User Reviews

Hey I'm not ashamed to admit I enjoy Scott's movies. This one is different from the rest. Here Scott's character Bart Allison is dead wrong in his core assumption about the man he hunts, one Tate Kimbrough. That role is played by John Carroll who is neither the typical villain nor merely a Clark Gable wannabe. The under-appreciated Noah Beery returns as dare I say Scott's sidekick. I don't recall another Scott film with Randy having a sidekick. The vivacious Karen Steele is here but as usual there is no hint of sexual tension between her and Scott during this her virgin performance in the Brown/Scott/Botteicher canon. Some minor ancillary highlights include Scott's incredibly cool leather jacket- reminds me of Paul Butterfield's in The Last Waltz and his lengthy foamy self- shave. According to Bob Boz Bells it was Colgate. The movie steals a little from High Noon, but which western made after 1952 doesn't? We get a lecture to the towns barfolk from Bart Allison about doing right and standing up. Also rare here Scott's refusal to have his whiskey paid for. Class to the glass.

Credit Scott for allowing Beery to get the best lines but no Beer. If you like The Tall T, Ride Lonesome, Comanche Station etc. then you'll make the right decision, to watch.

I've always liked Randolph Scott westerns. It's hard not to if a person likes Scott's style, manner, authority and, in his movies with Budd Boetticher, his approach to being an aging, moralistic grim reaper in showdowns with bad guys like Lee Marvin and Richard Boone. I'll make an exception for Decision at Sundown.

What put me off was a drama without, for 50 minutes of the 77-minute running time, any gripping motivation for Bart Allison's (Randolph Scott) hatred. We know something, probably nasty, happened to Mary and that the slick Tate Kimbrough (John Carroll) had something to do with it. But what? Allison's sick obsession with killing Kimbrough ("For three years I've hunted Kimbrough, but he didn't know it. Before I settle with him I want him to know he's being hunted."), even on Kimbrough's wedding day when Allison arrives at Sundown, seems more like a plot device than a major justification for violence. With Kimbrough running the town, with a sly and cowardly sheriff in his pocket and his bride's wealthy father somehow beholden, it's everybody against Allison and his sidekick, Sam (played by that good-natured actor, Noah Beery, Jr.).

While we learn that Mary had some qualities other than saintly goodness, for most of the movie Scott winds up sounding like a man choking back tears and irrationally unwilling to hear a bad -- or even balanced -- word against his dead wife. It's an odd performance. By the time we really get to know the people of Sundown -- not just Tate Kimbrough, but his fiancé (Karen Steele), who doesn't love Tate, his girl friend (Valerie French), who does, and leering barbers, avuncular barkeeps, a noble doctor, a vicious deputy sheriff and assorted nervous and cowed onlookers -- the fact that there might be two sides to what Allison believes becomes more of a righteous afterthought. There are too many clichés in the screenplay ("You just stood up there in church and told Kimbrough you wuz gonna kill him? Bart, you must be plumb crazy!"), an uninvolving plot and an unsatisfactory character for Scott. The movie's not all that bad, but not very good. I'll say this: The conclusion, bitter and drunken, almost makes up for the rest. Some think this movie holds up well, including Taylor Hackford, who provides an analysis of the movie. This is one to watch and then make up your own mind.

Scott commands the screen, even when a couple of times he sounds like he's about to cry when he thinks of Mary. He was 59 when he made this movie. He made two more before retiring in 1962 with a great finish as Gil Westrum in Ride the High Country. Here he's starting to show his years but it doesn't matter. Whether he was lucky with his metabolism or just dieted rigorously, he doesn't carry an ounce of fat on his frame. He's lean, muscular, moves well and looks believable in a show down. If, like me, you weren't impressed with the Boetticher/Scott combo in Decision at Sundown, just take a look at The Tall T. This Boetticher/Scott movie was made two years earlier. It benefits enormously from a story by Elmore Leonard and a taut, suspenseful screenplay by Burt Kennedy. The Tall T, together with Seven Men from Now and Ride the High County are Randolph Scott in his later years at his best.

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.

"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.

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.

This one unfortunately doesn't have Burt Kennedy behind the writing credits, but it's not bad.

