Trouble in Sundown (1939) User Reviews

Where did you get that hat?

[alan-pratt · 7/10 · 16 January 2017]

Chubby George O'Brien - he of the massive over-sized titfer - grins his way though this entertaining B western, clearing the name of the honest banker (was there one?), sorting out dodgy surveyors Bond and Montague and finally winning the hand of Rosalind Keith.

Ray Whitley and the Phelps Brothers are on hand to warble a couple of ditties about life on the prairie and Chill Wills, as sidekick Whopper, tells tall tales presumably intended as comic relief.

The sets are good and the photography is nice: there are even a few plot twists to keep the non-western enthusiast interested. Above average.

Ruining the banker's reputation

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 9 May 2016]

Trouble In Sundown finds George O'Brien and his sidekicks Ray Whitely and Chill Wills investigating not just a bank robbery, but just why is whoever did the robbery want to ruin the reputation of banker Howard C. Hickman. For instance Hickman is not just accused of the bank robbery, but he's also framed for the murder of Deputy Jack Perrin who was pursuing him.

In a ton of westerns made at this time bankers during those Depression years of the 30s were more often than not the villains. It was easy enough to sell that. This western was a bit unusual in that Hickman is not the villain, but the real bad guys sure want to make it seem like he's in cahoots with them.

Had he not gone into more A list films Chill Wills could have done a whole career as a western sidekick. Ward Bond whose credits in 1939 also included Gone With The Wind and other A list films would be doing a lot more of those in the next two decades. Bond was one of the villain's henchmen.

There's action enough, but Trouble In Sundown also includes a bit of detective work by O'Brien and his companions. Still it's a solid B western for the Saturday matinée kid crowd.

The Progressive Union Label folks of California . . .

[oscaralbert · 7/10 · 7 February 2019]

. . . use TROUBLE IN SUNDOWN to alert the other True Blue Loyal Patriotic American Citizens of the egregious risk of giving nefarious "Red State" types a seat at America's Adult Table. In a normal Blue State, when a business or bank is robbed, everyone immediately tries to help the crime victim. TROUBLE IN SUNDOWN documents how deplorable Red State scalawags crawl out of their basket, and behave in an illogical, counter-intuitive fashion. Their first instinct is to clump together in a mob, and immediately break the robbed bank's windows, while trying to string up their long-time trusted loan benefactor, "John." (Note that "Bailey's Building and Loan" was fortuitously located in a BLUE State, so depositors took up a collection for poor "George" during IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, rather then murdering him and his family!) Red State sheriffs, judges, and prosecutors are just as clueless, venal, and empty-headed as the common rabble, TROUBLE IN SUNDOWN discloses. To compare this Red State "Group Think" to the behavior of insects does a real disservice to the latter, because spiders and cockroaches display a lot more intelligence than a typical Red Stater. It's hard to believe that any normal person could view TROUBLE IN SUNDOWN, and then voluntarily travel to an unsafe Red State!

Holy Smokes...The Bank's Bin Robbed!

[bsmith5552 · 6/10 · 1 May 2018]

The "Trouble in Sonora" is the bank's been robbed in another of RKO's George O'Brien series.

Banker John Cameron (Howard Hickman) is blamed for the robbery since he was the only one who knew the combination to the safe. Rancher Clint Bradford (O'Brien) believes in Cameron's innocence and sends him away to an undisclosed location. Of course, Clint's interest in Cameron's comely young daughter Julie (Rosiland Keith) had nothing to do with it. But wait, wasn't that Cy Kendall in the background at the bank. You've got to believe that he was up to something.

Ross Daggett (Kendall) who has a vested interest in having Cameron found guilty, sends his two henchmen Tex (Monte Montague) and Dusty (Ward Bond) to find and kill him. At the same time Clint and Deputy Larry (Jack Perrin) set out to bring Cameron back for trial. Before they can reach him Tex and Dusty kill the Deputy unbeknownst to Clint who had been "circling around behind them". Cameron is blamed for the killing.

Cameron turns himself in to the sheriff (Bob Burns) and goes to trial. In the interim Clint and his sidekick Whopper (Chill Wills) learn how Daggett got the combination. He has the Judge (Lloyd Ingraham) move the trial over to the bank in order to flush out the real robbers and.........................................

O'Brien was an able action star. He could handle the rough stuff (witness his scrap with Bond) and could also perform the "hard ridin'" as well. Ray Whitley croons a couple of songs with the Phelps Brothers and "acts" the part of sidekick Andy. Tom London plays the town doctor. O'Brien and Bond would appear together in John Ford's "Fort Apache" (1948). Bond and Wills would go on to lengthy careers as western character actors.

a real good 30s western

[KDWms · 9/10 · 27 April 2003]

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** I really liked Trouble In Sundown. It's other than mindless shoot-'em-up. Not plot-heavy, but plot-intelligent. Kindly old banker John Cameron, who doesn't have a dishonest bone in his body, opens one morning to find that his burglar-proof safe - to which only HE has the combination - has been looted, and the body of his suffocated night watchman is in inside. Dusty, one half of a brotherly surveying team whose second-floor apartment is atop the bank, incites other opening-bell customers and passers-by to accuse Cameron, who Clint helps escape. It looks even worse for Cameron when a deputy is killed while approaching Cameron's first hideout. Of course, Dusty is workin' for somebody who's wealthy enough to cover the bank's loss and respected enough to assume that role. But the debtors don't realize that the new moneyman (unlike Cameron) won't tolerate their past-due loans 'til autumn, when harvest and round-up riches will enable them to return to their payment schedules. Meantime, the main villain can cheaply buy the many foreclosed properties. The state is overseeing all this, and complicates the bad guy's plan, however, by wanting to wait sixty days, expecting that Cameron'll be captured before then, and, in deference to his spotless record, he'll have the opportunity to explain. Shucks! Nobody'll back-owe, then! Now we gotta catch and convict Cameron right away; the first half of which is managed; but the courtroom events really won me over. There are a couple of adequately-placed Phelps brothers tunes here and a little romance, as Cameron's daughter, June, attracts Clint's affections. In this one, O'Brien exercises his brain as well as his brawn.

Trouble in Sundown

[coltras35 · 8/10 · 22 March 2024]

The bank has been robbed, the night watchman killed and the safe opened. The townspeople want John as he was the only one with the combination. Clint gets John out of town but before the mob turns ugly but the deputy is shot when he and Clint go to get John at the shack. Things look bad for John, but Clint does not believe that John did the robbery and he will look for the real crooks.

Not filled with wall to wall action, Trouble in Sundown is a solid western with a rollicking pace, an intelligence in terms of plot, nice twists in the tale and a little detective work by a hero who has brains as well as brawn. O'Brien is helping a banker accused of stealing from the vault and Ward Bond et al are trying to nab him, but O ' Brien has him stashed in a ghost town. The resolution is satisfying and how the bad guys got the vault number is an inspiring idea.the detective element gives this B western a nice touch.