I was a remarkably insensitive 14 year old when I first saw "The sun shines bright", a title vaguely familiar from a song sung by my grandfather,a stretcher - bearer on the Western Front who would often break into "The sun shines bright on Charlie Chaplin" whilst working in his tailor's workshop. There were no race issues in England,the only non - white person I had ever met delivered "Easyklene" products to my grandmother's door three or four times a year. The innocence of my vision was indeed enviable. I knew a little about he American Civil War - I'd seen "Gone with the wind" and knew about the abolition of slavery. I'd heard my first jazz record,"Darktown Strutters'Ball" by Bunk Johnson but knew nothing of the indignities suffered by black people despite the war between the states being over for ninety years. I loved this sentimental portrait without actually knowing it was a sentimental portrait. The judge was obviously a wise and human man,I totally didn't get the reference to the whore,the controversial depictions of the black characters(I thought Stepin Fetchit was a great comedian on a par with "Amos 'n' Andy") and the general undercurrent of what seems to many reviewers racism tantamount to KKK levels. Now I do,but I shan't make the mistake of applying 21st century sensitivities to a 65 year old film that's basic aim was to entertain. One perceptive reviewer likened Mr Ford's portrayal of post - bellum Kentucky to his vision of Ireland in "The Quiet Man",a never - never land existing only in his head. This isn't a significant socially realistic film - Mr Ford had very little time for that sort of cinema. It is a rather whimsical,entertaining piece of fiction;an exceptionally well - made portion of Americana that displeases many today. To criticise it because it doesn't suit us today is like criticising "Battleship Potemkin" because it doesn't have commercial breaks every 15 minutes.

"Racist? Me? My best friends are black; Woody Strode and my servant who's lived with me for thirty years. I've even made a picture exalting the blacks! I'm not a racist! I consider the blacks as completely American!" - John FordJohn Ford's "The Sun Shines Bright" stars Charles Winniger as William Priest, a kind, elderly judge operating out of old Kentucky. Structured as a series of vignettes, the film watches as Priest finds work for lazy black men, sympathises with prostitutes, defends wrongly accused African Americans, challenges racist lynch mobs and forges bonds between Confederate and Unionist types, the American North and South holding hands under the magnificent spectacle of the Star-Spangled Banner.In other words, it's another John Ford flick about "what it means to be American". What's interesting about "The Sun Shines Bright", though, is the way it manages to be sympathetic to the plights of the downtrodden (prostitutes, women, African Americans etc), whilst also being totally conservative, racist and reactionary. In this regard, Ford's film is filled with racial stereotypes (Stepin Fetchit, cast a dimwitted man-child), is incredibly paternalistic, pretends to decry outlaw justice whilst celebrating the vigilante killing of bad guys, panders to Confederates and exalts the moral and ethical superiority of the Law (which in most Ford flicks, equates with the bowing down to military/patriarchal authority). "The Sun Shines Bright" was based on a series of "Judge Priest" stories by Irvin S. Cobb. It's also a loose remake of Ford's 1933 film, "Judge Priest". That film opened with text which exalted the "tolerance of the late 1800s" and the "wisdom of an almost vanished generation". This bogus sentimentality, and ahistoricism, is replicated in "The Sun Shines Bright", both films nostalgically pining for a Lost Cause mode of southern identity, but doing so in the guise of a statement against prejudice and intolerance. This is not surprising. Most films "about" or "against" racism ("Colour Purple", "Monster's Ball", "Sayonara", "The Blind Side" etc) are thoroughly racist. But "The Sun Shines Bright" goes further. It manages to outright reassert the patriarchal slave order of the Old South, and endorse its standard iconography of racial subjugation, whilst doing so via a mechanism of reform.Most Ford flicks take place within a burgeoning civilisation on the edge of a beautiful wilderness. Ford then typically gives us little bastions – usually army bases, forts, small towns etc – at which American "values" take root or battle for victory. In "The Sun Shines Bright's" case, such values include tolerance, law, justice, community, the virtue of local elections, independence and so forth, though blacks remain "too young to vote", as our esteemed Judge reminds us.Aesthetically, "The Sun Shines Bright" is strong, Ford's framing and cutting immaculate. The film overloads on antebellum nostalgia/sentimentality, but was regarded by Ford as one of his finest creations. The film's racist caricatures are typically explained away by critics as being a "product of their time" (some say Stepin Fetchit's portrayal is "subversive"), but that idea is nonsense. 1953 wasn't the Dark Ages, and Western artists have been sympathetically portraying blacks since the 1700s. In 1960, Ford would attempt to address accusations that his films depict a thoroughly whitewashed version of the Old West (by 1870, approximately 290,000 African Americans lived in the sixteen territories comprising the West, approximately twelve percent of the population) by directing "Sergeant Rutledge". That film revolved around a "Buffalo Soldier" (played by Woody Strode as an archetypal "strong, righteous black man") who is wrongfully accused of raping a white woman during the Indian Wars. Here Ford attempts to debunk the myth of the "black rapist", a spectre which has hung over cinema since "The Birth of a Nation", but as is often the case with Ford, such well meaning gestures are negated by the film itself; this was ultimately a picture which ignores the fact that it is about oppressed minorities armed to slay oppressed minorities, and one which has total faith in the dignity and morality of military service, an institution which Ford's hero naively believes provides "freedom" and "self respect". Released during the rise of American Civil Rights movements, black audiences rightfully rejected "Rutledge"; you cannot reconcile black pride and black sexuality with the authoritarian, racist system of the white-controlled military.Within his own life, Ford embodied similar contradictions. As the child of immigrants, he was the member of a persecuted racial and religious minority, a fact which led to him identifying with anyone who faced victimisation. In the early 1950s, when Hollywood was being mauled by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), which investigated Communist influence in the film industry, Ford would also speak out against the attempts of right-wing directors to take over the Directors Guild of America and enforce their own blacklisting policies. On the flip side, Ford also allied himself with the conservative Motion Picture Alliance for the Protection of American Ideals (MPAPAI), which attempted to search out Communists in the industry. Such contradictory motions are common in his later works.4/10 – Worth one viewing.