Randolph Scott is once again on a revenge kick, this time going after Tate Kimbrough (John Carroll) who he believes had led his wife to commit suicide. The only problem with that is that it turns out that his late wife was also a tramp who was loose with the men. Scott blindly refuses to see this aspect of her character and is bent on revenge.

Himself and his sidekick, Noah Beery Jr., arrive in town just in time for Tate's wedding to Lucy Summerton (Karen Steele, who would later appear in Boetticher's RIDE LONESOME) and plan to interrupt it. But Scott has few allies here. Most of the town likes Tate except for the Doc (John Archer) who dislikes Tate almost as much as Scott does. He thinks Tate has brought the town's reputation down since his arrival a couple of years back.

There's some action at the wedding as Scott informs Lucy that she will be a widow by sundown if she marries Tate, and a shootout ensues sending Scott and Beery down the street to hold up in the livery stable. The sleazy sheriff (Andrew Duggan) who's in cahoots with Tate, has them surrounded with no avenue of escape. By now, Beery thinks his partner Scott's plan for vengeance has gone too far, so he comes out and surrenders his weapon only to have the sleazy sheriff gun him in the back with buckshot. Even at this point, Lucy wants nothing to do with Tate and calls off their wedding.

Scott witnesses this and vows revenge against Duggan for back-shooting his friend. When the rest of the town sees what Tate and his henchmen are capable of, along with some anti-Tate urging by the Doc, they have a change of heart and force the sheriff and his men to drop their guns. Duggan is forced to face Scott alone in a draw in which he is no match.

That only leaves Scott to face Kimbrough in a final duel, but Tate's lover (Valerie French) shoots Tate, wounding him so Scott can't finish him off. He allows Kimbrough to live with the stipulation that he leave town and never come back.

What brings this down a couple of notches is the fact that Boetticher doesn't use the outdoor settings that he used extensively in his other westerns. There's not enough space, making the whole thing look a little too claustrophobic. Almost all the action takes place in town, making the story look bogged down and static with too much time being chewed up in the livery stable.

Still, it's worth a look and is far better than many other oaters of the period.

6 out of 10

Budd Boetticher directs this Randoph Scott sage brush drama. Bart Allison(Scott)rides into a sleepy little town to root out Tate Kimbrough(John Carroll). Allison is not looking for justice for justice sake; revenge drives the stubble face man looking for the scoundrel responsible for his wife's death. Kimbrough had stolen Allison's wife, who actually went without force. She eventually killed herself, but Allison still wants Kimbrough dead. Even when he finds out his wife was a tramp; there is still a showdown at sundown to decide one man's fate. Not exactly the best Scott vehicle. Too many things unexplained; but there is action. Also in the cast: Noah Beery Jr., Andrew Duggan, Ray Teal, Karen Steele and Richard Deacon.

Wow--Randolph Scott playing a bastard first frame to last. No wonder the movie received such scathing reviews from Scott fans. I liked the film but didn't like Scott's character either--he's self-deluded, stiff-necked, and consumed with a seething hatred that costs his best friend his life. Bart Allison is thoroughly despicable and loathsome, and it's a testimony to Scott's talents that he could play such a character so effectively and evoke such emotions from his audience.

It is also a testimony to Scott's confidence as an actor and to his generosity that he played a secondary character. Noah Beery, Jr. as affable sidekick Sam steals all their scenes together (as he would frequently do to James Garner two decades later on THE ROCKFORD FILES). John Archer, as Doc John Storrow is arguably the real protagonist of the picture, certainly the catalyst who capitalizes on the situation and unleashes and channels all the pent-up emotion simmering in the chests of the townsmen. Thinking back, it's surprising how static a character Bart Allison was, holed up in the livery stable for the bulk of the film, crouching at a window, while Beery and Archer were dynamic and charismatic. And Beery and Archer prove themselves up to the task and carry the picture.

Right behind them were a cast comprised of familiar faces to all fans of the genre, among them Ray Teal as Morley, a cowed-into-submission rancher with his faithful hands (among whom is one-time Western star Bob Steele who merits neither a line nor a screen credit); James Westerfield as Otis, the bartender; Andrew Duggan as Swede, the sheriff in Tate's pocket; Guy Wilkinson as Abe the stable owner; and Vaughn Taylor as an increasingly intoxicated barber who inadvertently puts the match to the powder keg by smashing the bottle of whiskey hidden in the self-righteous reverend's coat pocket. It was upon that cruel act of humiliation, exposing a man's secret weakness, that Doc Storrow seized. He pried open the crack and got the men to admit that they too had a hidden vice--cowardice--and had sacrificed their self-respect out of fear of Tate and his bullying thugs.

