Oh dear! Otto Preminger, I am certain, made this with the best of intentions, but how after the glorious and mysteriously complex, Bunny Lake Is Missing, could he spend time on this? Over long and overwrought, this race drama is surely one of his most misguided enterprises. Michael Caine's acting limitations are cruelly exposed as he struggles even with the accent. Jane Fonda is good and although she was already an established actor her big star stuff was around the corner. Faye Dunaway is also fine and this her breakout film with fame and fortune beckoning. Burgess Meredith is a sad sight in this but amazingly he was only mid career and a great survivor. I'm really trying to avoid having to keep saying how bad I thought this was. Particularly because so much of it was okay, do I feel so annoyed and frustrated at the whole chunks that should have been rewritten (or left out). I understand a cut version showed on US TV and I can see that there are a couple of sexual scenes that whilst not particularly explicit do sit uneasily within this tale where children are shown to be so involved in the troubling scenes of racism.
Review of Hurry Sundown
