Decision at Sundown (1957)

User Rating:

6.8/10   

Director:

Budd Boetticher

Writers:

Charles Lang (screenplay)
Vernon L. Fluharty (story)

Release Date:

10 November 1957 (USA)

Genre:

Western

Plot:

Bart Allison arrives in Sundown planning to kill Tate Kimbrough. Three years earlier he believed Kimbrough was responsible for the death of his wife...

Plot Keywords:

Sheriff | Revenge | Town Meeting | Crooked Sheriff | Love

Cast

Randolph Scott	...	Bart Allison
John Carroll	...	Tate Kimbrough
Karen Steele	...	Lucy Summerton
Valerie French	...	Ruby James
Noah Beery Jr.	...	Sam (as Noah Beery)
John Archer	...	Dr. John Storrow
Andrew Duggan	...	Sheriff Swede Hansen
James Westerfield	...	Otis, the Bartender
John Litel	...	Charles Summerton
Ray Teal	...	Morley Chase
Vaughn Taylor	...	Mr. Baldwin, the Barber
Richard Deacon	...	Reverend Zaron, Justice of the Peace
H.M. Wynant	...	Spanish, Sheriff's Deputy
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Frank Chase	...	Morley's Henchman (uncredited)
Abel Fernandez	...	Pete, Sheriff's Deputy (uncredited)
Herman Hack	...	Stage Passenger (uncredited)
Jim Hayward	...	Shotgun Guard (uncredited)
Reed Howes	...	Morley's Henchman (uncredited)
Shirley Jocelyn	...	Lillian (uncredited)
Ethan Laidlaw	...	Townsman (uncredited)
Mike Lally	...	Townsman (uncredited)
Pierce Lyden	...	Morley's Henchman (uncredited)
Philo McCullough	...	Townsman (uncredited)
Frank Mills	...	Townsman (uncredited)
Frank O'Connor	...	Townsman in Church (uncredited)
Bob Reeves	...	Townsman (uncredited)
Frank J. Scannell	...	Morley's Henchman (uncredited)
Bob Steele	...	Irv, Deputy Sheriff (uncredited)
Guy Wilkerson	...	Abe, Livery Proprietor (uncredited)

Directed by
Budd Boetticher

Writing credits
Charles Lang		(screenplay) (as Charles Lang Jr.)
Vernon L. Fluharty		(story)

Produced by
Harry Joe Brown	....	producer
Randolph Scott	....	associate producer

Original Music by
Heinz Roemheld
Mischa Bakaleinikoff		(uncredited)

Cinematography by
Burnett Guffey		(director of photography)

Film Editing by
Al Clark

Art Direction by
Robert Peterson

Set Decoration by
Frank Tuttle		(as Frank A. Tuttle)

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Sam Nelson	....	assistant director

Sound Department
John P. Livadary	....	recording supervisor (as John Livadary)
Jean G. Valentino	....	sound (as Jean Valentino)

Music Department
Heinz Roemheld	....	conductor

Other crew
David Breen	....	assistant to producer
Henri Jaffa	....	technicolor color consultant

Production Companies

• Columbia Pictures Corporation (presents)
• Scott-Brown Productions

Distributors

• Columbia Pictures (1957) (USA) (theatrical)
• Columbia Film-Verleih (1957) (West Germany) (theatrical)
• Comet Video (????) (USA) (DVD)

Runtime:

77 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

West Germany:12 | USA:Approved (certificate #18651) | UK:U | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15

Company:

Columbia Pictures Corporation

Quotes:

[Discussing Sundown's town boss Tate Kimbrough]
Bart Allison: Is he a big man in Sundown?
Sam: The biggest. He's got that town in his fist and he's squeezin' it hard. Ain't heard folks complain much. Guess they're all scared.
Bart Allison: I'm glad to hear he's doing so well. When a man's riding high, the ground comes up and hits him a lot harder when he falls.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Budd Boetticher: An American Original (2005) (V)

The Day Bart Allison Came To Sundown

This particular Budd Boetticher/Randolph Scott collaboration finds Scott as the meanest he ever was on the screen. At least since Coroner Creek where he played a similarly driven man on a vengeance quest against a man who killed his bride to be.

It's worse in Decision at Sundown. A few years earlier when Scott was away at war John Carroll took up with Scott's late wife. Now Randy with sidekick Noah Beery, Jr. has come into the town of Sundown looking to kill Carroll who has moved there and essentially taken over with his bought and paid for sheriff Andrew Duggan. Carroll by no coincidence I'm sure is getting married to Karen Steele that day, the daughter of a local rancher John Litel much to the dismay of Carroll's long time mistress Valerie French.

Scott interrupts the wedding and then he and Beery are trapped in a barn. While all this is going on a lot of the townsfolk who have let Carroll and his bully boys run roughshod over them start reexamining what's happened to their town.

Decision at Sundown shows Randolph Scott as the ugliest he ever was on the screen. He's a pretty mean hero in Coroner Creek as Chris Danning. But his character of Bart Allison in this film makes Danning look like a Boy Scout.

I can't say any more, you'll just have to see the rather unusual ending in this film and how it works out for Scott and the rest of the town of Sundown.

Let's just say he changed everyone's life, but his own.