In 1946, bigoted, draft-dodging, gold-digging Henry Warren and his heiress, land-owning wife Julie Ann, are determined to sell their land in rural Georgia to owners of a northern canning plant, but the deal rests on selling two adjoining plots as well, one owned by Henry's cousin Rad McDowell and his wife Lou, the other by black farmer Reeve Scott, whose ailing mother Rose had been Julie's wet nurse. Neither farmer is interested in selling his land, and they form a dangerous and controversial black and white partnership to strengthen their legal claim to their land, which infuriates Henry.
When Rose suddenly dies, Henry tries to persuade his wife to charge Reeve with illegal ownership of his property, but local black teacher Vivian Thurlow searches the town's records and uncovers proof that Reeve legally registered the deed to his land. Julie, upset with Henry's treatment of their mentally challenged young son, decides to leave him and drops her suit against Reeve.
With the help of Ku Klux Klansmen, Henry dynamites the levee above the farms, and Rad's oldest child drowns in the ensuing flood, much to Henry's dismay. Rather than admit defeat, Rad and Reeve decide to rebuild their devastated properties with the assistance of their neighbors.
Otto Preminger was shown the galley proof of the 1,046-page Gilden manuscript by his brother Ingo and, fully expecting it to be another Gone with the Wind, purchased the film rights to the novel for $100,000 eight months prior to its publication. He initially intended to adapt it for a four-and-a-half-hour epic film that would be shown twice-a-day at what would be the highest price scale in the history of American film exhibition, with a top admission of $25 on Friday and Saturday nights. When the book sold a mere 300,000 copies, Preminger decided a less grandiose project might be in order.[5]
Because he admired his screenplay for the Harper Lee novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Preminger hired Horton Foote to adapt the Gilden book, which the author thought was "embarrassing," with "no genuine Southern flavor at all." His first instinct was to decline the offer, but he then decided he could do something with it, so Preminger installed him and his family in a house in London, where the director was filming Bunny Lake Is Missing. Foote completed his draft in three months, but Preminger was unhappy with it, feeling it was missing the melodrama and theatricality the story required. He paid Foote his full fee and dismissed him, although he later insisted on giving the writer screen credit, which Foote accepted (in later years, he admitted he never saw the film and never included it on his résumé). Preminger replaced Foote with Thomas C. Ryan, who worked for him as his chief reader and was familiar with the type of material his employer found appealing.[6]
Preminger wanted to shoot the entire film in Georgia, and in November and December 1965 he visited the state to scout locations, but a union dispute changed his plans. Because the filming would be done during the oppressively hot and humid months of June through August, he planned to shoot at night as much as possible. The New York union, which had jurisdiction over Georgia, demanded crews be paid double for any filming after 4:00pm, an added expense Preminger knew would be prohibitive. Production designerGene Callahan suggested his home state of Louisiana might be a viable alternative, since the unions there were governed by the more liberal one in Chicago. Baton Rouge and its environs were selected, and Callahan's crew began planting cornfields, erecting shanties, and constructing a dam and reservoir containing 17.5 million gallons of water.[7]
From the start, Preminger and his cast and crew encountered strong resistance from the locals, who resented having a film featuring a biracial friendship made in their midst and were prejudiced against the film's black crew members and cast. Tires were slashed, some actors received telephoned death threats, and a burning cross appeared on one of the sets at 3:00 am. The manager of the hotel where everyone was housed, the Bellemont Motor Hotel, advised Preminger mixed bathing would not be permitted in the swimming pools, but grudgingly agreed to designate one "interracial" when the director threatened to vacate the premises and not pay the bill. At one point a "crude bomb" was thrown into the desegregated pool, but no one was injured as it happened late at night.[8] Eventually armed state troopers were called in to guard the hotel wing where everyone was staying, making them feel as if they were under house arrest. Problems were encountered even in New Orleans, when Michael Caine tried to show Bobby Hooks an all-black revue Caine had seen, only for Hooks to be refused admission.[9] Matters came to a head when a convoy of cars and trucks returning to the hotel through a heavily wooded area one evening became the target of a volley of sniper gunfire. Robert Hooks later recalled, "All of us were convinced that we were surrounded by some of the dumbest and meanest people on the face of the earth, to say nothing of being the most cowardly."[10]
