Hurry Sundown

It's difficult to concisely describe the plot of Hurry Sundown; it's a film about the racial divide, family squabbles, class distinction, and corporate takeover of land. Among the subplots are marital difficulties, Southern life, parenthood, a developmentally challenged child, questionable honor of the legal system, and coming-of-age dilemmas.

Michael Caine is married to Jane Fonda, and while they're a well-to-do Southern couple on the outside, beneath the surface lies infidelity and parenting issues. Michael's poor cousin, John Phillip Law, is married to Faye Dunaway, and he also has trouble with his children. Robert Hooks and his mother Beah Richards live on land that used to belong to Jane's family, back when they owned slaves. As a gift, they gave the land to Beah, but when Michael Caine's company wants to build on it, racial tensions lead to unforeseen consequences that affect all three families.

Even though I have a soft spot in my heart for Michael Caine and refuse to ever really see him as a bad guy, he's known for his meaner roles. In Hurry Sundown, he's just about as mean as it gets. He gives a fantastically chilling performance, and his Southern accent is nearly flawless. Faye Dunaway also stands out in her smaller role, since it's unlike the cold, calculating, classy roles she usually takes. Be on the lookout for Diahann Carroll, Burgess Meredith, and George Kennedy as the adorable but incompetent sheriff.

This is a very well-acted film that fits in with other hot-blooded films of its time, like In the Heat of the Night and The Long, Hot Summer. It's one of the steamiest films made in the 1960s, and it sheds light on a number of important issues. Director Otto Preminger, king of films that push the envelope, creates another masterpiece that makes you feel like you need a good scrubbing after watching it.

Kiddy Warning: Obviously, you have control over your own children. However, due to racial language, sexual situations, and violence involving children, I wouldn't let my kids watch it.

I won't argue with someone who says, "I hated this film". Clearly many people (including film critics) did. But, I disagree with those who say the acting performances were bad-----they were spot on. I disagree with those who say the "trashy" racist characters were over-the-top caricatures-----you haven't met some of my relatives. And, I disagree with those who say that real people never act like these characters do-----pick up a newspaper sometime, either 1950 or 2011. Yes, parts of the movie made me squirm and want to look away-----because the scenes were TOO real and heartbreaking. I, for one, do NOT want racism, past or present, swept under the rug. Show its ugliness. Make people squirm. Hollywood would never make "Hurry Sundown" today, because it is "politically incorrect". The film says our parents, children, neighbors, law enforcement officers, and politicians could be capable of violent racism. Really! No! Surely only in the movies!

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!

This is the most embarrassing excuse for a serious picture I have ever seen.

I'm sure "Hurry Sundown" tested the pre-ratings MPAA for it's supposedly frank depiction of sexual themes. It probably required television editing as ABC ran this film several times in the early '70s.

You could cut the sexual tension with a knife if it wasn't so funny. Jane Fonda seductively playing the sax with Michael Caine was probably suggestive enough to cause the censors to get nervous. But then we have Faye Dunaway's cartoonish overacting in that bedroom scene with John Phillip Law. At least poor white trash have healthy sex lives.

The only thing criminal about this movie is that it attempted to tackle the thorny subject of race relations in the 1940s in such a cheap, heavy handed manner.

I'm really not understanding why folks are so down on this film. Hurry Sundown is far from the masterpiece of Otto Preminger's career. But he did assemble a good cast who as an ensemble do quite well in their roles.

Michael Caine and John Philip Law are cousins. Caine used to work on a shrimp boat but married into southern gentry when he wed Jane Fonda. He's now trying to be a big shot businessman putting together parcels of land. Only two won't sell out Law and black neighbor Robert Hooks.

Law has just returned from World War 2 to wife Faye Dunaway and their kids. The war has taken him away from the south and given him an itch to wonder. He might sell, but Caine relies too much on the blood connection and approaches him all wrong.

Law does the unheard of thing in the post World War 2 south, he partners with Hooks and they dig some needed irrigation ditches using explosives.

That sets off all that follows because law and with some trepidation goes into a partnership with a black man. Something that just wasn't done in Georgia of 1946.

Both Fonda and Dunaway are ravishing and both are coming into their own as name players. Caine follows in the tradition of British actors playing southerners that seems to have started with Leslie Howard and Gone With The Wind. Law is the key character in this drama, it's his decisions are what turn the plot and he runs a good range of emotions doing it.

Hurry Sundown is not a bad picture of the south just before the civil rights revolution. Believe me pay no attentions to the bad reviews.