Decision At Sundown (1957)

[T.H.]

I thought of this as well but it makes sense that he didn't.
That stable is somebodies bread and butter. If he were to burn it down against the wishes of the townspeople then he might be facing a revolt, especially with the already delicate situation brought up by Scott.

despite all of its stupidity I really like it for the reasons Titoli brought up.
These surprises redeem the logical fallacies.

It seems that Boetticher's town based Westerns (This and Buchanon Rides Alone) all have some problems in the brains department while his bigger movies (which are little stories masked by large landscapes) are tighter.
That said I still really like the two town films.

Possibly. That thought never occurred to me because I thought that Kimbrough (sp?) would have paid off the owner if he burned it down.

Yeah, I love all the Ranown westerns, flaws and all. I don't criticize movies for flaws nearly as much as I did at one point. I'm much more interested in the visuals, atmosphere and pacing. Boetticher's westerns have a very grand, powerful feeling to them.

Check out the 2 hr cut of the Bullfighter and the Lady if you haven't.

[The Firecracker]

Kimbrough (sp?)

Beats me?

Check out the 2 hr cut of the Bullfighter and the Lady if you haven't.

Will do!

[Dust Devil]

Whatever faults you guys mentioned I didn't care about while watching it. I didn't even notice them, to be honest. This must be one of the best town-bound talkies I've seen, only near the end the feeling that there's too much talk starts to creep in, but luckily the movie ends soon. Very entertaining movie, with a great psychological twist. Good acting too.


7.5/10

[Dust Devil]

Wallace Beery Jr

Noah.

[Dust Devil]

And happy birthday CJ!

Please, make no decision at sundown today.

[drinkanddestroy]

just saw the dvd for the first time; I'd give it a 6/10.

-- Both actresses are terrible.

-- Burning down the stable should have been a no-brainer; the villain had the town in his back pocket and could have easily paid well for it.

[stanton]

Burning down could mean that the whole town burns down.

[T.H.]

Like all the Scott Boetticher Ranown westerns, this one too improves on an additional view but the visuals aren't nearly as masterful without Charles Lawton Jr (The Tall T, Ride Lonesome, Comanche Station) as the DP and Charles Lang certainly isn't Burt Kennedy. With that said, this is the rare town bound western that improves in each act - usually they start off decent and run out things to do about halfway through. And you'd be hard pressed to find a movie from the era that handles the dynamic between the hero and villain in a more complex manner. B+

[stanton]

The 2 Ranown scripts of Lang are different to the ones by Kennedy, but I think they are well written. Decision at Sundown is the most complex of the 6 Ranown films. It is Boetticher's directing that is not able to make a better film form that screenplay. Good western though.

Hmm, the DoP is Burnett Guffey, at least he is much more famous than Lawton. Actually all the Ranown films were lensed by first rate DoPs, and by that are betraying their B-picture reputation.

[T.H.]

The 2 Ranown scripts of Lang are different to the ones by Kennedy, but I think they are well written. Decision at Sundown is the most complex of the 6 Ranown films. It is Boetticher's directing that is not able to make a better film form that screenplay. Good western though.

Hmm, the DoP is Burnett Guffey, at least he is much more famous than Lawton. Actually all the Ranown films were lensed by first rate DoPs, and by that are betraying their B-picture reputation.

Kennedy rewrote Buchanan Rides Alone, so there's a lot of his touch there even though it was originally a Lang script with a completely different tone etc.

I don't think there was a better cinematographer in the western genre in the mid to late 50's than Lawton Jr. He also shot the three Delmer Daves, Glenn Ford westerns that all look beautiful but very different from one another. It appears that Guffey didn't have any chemistry with Budd and/or was just going through the motions. The artless TV style interior sets didn't help matters any either.

[stanton]

Yes, sadly Decision looks rather ordinary.

And 3:10 to Yuma is one of the best looking western of the 50s.

One problem with Kennedy's scripts is that they all have rather stupid dialogues about women.