Decision at Sundown (1957)

Bart Allison and sidekick Sam arrive in the town of Sundown on the wedding day of town boss Tate Kimbrough, whom Allison blames for his wife's death years earlier.

Director:

Budd Boetticher

Writers:

Charles Lang (screenplay) (as Charles Lang Jr.), Vernon L. Fluharty (from a story by)

Stars:

Randolph Scott, John Carroll, Karen Steele

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Randolph Scott	...	Bart Allison
John Carroll	...	Tate Kimbrough
Karen Steele	...	Lucy Summerton
Valerie French	...	Ruby James
Noah Beery Jr.	...	Sam (as Noah Beery)
John Archer	...	Dr. John Storrow
Andrew Duggan	...	Sheriff Swede Hansen
James Westerfield	...	Otis
John Litel	...	Charles Summerton
Ray Teal	...	Morley Chase
Vaughn Taylor	...	Mr. Baldwin
Richard Deacon	...	Reverend Zaron
H.M. Wynant	...	Spanish

Storyline

Bart Allison arrives in Sundown planning to kill Tate Kimbrough. Three years earlier he believed Kimbrough was responsible for the death of his wife. He finds Kimbrough and warns him he is going to kill him but gets pinned down in the livery stable with his friend Sam by Kimbrough's stooge Sheriff and his men. When Sam is shot in the back after being told he could leave safely, some of the townsmen change sides and disarm the Sheriff's men forcing him to face Allison alone. Taking care of the Sheriff, Allison injures his gun hand and must now face Kimbrough left-handed.

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Plot Keywords:

one armed gunfighter | shot in the back | revenge motive | interrupted wedding | american southwest | 

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Taglines:

Big showdown coming up !

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Genres:

Western

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Certificate:

Approved

Did You Know?

Trivia

There is a statue of what appears to be a black women in the hotel bar but is blurred out even though she was fully clothed when shown on TV (4/30/20).

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Goofs

Several coils of rope hanging in the barn where Scott is trapped are secured with modern tape.

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Quotes

Lucy Summerton: [Last lines] John, we just can't let him ride away. If it wasn't for him...
Dr. John Storrow: Yes, he changed things for everybody in town. But, unfortunately, there's nothing we can do for him. I'll tell you one thing, none of us will ever forget the day that Bart Allison spent in Sundown.

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Connections

Featured in Budd Boetticher: A Man Can Do That (2005)

User Reviews

The Day Bart Allison Came To Sundown

This particular Budd Boetticher/Randolph Scott collaboration finds Scott as the meanest he ever was on the screen. At least since Coroner Creek where he played a similarly driven man on a vengeance quest against a man who killed his bride to be.

It's worse in Decision at Sundown. A few years earlier when Scott was away at war John Carroll took up with Scott's late wife. Now Randy with sidekick Noah Beery, Jr. has come into the town of Sundown looking to kill Carroll who has moved there and essentially taken over with his bought and paid for sheriff Andrew Duggan. Carroll by no coincidence I'm sure is getting married to Karen Steele that day, the daughter of a local rancher John Litel much to the dismay of Carroll's long time mistress Valerie French.

Scott interrupts the wedding and then he and Beery are trapped in a barn. While all this is going on a lot of the townsfolk who have let Carroll and his bully boys run roughshod over them start reexamining what's happened to their town.

Decision at Sundown shows Randolph Scott as the ugliest he ever was on the screen. He's a pretty mean hero in Coroner Creek as Chris Danning. But his character of Bart Allison in this film makes Danning look like a Boy Scout.

I can't say any more, you'll just have to see the rather unusual ending in this film and how it works out for Scott and the rest of the town of Sundown.

Let's just say he changed everyone's life, but his own.

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

10 November 1957 (USA)

Also Known As:

Décision à Sundown

Filming Locations:

Agoura, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Producers-Actors Corporation, Scott-Brown Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

77 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1