It would be nice to be able to discuss this film without having to refer to its politically incorrect depiction of blacks, but it's impossible to do so. The film, which is a remake of director John Ford's own Judge Priest from the 30s (in which Will Rogers played the title role), must have seemed curiously dated even when it was released, and feels like it was made in the early forties rather than the mid-fifties. Whether that's because of its outdated attitude towards blacks and the presence of slow, scratchy-voiced Stepin Fetchit is open to conjecture – it could just be that the fog of nostalgia that hangs over the entire work is the reason.Charles Winninger makes an amiable old judge whose quiet wisdom puts to shame the hypocritically puritanical attitudes of his small town's people and the racist assumptions of an unruly lynch mob out to hang a blameless teenage Negro. The storyline is kind of meandering, reflecting the apparently relaxed pace of life in the turn of the century Deep South, and you do really get a taste of Southern gentility – whether accurate not. Its various sub-plots are linked together by the judge's bid for re-election, which serves to emphasise the importance of standing by one's principles no matter what the possible personal costs may be. Of course, the truth is Billy Priest is too good to be true, but I don't think anyone was out to make him a more realistic figure in this milieu than Santa Claus or God would have been.John Ford's notorious sentimentality is in danger of becoming cloying at times, but he just about manages to rein it in at key moments. The film says as much about Hollywood's take on American social attitudes in the mid-50s as it does about the same in the Deep South at the turn of the century, which isn't in itself a bad thing. I suppose it's even possible that one day films like this will be shown in classrooms to demonstrate the gigantic positive strides made in the cause of racial equality in the latter half of the 20th Century. Better that than they are wilfully ignored in the name of political correctness.

Believe it or not, John Ford always used to say his most beautiful and honest pictures were not actually Westerns; they were small, unambitious stories without big stars about communities of very simple people. 1953's "The Sun Shines Bright", the last movie he made for Argosy Pictures and Herbert J. Yates, was THE movie Ford always liked to refer to as his absolute favorite, one that came close to what he wanted to achieve, along with "Wagon Master" and "The Fugitive".It is a work of great beauty, a lovingly crafted remake of the director's extraordinary 1934 Will Rogers vehicle, "Judge Priest", based on some folksy Judge Priest stories by Irving S. Cobb.What distinguishes "Sun Shines Bright" from "Judge Priest" is its rigid, formal structure. It is an extremely complex work on many levels: the acting, photography, camera work, montage, and music. Each scene is intricately shot, mounted, and choreographed with precision and clarity amidst some singing, dancing, parading. It is basically the work of an old man, entirely bereft of the sublime, soft-focus, Griffith-inspired rural simplicity of "Judge Priest", though both movies share the same themes and preoccupations. But "Sun", I think, is a better and more stirring experience, with its carefully crafted passages of a prejudiced community in the Old South at the turn of the century.In "Sun", Ford densely weaves a series of intertwining vignettes concerning a classic Fordian hero: William Pittman Priest (magnificently played by Charles Winninger), a small town Kentucky judge who powerfully heals, mediates, and reconciles the tensions of his intolerant community, reminding it of its racial prejudices while subtly acknowledging the strength and significance of its Civil War history. He is also a celibate and a lonely figure who persistently lives for his community, leading them to a better future. Priest has an affinity with other Fordian heroes such as Tom Doniphon of "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance", Will Rogers, young Mr. Lincoln, Ethan Edwards of "The Searchers", and "7 Women"'s Dr. Cartwright.Priest is occasionally accompanied by his African-American comic sidekick Jeff Poindexter (an aging Stepin Fetchit who also accompanied Will Rogers in "Judge Priest"). Though painfully segregated, both blacks and whites overlap and are integrated through song and music. Here, Jeff plays harmonica on Priest's porch; U. S. Grant Woodford plays "Dixie" in the courtroom; and almost all of the characters parade and sing "In Old Kentucky Home" at the end. In a moving scene that recalls the near lynching in "Young Mr. Lincoln", Priest painfully calms a lynch mob accusing an innocent black man of raping a white woman, a scene that was apparently cut from 1934 "Judge Priest".Priest also finds himself running a re-election against a right-wing prosecutor Horace K. Maydew ("Young Mr. Lincoln"'s Milburn Stone). Unlike his radical opponent, Ford portrays Priest as a tragically complex figure, capable of grasping the feelings and complexities of his divided community. He has an acute understanding of the importance of tradition while discerning the need for social change. In what is perhaps the movie's most spectacular moment, Priest stages a funeral procession of a dead prostitute from Cobb's short story "The Lord Provides" - a stunning sequence that it should easily be ranked along with one of Ford's finest achievements."The Sun Shines Bright" did poorly when it was released and over the years it disappeared into an undeserved obscurity. It is often overshadowed by Ford's other film of the year, the entertaining Safari yarn "Mogambo". And yet it seems to me one of Ford's top four or five masterpieces. It may be sternly old-fashioned and sentimental by today's standards, but it is an extremely personal work that should be viewed within its own merits.See it and let me know what you think.