Simply A Masterpiece

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Director Budd Boetticher's third western with Randolph Scott, "Decision at Sundown," with John Carroll, Andrew Duggan, Noah Beery, Jr., and Karen Steele, qualifies as the most unusual of Scott's B-movie horse operas. Randy doesn't play a lawman this time around, but he is a drifter with a mission. As former Confederate soldier Bart Allison, our steely hero lost a wife because of the shenanigans of Tate Kimbrough (John Carroll of "The Flying Tigers"), and Allison has been searching for Kimbrough. Another amiable Texan, Sam (Noah Beery Jr. of "The Savage Horde"), has been riding with Allison, and he knew all about Bart's wife that Bart never knew. They track Kimbrough down to the town of Sundown where Kimbrough presides over the town as the boss. When our heroes ride into Sundown, Bart is bound for Tate Kimbrough's wedding to Lucy Summerton (Karen Steele of "Ride Lonesome"), while Sam sticks around and waits on him. Before Bart shows up at the wedding chapel, Sam and he hit the local saloon for a couple of drinks, and they find Kimbrough's cronies getting liquored up on free whiskey. Allison and Sam want to join in for a drink, but Allison doesn't want to accept anything from the unscrupulous Kimbrough so he places coins on the bar. The town marshal (Andrew Duggan of CBS-TV's "Lancer") called Swede irritates Bart when our protagonist wants to pay for his drinks. Bart openly challenges the Swede, and the Swede drops Bart's coins into a spittoon. Later, at Kimbrough's wedding, Bart raises an objection during the ceremony, and he tells Kimbrough's bride Lucy that she will be a widow at sundown. Everything goes sideways then at a gunfight breaks out our heroes taken refuge in the local livery stable. Kimbrough's gun flunkies lay siege to the place and fill the air with whistling lead. Interestingly, one of Kimbrough's hired gunmen is none other than the legendary actor Bob Steele. For the better part of "Decision at Sundown," Bart and Sam are trapped in the stable. Slowly, but inevitably, the townspeople of Sundown realize that they have been taken advantage of by Kimbrough, and they decide to take a stand against him. Foremost of these citizens is a rancher, Morley Chase (Ray Teal of NBC-TV's "Bonanza"), who stands up to Kimbrough, and later disarms Kimbrough's men so Bart can shoot it out with the Swede. Naturally, Bart blast the Swede right out of his boots, but at the same time, he loses the use of his hand. Now, he must face Kimbrough and use his other hand in a duel. Kimbrough and Allison are sworn adversaries, and Allison loses his best friend, Sam, when the fellow Texan leaves him to get a hot, cooked meal. Sam's death in part prompts Chase' decision to oppose Kimbrough. Once the citizens rise up against Kimbrough, his influence in Sundown begins to crumble. Randolph Scott plays a different role for a change, and he loses his cool as the lead character. This isn't the icy cool cowboy in Boetticher's other westerns, "Ride Lonesome," "Comanche Station," and Buchanan Rides Alone." Boetticher confines this oater to the city limits, and we watch as Kimbrough's power slips, until he feels compelled to square off against Allison in the street at dusk. The showdown never comes because the other woman in town, Ruby James (Valerie French of "Jubal") intervenes. She has been Kimbrough steady woman for years until he took up with Lucy, and they have a special bond. Eventually, Lucy decides not to marry Kimbrough. The thing is that Allison never gets the pleasure of killing Kimbrough. "Decision at Sundown" is a good, off-beat western, competently made, with Randolph Scott at his very best.

In more recent years, the revisionist Western made heroes out of outlaws and men out for revenge. Think of Clint Eastwood's Will Munny in "Unforgiven". At the same time, Gene Hackman's Little Bill Daggett in the same picture was the epitome of the evil town boss, taking gleeful pleasure in dispatching anyone who threatened his supremacy. You can replace the town of Big Whiskey with the titled town of this picture, but the protagonists here don't quite build the kind of tension one expects on the way to a final showdown. Bart Allison's (Randolph Scott) motivation is built on the false premise that a villain stole his wife away from him, and refuses to acknowledge that she was in fact a 'loose' woman. The town-folk of Sundown are presented as intermediaries in this fable, who have trouble acknowledging that Tate Kimbrough (John Carroll) is the bad guy he's supposed to be, or at least as bad as Allison's preconceived notion insists on.Since I brought Eastwood's name into it, I might as well get another thought off my chest. I like Randolph Scott, but casting him as a sixty year old gunfighter doesn't quite work in the final analysis. Catch him hunched over the bar looking like hell after the film's high spot and you'll see what I mean. Though he did age better than John Wayne and kept himself in generally good shape. I'm trying to visualize him fifty pounds overweight wearing an eye-patch and it's not a pretty picture.I've read any number of reviews regarding Scott's collaboration with director Budd Boetticher, but I haven't experienced the magic yet. I'd rate the two I've seen so far, "Comanche Station" and "Ride the High Country" as somewhat better, primarily because Scott's character comes off as a more principled and heroic figure in those films. In this one, it's the villain who rides off into the sunset with the girl, leaving the conflicted gunman behind to tend to his wounds and trying to figure out where it all went wrong.

A very angry Randolph Scott and his sidekick Noah Beery Jr. ride into the town of Sundown. Everyone is abuzz about that day's wedding of it's most prominent citizen John Carroll, a man Scott has unfinished business with and ends up sparking a city-wide rebellion against.Another great collaboration between Scott and director Budd Boetticher, this offbeat and uncompromising western melodrama has a lot to say about the deadly sin of pride and the complications involving these two men afflicted with it.The climax and the final scene are really surprising and unique in that during the whole movie, it's Scott's pride that leads him to try and kill Carroll and it's that same pride that prevents him from carrying it through after Carroll's wounding by a third party.In the end, it's strange to see a western where the villain lives, leaving town with his head bowed, cured of his delusions of grandeur, while the hero wanders off in a drunken, blustery fit of anger, consumed bu his own self-righteousness.As with other films from Boetticher, this is visually stunning, with wonderful composition and great use of color. With most of the action taking place in town, there isn't much of Boetticher's usually well-photographed scenery, but the sets and costumes (especially Scott's cool leather jacket) look great.

As often with director Budd Boetticher, this late Randolph Scott vehicle doesn't deliver a traditional western's certainties about right and wrong. Scott's character Bart Allison arrives in town after a three year search determined to kill Tim Kimbrough in revenge for his wife's suicide, but it soon emerges that this may have had as much to do with his own failings as with Kimbroughs's philandering. It also becomes clear that Kimbrough is indeed a villain who with his sidekicks has taken over the town.The only characters with anything like a clear moral purpose are the two women – Kimbrough's fancy-girl and his fiancée - who play decisive parts in events. The townsfolk themselves deserve little sympathy, remaining casual observers until late in the day when Allison's actions finally act as a catalyst for action. But with so many shades of right and wrong, any final showdown at Sundown is not likely to offer a clear clash of good against bad.