Midway through filming, Preminger had to replace cinematographer Loyal Griggs with Milton R. Krasner when Griggs seriously injured his back. He later banned screenwriter Ryan from the set for talking to Rex Reed for an article published in The New York Times. In it Reed characterized the director as an autocrat who was losing his grip, quoted Michael Caine as saying, "He's only happy when everybody else is miserable," and claimed Griggs had been fired by Preminger "in a moment of uncontrolled fury." Griggs demanded and received a retraction from the Times.[11][12]
Preminger greatly regretted casting Faye Dunaway, whose first film role it was, and with whom he clashed on a regular basis. She felt the director didn't know "anything at all about the process of acting." She resented having him yell at her in public and commented, "Once I've been crossed, I'm not very conciliatory." After filming was completed, she sued Preminger to win her release from the five-film contract she had signed with him. An out-of-court settlement was reached in March 1968. Dunaway later admitted, "It cost me a lot of money to not work for Otto again . . . I regretted paying him [but] I thought he was awful."[13][14]
The movie opened to unfavorable reviews from those who felt that Preminger was out of tune with the problems of the contemporary South. It was also criticized for its out-of-date racial stereotyping and tasteless attitude toward sexuality.[18]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called the film "a frustrating case, not good but not particularly bad, with a smokescreen of controversy surrounding it and obscuring its real faults. The trouble with this film . . . is not that it's racist and tasteless, but that it's naive and dull."[19]
Time observed "Obviously, Hurry Sundown was intended as a paean to racial justice, but Producer-Director Otto Preminger chooses strange ways to display his big brotherhood. One sequence shows Negro sharecroppers singing a white-eyed hallelujah number reminiscent of those '40s films that pretended to liberalize but patently patronized. Two hours of such cinematic clichés make the viewer intolerant of everyone in the film, regardless of race, creed or color."[21]
Variety wrote that "Otto Preminger has created an outstanding, tasteful but hard-hitting, and handsomely-produced film . . . Told with a depth and frankness, the story develops its theme in a welcome, straight-forward way that is neither propaganda nor mere exploitation material."[22]
Time Out London wrote that "The Preminger flair which made The Cardinal so enjoyable, despite its hackneyed script, seems to have deserted him in this lumbering melodrama, put together with the sort of crudely opportunistic style which alternates scenes of the rich folks parading in a stately mansion with shots of the poor sitting down to their humble fare while thumping mood music makes sure you get the point."[23]
Channel 4 noted "Preminger wears a liberal heart on his sleeve and then blows his nose on it as heavy-handed sentimentality and nobility dominate this story . . . God, sex, class, guilt, moralising and Negro spirituals are all thrown into the stew, and you'll come away feeling that although it's worthy in its ideals, it could have done with a touch less overblown melodrama."[24]
The Legion of Decency gave the film a "C", "Condemned" rating, citing its "superficial and patronizing in its treatment of racial attitudes and tensions" and also its "frequently prurient and demeaning ... approach to sex.”.[18]
Hurry Sundown was release to DVD by Olive Films (under license from Paramount) on May 17, 2011, with the Blu-Ray coming out December 23, 2014, and also on November 13, 2012, as a part of the 3-disc Blu-Ray boxed set, The Otto Preminger Collection, with Hurry Sundown as disc one of the set.
Otto Ludwig Preminger was an Austrian-American theatre and film director, film producer, and actor. He directed more than 35 feature films in a five-decade career after leaving the theatre. He first gained attention for film noir mysteries such as Laura (1944) and Fallen Angel (1945), while in the 1950s and 1960s, he directed high-profile adaptations of popular novels and stage works. Several of these later films pushed the boundaries of censorship by dealing with themes which were then taboo in Hollywood, such as drug addiction, rape and homosexuality. He was twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director. He also had several acting roles.
