Doubtless, the weirdest score even written by Miklos Rozsa, a pounding of drums and a howling chant by the Africans of Hollywood. Maddening. Enough to send Walter Neff into an epileptiform seizure.A bit slow out of the starting gate. Bruce Cabot and Reginald Gardiner are two British officers in charge of an army outpost in northern Africa in the early years of World War II. Their soldiers are committed native troops, unlike the neighboring Shenzi tribe who are warlike and xenophobic. Cabot's and Gardiner's sole enemy POW is Joseph Calleia, an Italian Captain who has given himself up to the British and now takes pride in his cooking. There's not much to do. "Miles and miles of nothing to do," remarks Gardiner.(PS: Kids, Italy joined Germany in fighting the Allies in Europe. This is World War II, the one that came after World War I.)But then George Sanders arrives and takes command of the post, a humorless by-the-book officer who brings news that the Shenzi are being provided with modern weapons by the Germans. The pace picks up when the Brits are joined by the young Gene Tierney, owner of hundreds of boutique shops around the world, half Arabic, leading her camel caravan through the desert. Yes, the pace picks up. How could it not, when she sprawls so languorously in her "Arabic" get-up across a bed so large that Moby Dick could sleep in it, in the bedroom of her Hollywood mansion with its filmy drapes, beaded curtains and its candles? She's supine on that bed because she was nicked by a bullet fired by a Thompson sub-machine gun into Bruce Cabot's sparser military quarters. It may be the first time that tracer bullets are depicted on screen, and put to effective use. Director Hathaway was no artistic genius but he knew how to put a movie together.It ends in a proper shoot out and a sentimental death.It's not a major picture and it does drag at times but it isn't badly done.

This is a pretty good adventure tale of WWII before the US got involved.Perhaps the most interesting character is Pallini, the humane, civilized Italian gentleman who is not sorry to be a prisoner of the British rather than fighting on the side of the Axis.Maybe the most striking scene is the one in which they find the rifles that are being smuggled in to arm the natives against the British, and acid is used to raise the markings that have been ground off.When the markings indicate the Skoda Works in Czeckoslovakia(which had been occupied by Hitler several years before, so it was not the Czecks who were smuggling the guns) Pallini says with a shudder. "Its THEM!Its always THEM!".Without ever mentioning Nazis.Supposedly this was because we weren't in the war yet, but in fact it is extremely effective,like a monster whose presence is sensed, but not seen.It is as though Pallini is referring to some evil that is so terrible that he can't even bring himself to mention its name,the horror that is even more horrible because it has no name.

Sundown is a wartime morale boosting film that has not worn well over the years. The only thing eternal about it is Gene Tierney whose beauty is ageless.Gene's an exotic Arab woman who comes into an outpost now run by the British in what is now Somalia. The British have recently taken it over from the Italians in Africa and Bruce Cabot is running the civil administration. Coming to handle the military end is Major George Sanders of the British army.There's some Germans running guns to a tribe who have really not taken to white man's rule and the administrators have to put a stop to this before it all gets out of hand. Besides the people mentioned could it be the Dutch trader Carl Esmond, the former Italian administrator Joseph Calleia, or the white hunter Harry Carey. If you can't figure it out you haven't seen too many of these films.I can't understand for the life of me why Bruce Cabot was in this film. He doesn't attempt any kind of British accent because that would make him look more ridiculous. How many members of the British colony were asked to do this script and must have turned it down. He has one scene where he talks about when this war is over Africans will truly be free. That wouldn't have gone over well with the management at 10 Downing Street whose prime minister said he was not going to see the British Empire dissolved on his watch.To make sure you got the point after the main action of the film is over with cast members in the congregation, Cedric Hardwicke plays a vicar who is also George Sanders father. In a burned out bombed out church just like in Mrs. Miniver he gives an inspiring war speech in true Hardwicke eloquence.This United Artists release produced by Walter Wanger got three Oscar nominations. I will say Wanger did not satisfy himself some studio back lot African sets. The films was shot on location in New Mexico to simulate the Somali desert and got a deserved black and white cinematography Oscar nomination for it. Sundown's other nominations for best music score and best art and interior sets.All this talk about the good work of British colonialism is too much for today's audience. Just look at Somaliland now and see what it has become. But Sundown certainly gave young Gene Tierney an opportunity to look beautiful and exotic on the screen. I doubt this film will get a remake.

This early B entry into the patriotic category slapped a gorgeous young Gene Tierney on the ads and posters, but you have to wait a good time before you glimpse her, riding in a Hollywoodized camel train. Previously, we've set up George Sanders and Bruce Cabot in the desert as guys who barely get along, but must rally in the face of attack. I've seen Sanders as so many enjoyable cads that it was fun to witness a rare good guy turn. However, Bruce Cabot's allure is pretty much a mystery to me - he's base and unsubtle in comparison, but I've always felt he'd just emerged, smiling, from under a car, covered in grease and a sixth grade education. Some people like 'em that way, as did Gene's gypsy queen character. This is an action adventure filler, tho, and just as we've been warned of invading locals with guns, ready to sabotage and attack the Brits in their land, there is a final gun battle in which we must lose a main character for the good of all. This feature requires nothing more than your barest attention on a Saturday afternoon, a programmer that made whatever else it was paired with better. It was almost more interesting identifying the great supporting cast and a surprise appearance by Dorothy Dandridge in one of her first roles. A two or two and a half stars out of five.-MDM