It's difficult to concisely describe the plot of Hurry Sundown; it's a film about the racial divide, family squabbles, class distinction, and corporate takeover of land. Among the subplots are marital difficulties, Southern life, parenthood, a developmentally challenged child, questionable honor of the legal system, and coming-of-age dilemmas.Michael Caine is married to Jane Fonda, and while they're a well-to-do Southern couple on the outside, beneath the surface lies infidelity and parenting issues. Michael's poor cousin, John Phillip Law, is married to Faye Dunaway, and he also has trouble with his children. Robert Hooks and his mother Beah Richards live on land that used to belong to Jane's family, back when they owned slaves. As a gift, they gave the land to Beah, but when Michael Caine's company wants to build on it, racial tensions lead to unforeseen consequences that affect all three families.Even though I have a soft spot in my heart for Michael Caine and refuse to ever really see him as a bad guy, he's known for his meaner roles. In Hurry Sundown, he's just about as mean as it gets. He gives a fantastically chilling performance, and his Southern accent is nearly flawless. Faye Dunaway also stands out in her smaller role, since it's unlike the cold, calculating, classy roles she usually takes. Be on the lookout for Diahann Carroll, Burgess Meredith, and George Kennedy as the adorable but incompetent sheriff.This is a very well-acted film that fits in with other hot-blooded films of its time, like In the Heat of the Night and The Long, Hot Summer. It's one of the steamiest films made in the 1960s, and it sheds light on a number of important issues. Director Otto Preminger, king of films that push the envelope, creates another masterpiece that makes you feel like you need a good scrubbing after watching it.Kiddy Warning: Obviously, you have control over your own children. However, due to racial language, sexual situations, and violence involving children, I wouldn't let my kids watch it.

Oh dear! Otto Preminger, I am certain, made this with the best of intentions, but how after the glorious and mysteriously complex, Bunny Lake Is Missing, could he spend time on this? Over long and overwrought, this race drama is surely one of his most misguided enterprises. Michael Caine's acting limitations are cruelly exposed as he struggles even with the accent. Jane Fonda is good and although she was already an established actor her big star stuff was around the corner. Faye Dunaway is also fine and this her breakout film with fame and fortune beckoning. Burgess Meredith is a sad sight in this but amazingly he was only mid career and a great survivor. I'm really trying to avoid having to keep saying how bad I thought this was. Particularly because so much of it was okay, do I feel so annoyed and frustrated at the whole chunks that should have been rewritten (or left out). I understand a cut version showed on US TV and I can see that there are a couple of sexual scenes that whilst not particularly explicit do sit uneasily within this tale where children are shown to be so involved in the troubling scenes of racism.

The job of an actor is to find 'THE' moment in his/her material and to stir the audience in either dramatic or comic terms. All the negatives and some positives have already been stated in this column about "Hurry Sundown." However, no one has bothered to really tell about the actress who plays Rose. Her name was Beah Richards, best remembered by some as Sidney Poitier's mother in "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner." Ms. Richards has lingered in my memory since I saw "Hurry Sundown" in the theatre all those years ago. Her performance is monumental here, although, the material, as already stated by many, stunk as skunk! She 'rose' over all the 'stars' in this sorrowful piece to create her memorable portrait. The only reason I'd want to see this film on DVD would be to see her amazing performance once again. Ms. Richards truly found that moment to stir the emotions in an otherwise poorly conceived film.

Lousy Otto Preminger film from K. B. Gilden's bestseller (adapted by Thomas C. Ryan and, of all people, Horton Foote!) concerns a greedy white land-owner in Georgia planning to dupe his wife's black guardian and her sharecropper husband out of their real estate, setting off a race war. Everyone is here, from Faye Dunaway to Brady dad Robert Reed, but the script is such a mess--and Preminger is so ham-handed--that nobody survives "Sundown" without looking foolish. Jane Fonda flirts with husband Michael Caine using his saxophone (!) while Beah Richards pantomimes a heart attack as if this were a stage-play. Preminger goes out of his way to make the rich whites despicable and the black folk saintly and reasonable--so much so that the picture might have started its own race war in 1967 (probably the exact type of controversy the director wanted). It certainly gave work to many underemployed, sensational actors like Madeleine Sherwood, Diahann Carroll, Rex Ingram and Jim Backus, but results are laughable. *1/2 from ****