Like a bellows on a flickering flame was the cowardly shooting in the back of the unarmed Sam by the vengeful deputy Spanish. Breaking the promise to allow safe passage coupled with shooting a man in the back tapped into something deep within these men of the West, a violation of the Code that held their society, such as it was, intact. Ray Teal as Morley really shines in this scene as his men systematically dismantle Swede's band of bushwhackers stationed around the stable, leveling the field to just Swede and Allison. And once Swede is dispatched, it comes down to Tate and Allison.

Victoria French as Tate's paramour Ruby proves that you only hurt the one you love, or in order to save you I had to shoot you. She takes a tremendous risk in winging Tate to short circuit the shootout, but her love was sincere, even if Tate only saw her as a plaything. French was a much more appealing character than Karen Steele's Lucy, an early sufferer of resting bitch face wholly lacking in charm. It's obvious why Tate was drawn to this woman who was as cold, calculating, and ambitious as himself.

It's a rare Western that ends with the villain of the piece riding off in a carriage with a beautiful woman while the hero gets drunk and unruly at the bar. DECISION AT SUNDOWN was a convention-defying film, and I suspect that is why it receives more bad reviews than good. Randolph Scott playing against type no doubt ruffled feathers, mine included. I wanted to see him play the hero in a clearly defined good guy vs. bad guy scenario, but Scott played out that script in the 1940s and early '50s and was ready to stretch as an actor. This film's scenario--unlikable character rides into town, cleans it up, then rides out again--would be the template for so many 1960's Westerns, both foreign and domestic. It was a Western ahead of its time and one well worth watching.

This 3rd film in the Boetticher/Scott series shows a marked departure from the first two films, evidenced almost at once when an unshaven Scott as Bart Allison, a passenger in a stagecoach, orders it to halt at gunpoint. Is he a bandit or a murderer? Well, no, that would be too much, but he is a desperate man not interested in working inside or with the law, a route he follows for the whole film. After a tense couple of moments, the stagecoach halts but instead of robbing or gun-play, Allison merely allows it to ride off as he is met by his companion Sam (Noah Beery Jr) with two horses. Sam tells Bart that the man he seeks, Tate Kimbrough, is in Sundown a few miles away, and the two ride grimly off.

Kimbrough it turns out is the big cheese in Sundown and is about to marry Lucy (Karen Steele), the daughter of Mr. Summerton (John Litel) the other bigwig in town -- though it seems that he has only recently torn off from a relationship with Ruby, a woman he's left in the dust for greater rewards, though she clearly loves him. And Allison is here to kill him. As in The Tall T there are a few minutes of nice character development and "business" as Allison gets a shave and he and Sam have a couple of drinks in the saloon, Sam whining about his hunger and Allison defaming Kimbrough to everybody whether they want to hear it or not - though in characteristic Randolph Scott fashion, he waits for his opportunities and keeps his insults terse. There's some nice subtle development of the town's attitude here - at first it seems that everybody is happy for Tate and Lucy, but by the time Allison goes to disrupt the wedding at the church it's become clear that the townsfolk fear Kimbrough and respect his power, nothing more.

Allison by this time has already shown that his vengeance takes precedence over everything else and after making threats at the wedding he manages to get Sam and himself trapped inside a livery stable where they remain for most of the rest of the film. Slowly we learn little bit of Allison's past and his hatred, but it never becomes clear that Kimbrough did anything worth killing; perhaps he had an affair with Mary, Allison's dead wife -- and perhaps she died as a result -- but it is clear that his hatred has driven Allison to the verge of insanity. Kimbrough tries to buy him off...others try to reason with him...to no avail. Meanwhile the townspeople have gotten restless as they see that Kimbrough's bought-and-paid for sheriff, Swede (Jim Duggan) and his deputies aren't doing much of anything to ease the situation. Egged on by free whiskey (courtesy of Kimbrough) they start to make their true feelings heard, especially after Sam, who has left Allison but goes back to try to reason with him, is shot in the back by Swede and his deputy Spanish. They rally and let Kimbrough and the sheriff know they've had enough, and force the sheriff to meet a now even more vengeful Allison one to one.

