the social lottery when she snagged herself a judge to marry, is very funny as she tries to improve her social and financial position. Her best scene is when she throws a tantrum because her husband has jeopardized their daughters' wedding. Diahann Carroll, as the sharp-witted schoolteacher from the North, is very amusing as she puts on an subservient act to get access to land records. Robert Hooks and John Philip Law both put in solid performances.The problematic part includes Michael Caine's involvement in all of this. He gets off to a dreadful start when in his first scene he sounds like he came from London with stops in Little Rock and Savannah; his accent is that bad in the beginning. He improves over the film, but he tends to overact all film long. As a sheriff, George Kennedy is effective in a part that has noticeably been edited. Burgess Meredith's role as Judge Purcell is so poisonously and obviously racist that I don't see how anyone could play it believably. Hugh Montenegro's musical score sounds more like contemporary 1960's music than anything that would take the viewer back to the 1940's.The film is obvious and a plodding and ponderous effort at that, but is much better than its reputation as it was counted among the "50 Worst Films of All Time" in the 1978 book.

sekjr0521 This is a sensational film, well-done, beautifully portrayed, and backed by an incredibly beautiful score by Hugo Montenegro.Look for the Hurry Sundown Suite on Youtube... It is just beautiful!Burgess Merideth steals the show with his role, and his wife is something else!!!Try to get a copy if you can and enjoy the witty script! You will be overwhelmed with the emotional portrayals. This is a feel-good movie, and a solid story! It is hard to believe that stuff like this actually happened!!!Unfortunately, I can only assume you can't see it on TV today because of the use of the 'N' word - which doesn't bother ME a bit! Some people have such feint hearts...

jjnxn-1 This mint julep melodrama is a hooty delight. I suppose that at the time it was meant to shine a light on racial injustice in the south but it just comes off as an over-baked soap opera. Preminger was the wrong director for such a piece of honeyed excess, this is the type of thing at which Douglas Sirk excelled and could make trenchant observations while still entertaining the masses. Still worth watching for the cast alone. Jane Fonda gives the most enjoyable performance even if her honeychile accent comes and goes. And even as a sharecropper's wife with four kids Faye Dunaway manages to look ravishing. If you like overdone melodramas with lots of stars and little sense than this is for you, if not stay away!

moonspinner55 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 ****