Wonderful character development!

A Masterpiece!

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

I recently watched Heaven Knows Mr Allison and Kerr and Mitchum made a great team. They were reunited three years later for this Australian family adventure. My taste in movies is usually of the more vicious type of film, such as Pulp Fiction or Reservoir Dogs, and so The Sundowners is strange departure for me. I normally despise Pollyanna styled story lines but I am such an admirer of Robert Mitchum that I gave this one a shot. I was not disappointed in the least as the usually bad tempered actor plays a man prone to wandering with his wife and son throughout Australia's outback and working transient jobs, including one as a sheep shearer. He shows perfect comedic timing and Kerr is excellent as his long suffering wife. Peter Ustinov and Glynis Johns add even more substance to an awesome cast. I have added this film to my favorite of Mitchum,s, along with Cape Fear and Night of the Hunter.

Being an Aussie I was pretty annoyed at some of the reviews in here by Australians. I think you have to be of a certain vintage to appreciate the life of the Australian drover. This was an occupation of former days. Both my grandfathers did it. Not with their families but they took to the road when they needed the work. A nomadic life is what many Australians had to endure as unlike what most people might think, Australians were mostly a poor lot of people with simple comforts. I do believe that Fred Zimmerman has done a brilliant job in capturing a moment in time with the Carmody family. This is my favorite Robert Mitchum movie. His accent was great. The best I have ever heard for an American. Very believable is his character. Deborah Kerr is like many women I once knew. She was also brilliant. I love looking at the scenery to see the beautiful countryside near where I live before it became fenced off with barbed wire everywhere. Great movie, definitely worth watching.

Set in the Australian outback In the 1920's, this forgotten 1960 saga is one of those films that has not quite gained a cult following but still provides delights upon discovery. At first glance, it feels like it will be a Disney live-action adventure along the lines of "Swiss Family Robinson", but director Fred Zinnemann (just coming off his acclaimed "The Nun's Story") presents a more complex dynamic around the Carmodys, an itinerant Irish-Australian family of three who travels from town to town picking up whatever work they can find (thus the film's title), usually driving large herds of sheep from one station to another. Paddy is the ostensible head of one such "sundowner" family, a proud man who enjoys being rootless. His steadfast wife Ida and dutiful son Sean, however, have grown tired of the constant movement and want to buy a farm so they can settle down. After picking up refined, jack-of-all- trades Englishman Rupert Venneker as an extra drover and surviving a life-threatening brush fire, Ida convinces Paddy to take a job at a station shearing sheep where she becomes the cook, Rupert a wool roller, and Sean as a tar boy. As Ida collects their earnings in a Mason jar, Paddy starts to get feelings of wanderlust again, and the inevitable family struggle occurs.Now throw in an unaided baby delivery, a sheep-shearing contest, and a horse race, and you get the idea of what goes on in this episodic story which manages to be constantly engaging despite the lack of real conflict in the story. A lot of the credit belongs to the two stars reunited from their previous vehicle, John Huston's "Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison" (1957). Speaking with a convincing Aussie accent, Robert Mitchum manages to exude his particular brand of machismo without losing his humility as Paddy. Deborah Kerr makes plainspoken Ida a tower of tolerance and still holds her own with clear authority. Together they generate a sexy and honest rapport that gives the movie its beating heart and makes the concessions each character make for the other believable. A solid cast provides able support including Peter Ustinov as the erudite Rupert, Glynis Johns (later Mrs. Banks in "Mary Poppins") as a feisty bar owner who captures Rupert's heart, and Michael Anderson Jr. as too-good-to-be-true Sean. The economical screenplay is credited to Isobel Lennart ("Funny Girl") but was mostly penned by the author of the source novel, Jon Cleary. David Lean's favorite cinematographer Jack Hildyard ("The Bridge on the River Kwai") does an impressive job capturing the barren outback in all its sunbaked beauty.

In "Heaven knows ,Mister Allison" ,Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr had a tiny island for themselves ;in "the sundowners " they have the whole Australia.Mrs Carmody wants to settle down ,she wants a home ,she wants her boy to go to school.Mr Carmody registers the same desire ,but always something happens.This family and their friend (Peter Ustinov) are very endearing characters and as you follow them in their two hours + journey ,you never get bored a single minute.And however ,it's not an action-packed story ,all that happens could happen in real life and this simple life is depicted with respect for the audience.The documentary side is very interesting.