LeonLouisRicci Here is a Western that is far above the majority made in the 1950's, and man there were quite a number, that has as much to do about character, motivation, morality, and other deep concerns, not found in a typical trip to the nineteenth century with cowboys and outlaws.In fact, this is one of those that forsakes the usual focus on the landscape and moves the action to indoors because we are going inside the minds of all the characters and there is nothing open about their thought process, until they make a decision to see themselves as they really were, slaves in Sundown.There are many players and they all have a part in the drama and sometimes it is amazing that so much could be done in less than 90 minutes. There is much sermonizing and this tale of revenge and soul searching is, nonetheless, another in the highly entertaining and thought provoking films in the Boetticher-Scott stable. Although it seems smaller in comparison to some of the others, it is just as big, and it is just as expansive, only this time it opens the mind and sheds sunlight on the soul.

Robert J. Maxwell "Doc, if you'd been a bartender as long as I have you wouldn't expect so much from the human race." Good line. Thought provoking. Was Thomas Hobbes a bartender? Randolph Scott rides into Sundown with his pal, Noah Beery Jr. It's a big day in Sundown. Tate Kimbrough, who runs the place, is getting married to Karen Steele. Lucky him. But Scott interrupts the proceedings by speaking up when the preacher, Richard Deacon, asks if any man knows why these two should not be joined together. Well, Scott has a reason, although it doesn't emerge until later. Kimbrough had a fling with Scott's wife before she done killed herself.Following the interruption, everybody in town seems to take off after Scott and Beery, shooting and hollering. The pair take shelter in a stable while bullets whiz and zip through the windows. "Come on out!", yell the townsfolk. The doc is allowed to enter the bunker and tries to talk sense to Scott but Scott is a man of integrity. A visit by Steele doesn't change his mind either. He gets even more integrity when his buddy Beery is shot down in the street while unarmed. It makes the cheese more binding.It's Randolph Scott and Budd Boetticher alright but unfortunately a lesser example of their work together. Boetticher was at his best with the stolid Scott hero and a flashy villain, like Lee Marvin or Richard Boone. This is a town movie, full of community involvement, and Boetticher wasn't interested in that. His subject was always two men who share a certain code facing off with one another. The fact that he'd been a professional matador in Mexico was a reflection of these values.John Carroll is not a complex villain. He's pretty much normal. The community, for all its occasional drunkenness, is dull. The music is dull. The wardrobe is dull. The location shooting is limited to a studio ranch. The dialog lacks the sparkle and freshness that Burt Kennedy brought to some of their collaborations, in one of which a character says, "Ma'am, if you'd of been my woman I'd have come for you, even if I'd of died in the doin' of it." Compared to some of the minor gems that Scott, Boetticher, and the rest of the team produced, this is lesser stuff.

Terrell-4 I've always liked Randolph Scott westerns. It's hard not to if a person likes Scott's style, manner, authority and, in his movies with Budd Boetticher, his approach to being an aging, moralistic grim reaper in showdowns with bad guys like Lee Marvin and Richard Boone. I'll make an exception for Decision at Sundown. What put me off was a drama without, for 50 minutes of the 77-minute running time, any gripping motivation for Bart Allison's (Randolph Scott) hatred. We know something, probably nasty, happened to Mary and that the slick Tate Kimbrough (John Carroll) had something to do with it. But what? Allison's sick obsession with killing Kimbrough ("For three years I've hunted Kimbrough, but he didn't know it. Before I settle with him I want him to know he's being hunted."), even on Kimbrough's wedding day when Allison arrives at Sundown, seems more like a plot device than a major justification for violence. With Kimbrough running the town, with a sly and cowardly sheriff in his pocket and his bride's wealthy father somehow beholden, it's everybody against Allison and his sidekick, Sam (played by that good-natured actor, Noah Beery, Jr.). While we learn that Mary had some qualities other than saintly goodness, for most of the movie Scott winds up sounding like a man choking back tears and irrationally unwilling to hear a bad -- or even balanced -- word against his dead wife. It's an odd performance. By the time we really get to know the people of Sundown -- not just Tate Kimbrough, but his fiancé (Karen Steele), who doesn't love Tate, his girl friend (Valerie French), who does, and leering barbers, avuncular barkeeps, a noble doctor, a vicious deputy sheriff and assorted nervous and cowed onlookers -- the fact that there might be two sides to what Allison believes becomes more of a righteous afterthought. There are too many clichés in the screenplay ("You just stood up there in church and told Kimbrough you wuz gonna kill him? Bart, you must be plumb crazy!"), an uninvolving plot and an unsatisfactory character for Scott. The movie's not all that bad, but not very good. I'll say this: The conclusion, bitter and drunken, almost makes up for the rest. Some think this movie holds up well, including Taylor Hackford, who provides an analysis of the movie. This is one to watch and then make up your own mind. Scott commands the screen, even when a couple of times he sounds like he's about to cry when he thinks of Mary. He was 59 when he made this movie. He made two more before retiring in 1962 with a great finish as Gil Westrum in Ride the High Country. Here he's starting to show his years but it doesn't matter. Whether he was lucky with his metabolism or just dieted rigorously, he doesn't carry an ounce of fat on his frame. He's lean, muscular, moves well and looks believable in a show down. If, like me, you weren't impressed with the Boetticher/Scott combo in Decision at Sundown, just take a look at The Tall T. This Boetticher/Scott movie was made two years earlier. It benefits enormously from a story by Elmore Leonard and a taut, suspenseful screenplay by Burt Kennedy. The Tall T, together with Seven Men from Now and Ride the High County are Randolph Scott in his later years at his best.

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.