Recently on Amazon I found three Otto Preminger films that I had not previously seen, all from his less well regarded late period. The first of these is 'Hurry Sundown' from 1967, based on the 1965 novel of the same name credited to K.B. Gilden, the collective pseudonym of husband and wife co-authors Katya and Bert Gilden. Set in Georgia in 1946 the story concerns two childhood friends, solders recently returned from war, one black (Robert Hooks) and one white (John Phillip Law) and the efforts of the latters cousin (Michael Caine) to forcibly buy out their farms and flood them for a massive agricultural project. There are a number of melodramatic side plots concerning the community residents including Burgess Meredith (a Preminger good luck charm), Jane Fonda, Diahann Carroll, George Kennedy, and Faye Dunaway in her film debut.
The movie is a combination of 'In the Heat of the Night' (which came out the same year), 'Payton Place' and 'Wild River', all of which are better pictures. While Preminger had previously enjoyed a lot of success with star studded adaptations of topical novels ('Advise and Consent', 'Exodus', 'The Cardinal') this movie lacks the spirit, energy, and cohesion of those films. The director is not at the top of his game with this melodrama that cries out too hard to be relevant, something he was always obsessed with to mixed results over the course his career. The film does have one very strong courtroom sequence, featuring Jim Backus of all people, and isn't horrible, it's just not all that good. Shot on location in the south amidst local opposition, which is admirable so I wish I could report it was better. **
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