bsmith5552 "Decision at Sundown" marked the third of seven collaborations between star Randolph Scott and famed director Budd Boetticher. In this one Scott plays Bart Allison a grim hate filled revengeful hombre with little in the way of redeeming qualities.Allison and his partner Sam (Noah Beery Jr.) arrive in the town of Sundown where Allison is seeking one Tate Kimbrough (John Carroll) whom he believes is responsible for his wife's death. Kimbrough as it happens, is to be married this very day to Lucy Summerton (Karen Steele) the daughter of one of the town's leading citizens Charles Summerton (John Litel). We learn that Kimbrough has been involved with saloon girl Ruby Jones (Valerie French) who pleads with him not to proceed with the wedding.At the church as the ceremony begins, Allison informs Kimbrough that he plans to kill him over the death of Mary, Allison's wife. Allison and Sam then flee with Sheriff Swede Hansen (Andrew Duggan) and his men in pursuit. They are forced to hole up in the livery stable. Hansen and his men, which include Spanish (H.M. Wynant) and Irv (Bob Steele), cannot force Allison and Sam to surrender.Kimbrough forces Summerton to try and negotiate a settlement without success. Sam tries to tell Allison that his wife was "sleeping around" during his absence at the Civil War and that Kimbrough was only one of many whereupon Allison slugs Sam and becomes even more enraged throwing the faithful Sam out.After telling town Dr. John Storrow of the situation while eating, Sam goes into the street and is shot down. Allison becomes even more enraged and challenges Hansen to face him in the street. Meanwhile Dr. Storrow lays the guilt trip on the towns folk, Rancher Morley Chase (Ray Teal) and his men decide to regain their self respect and step into the conflict. They disarm Kimbrough's men and force Hansen into a showdown with Allison. Kimbrough meanwhile has decided that with no other options, that it's time to face Allison and.........................................As in other films in the series, Boetticher gives us a more or less sympathetic villain in Carroll. Although his men do most of the dirty work, he remains a likable sort. Scott on the other hand, has never been more unsympathetic. He carries his hatred with him throughout the film even after the climax. Not a smile or a kind word for any one.A strong cast with excellent performances by all and a surprise ending, this is a good film.

Gary R. Peterson 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.

OldAle1 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.

Jeremy Perkins 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.