Sheriff faced and dispatched, there's only Kimbrough -- but Kimbrough's true love Ruby won't let him be gunned down, and neither she nor the doctor will allow Allison to continue his madness without hearing the truth about his wife - that she was a tramp, that Kimbrough wasn't the first man to cuckold him, and that she died by her own hand, sick of herself and the world. Finally Allison is disabused of his quest, and the film ends with Kimbrough and Lucy leaving town, to start over hopefully wiser and stronger --- and Allison leaving too, after drowning his sorrow at the loss of Sam, his only real link to humanity, and leaving also, broken and bitter.

This finish is quite extraordinary - there is no final gunfight, the "bad guy" Kimbrough turns out not to be the bad guy that the hero thought he was (but much worse in some respects - except Allison doesn't care about that) and goes away having lost his power and influence but gained some self-knowledge; and Randolph Scott's good guy is found wanting and chastened himself, having lived a lie for years and not really understanding how to deal with it. It's this ending that really resonates and elevates the film to a fairly high caliber, though it doesn't entirely make up for the faults in Charles Lang's screenplay, which include a too-Hollywood and corny speech by the doctor rallying the town (along with several earlier bits of flat and "movie" dialog), a somewhat larger cast and corresponding weak characterizations for some of the more important secondary characters, and most importantly perhaps a rather unbelievable and very unlikable hero -- in the other Scott westerns his characters' deficiencies are more made up for by a juicier and more interesting supporting cast; here nearly everyone is unpleasant, which makes the doctor's speech and a few lines from the bartender resonate all the more - but doesn't make it any easier for us to care for our "hero." In the end, it is the doctor and the two women who are the moral centers of the film, but none of them has enough time or development, and the film seems quite cynical and bleak, beyond its intentions I think.

So all in all, not quite up to the level of the first two, but quite enjoyable and exciting overall, with a lot of fascinating stuff to say about the dangers of obsession, and also the worthlessness of a greed that allows a town to be cowed by its richest man despite hating him all the while. I suppose some could read this as a metaphor about the Red scare; I wouldn't go that far, but it does give one something to chew on.

One of a series of color films starring Randolph Scott, directed by Bud Boetticher. Included the curvaceous Karen Steele, who costarred in several of these films, being Boetticher's lover during this period.

Bart Allison(Randolph Scott) has been hunting Tate Kimbrough (John Carroll) for 3 years, with the goal of killing him, since he blames Tate for his wife's suicide. Is this a legitimate goal? No! Bart's wife chose to accept Tate as a lover while Bart was a soldier in the Civil War, and she chose to kill herself. According to Sam, Bart's friend, this was not the first affair she had while Bart was away. But Bart doesn't want to hear this point of view. He's obsessed with blaming Tate for his wife's demise. When Bart left town, having finished his punishment of Tate, the residents generally credited him for catalyzing the downfall of the grasping Tate, thus thought of him as a hero. But he was a hero only by default. His pursuit of Tate and disruption of his marriage ceremony instigated the locals to rise up against Tate, which they had previously been afraid to do. Tate's girlfriend Ruby(Valerie French), performed a more heroic act when she shot Tate in the arm, as he was pulling his gun out of his holster, in a street showdown with Bart, causing him to fall to the ground. Bart was unwilling to shoot him under this condition, or any condition where Tate was defenseless.

Another aspect of the plot is the drama surrounding the question of whom Tate is going to marry. Ruby had been his closeted girlfriend for a couple years, and repeatedly asked him to marry her. But Tate opted for the more beautiful Lucy(Karen Steele), to become his 'trophy' wife. But, Bart broke up their marriage ceremony, saying "Ïf you marry this man, you'll be a widow by Sundown". Lucy chickened out, saying she now saw Tate as a town bully who was not to be respected.(Difficult to believe she didn't know this before!). In contrast, Ruby stuck by her man when he was down and, in the end, they are seen together in a carriage, riding out of town.

Certain parts of the film don't make sense to me, especially the first segment, when Bart is riding in a stage, then suddenly demands that the stage stop, firing his gun in the air. This signals his friend Sam to come out of the woods with an extra horse. Then Bart allows the stage to ride off.

See it at YouTube.