Sundown (1941)

best movie i've ever seen.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

SUNDOWN is what you might call a minor epic. It is about the old British grandeur. Instead of Heston, we get Bruce Cabot, who still looks King Kong tall, before he was dwarfed by the duke in later films.Gene Tierney's beaut was probably the big marketing device here, and Hathaway directs to make full use of it.The story is one that some people today mistakenly think was normally acceptable as how people viewed life. Knowing people from the era, as they spoke in the sixties and seventies, it is obvious that they thought it was just as silly in 1941 as it is thought of today, the grand British presence in Africa, the "sahib", the almighty "bwana".Set during World War II, we get a look at the different countries and how their people naturally allied themselves. The Italian is a proud man, willing to live with the British, for instance.What you will probably note most about this film is that it doesn't adhere to modern acceptable story telling standards. It is expository with sudden jumps from one idea to another, particularly at the end, which seems to come out of nowhere. That doesn't mean it is bad story telling. It just isn't what we're taught today.Full of fairly common clichés, it doesn't dwell too much on any one of them, and proceeds to tell a story with believable characters.

Sundown is a wartime morale boosting film that has not worn well over the years. The only thing eternal about it is Gene Tierney whose beauty is ageless.Gene's an exotic Arab woman who comes into an outpost now run by the British in what is now Somalia. The British have recently taken it over from the Italians in Africa and Bruce Cabot is running the civil administration. Coming to handle the military end is Major George Sanders of the British army.There's some Germans running guns to a tribe who have really not taken to white man's rule and the administrators have to put a stop to this before it all gets out of hand. Besides the people mentioned could it be the Dutch trader Carl Esmond, the former Italian administrator Joseph Calleia, or the white hunter Harry Carey. If you can't figure it out you haven't seen too many of these films.I can't understand for the life of me why Bruce Cabot was in this film. He doesn't attempt any kind of British accent because that would make him look more ridiculous. How many members of the British colony were asked to do this script and must have turned it down. He has one scene where he talks about when this war is over Africans will truly be free. That wouldn't have gone over well with the management at 10 Downing Street whose prime minister said he was not going to see the British Empire dissolved on his watch.To make sure you got the point after the main action of the film is over with cast members in the congregation, Cedric Hardwicke plays a vicar who is also George Sanders father. In a burned out bombed out church just like in Mrs. Miniver he gives an inspiring war speech in true Hardwicke eloquence.This United Artists release produced by Walter Wanger got three Oscar nominations. I will say Wanger did not satisfy himself some studio back lot African sets. The films was shot on location in New Mexico to simulate the Somali desert and got a deserved black and white cinematography Oscar nomination for it. Sundown's other nominations for best music score and best art and interior sets.All this talk about the good work of British colonialism is too much for today's audience. Just look at Somaliland now and see what it has become. But Sundown certainly gave young Gene Tierney an opportunity to look beautiful and exotic on the screen. I doubt this film will get a remake.

"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.