"Doc, if you'd been a bartender as long as I have you wouldn't expect so much from the human race." Good line. Thought provoking. Was Thomas Hobbes a bartender? Randolph Scott rides into Sundown with his pal, Noah Beery Jr. It's a big day in Sundown. Tate Kimbrough, who runs the place, is getting married to Karen Steele. Lucky him. But Scott interrupts the proceedings by speaking up when the preacher, Richard Deacon, asks if any man knows why these two should not be joined together. Well, Scott has a reason, although it doesn't emerge until later. Kimbrough had a fling with Scott's wife before she done killed herself.
Following the interruption, everybody in town seems to take off after Scott and Beery, shooting and hollering. The pair take shelter in a stable while bullets whiz and zip through the windows. "Come on out!", yell the townsfolk. The doc is allowed to enter the bunker and tries to talk sense to Scott but Scott is a man of integrity. A visit by Steele doesn't change his mind either. He gets even more integrity when his buddy Beery is shot down in the street while unarmed. It makes the cheese more binding.
It's Randolph Scott and Budd Boetticher alright but unfortunately a lesser example of their work together. Boetticher was at his best with the stolid Scott hero and a flashy villain, like Lee Marvin or Richard Boone. This is a town movie, full of community involvement, and Boetticher wasn't interested in that. His subject was always two men who share a certain code facing off with one another. The fact that he'd been a professional matador in Mexico was a reflection of these values.
John Carroll is not a complex villain. He's pretty much normal. The community, for all its occasional drunkenness, is dull. The music is dull. The wardrobe is dull. The location shooting is limited to a studio ranch. The dialog lacks the sparkle and freshness that Burt Kennedy brought to some of their collaborations, in one of which a character says, "Ma'am, if you'd of been my woman I'd have come for you, even if I'd of died in the doin' of it." Compared to some of the minor gems that Scott, Boetticher, and the rest of the team produced, this is lesser stuff.
Following the interruption, everybody in town seems to take off after Scott and Beery, shooting and hollering. The pair take shelter in a stable while bullets whiz and zip through the windows. "Come on out!", yell the townsfolk. The doc is allowed to enter the bunker and tries to talk sense to Scott but Scott is a man of integrity. A visit by Steele doesn't change his mind either. He gets even more integrity when his buddy Beery is shot down in the street while unarmed. It makes the cheese more binding.
It's Randolph Scott and Budd Boetticher alright but unfortunately a lesser example of their work together. Boetticher was at his best with the stolid Scott hero and a flashy villain, like Lee Marvin or Richard Boone. This is a town movie, full of community involvement, and Boetticher wasn't interested in that. His subject was always two men who share a certain code facing off with one another. The fact that he'd been a professional matador in Mexico was a reflection of these values.
John Carroll is not a complex villain. He's pretty much normal. The community, for all its occasional drunkenness, is dull. The music is dull. The wardrobe is dull. The location shooting is limited to a studio ranch. The dialog lacks the sparkle and freshness that Burt Kennedy brought to some of their collaborations, in one of which a character says, "Ma'am, if you'd of been my woman I'd have come for you, even if I'd of died in the doin' of it." Compared to some of the minor gems that Scott, Boetticher, and the rest of the team produced, this is lesser stuff.