Dorothy Faye Dunaway is an American actress. She is the recipient of many accolades, including an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, three Golden Globe Awards, and a BAFTA Award. In 2011, the government of France made her an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters.
Laura is a 1944 American film noir produced and directed by Otto Preminger. It stars Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, and Clifton Webb along with Vincent Price and Judith Anderson. The screenplay by Jay Dratler, Samuel Hoffenstein, and Betty Reinhardt is based on the 1943 novel Laura by Vera Caspary. Laura received five nominations for the Academy Awards, including for Best Director, winning for Best Black and White Cinematography. In 1999, Laura was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The American Film Institute named it one of the 10 best mystery films of all time, and it also appears on Roger Ebert's "Great Movies" series.
The year 1967 in film involved some significant events. It is widely considered one of the most ground-breaking years in American cinema, with "revolutionary" films highlighting the shift towards forward thinking European standards at the time, including: Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Cool Hand Luke, The Dirty Dozen, In Cold Blood, In the Heat of the Night, The Jungle Book and You Only Live Twice.
River of No Return is a 1954 American Western musical film directed by Otto Preminger and starring Robert Mitchum and Marilyn Monroe. The screenplay by Frank Fenton is based on a story by Louis Lantz, who borrowed his premise from the 1948 Italian film Bicycle Thieves. The picture was shot on location in the Canadian Rockies in Technicolor and CinemaScope and released by 20th Century Fox.
Angel Face is a 1953 American film noir directed by Otto Preminger, starring Robert Mitchum and Jean Simmons, and featuring Leon Ames and Barbara O'Neil. It was filmed on location in Beverly Hills, California.
Porgy and Bess is a 1959 American musical drama film directed by Otto Preminger, and starring Sidney Poitier and Dorothy Dandridge in the titular roles. It is based on the 1935 opera Porgy and Bess by George Gershwin, DuBose Heyward and Ira Gershwin, in turn based on Heyward's 1925 novel Porgy, as well as Heyward's subsequent 1927 non-musical stage adaptation, co-written with his wife Dorothy. The film's screenplay, which turned the operatic recitatives into spoken dialogue, was very closely based on the opera and was written by N. Richard Nash. In 2011, the film was chosen for inclusion in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.
John Phillip Law was an American film actor.
Fallen Angel is a 1945 American film noir directed by Otto Preminger, with cinematography by Joseph LaShelle, who had also worked with Preminger on Laura a year before. The film features Alice Faye, Dana Andrews, Linda Darnell and Charles Bickford. Fallen Angel was Faye's last film as a major Hollywood star, and she did not appear in another film until State Fair (1962).
Kidnapped (1938) is an adventure film directed by Otto Preminger and Alfred L. Werker, starring Warner Baxter and Freddie Bartholomew, and based on the 1886 novel Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson.
Margin for Error is a 1943 American drama film directed by Otto Preminger. The screenplay by Lillie Hayward and Samuel Fuller is based on the 1939 play of the same title by Clare Boothe Luce.
The Chase is a 1966 American drama film, directed by Arthur Penn, written by Lillian Hellman, and starring Marlon Brando, Jane Fonda, and Robert Redford. It tells the story of a series of events that are set into motion by a prison break. The film also features E. G. Marshall, Angie Dickinson, Janice Rule, Miriam Hopkins, Martha Hyer, Robert Duvall, and James Fox.
Carmen Jones is a 1954 American musical film featuring an African American cast starring Harry Belafonte, Dorothy Dandridge, and Pearl Bailey and produced and directed by Otto Preminger. The screenplay by Harry Kleiner is based on the lyrics and book by Oscar Hammerstein II, from the 1943 stage musical of the same name, set to the music of Georges Bizet's 1875 opera Carmen. The opera was an adaptation of the 1845 Prosper Mérimée novella Carmen by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy.
Katya Alpert Gilden was an American best-selling novelist who wrote with her husband Bert Gilden under the pen-name "K. B. Gilden". The couple produced two major novels, Hurry Sundown (1964), which was made into an Otto Preminger film of the same title in 1967, and Between the Hills and the Sea (1971), published four months after Bert's death.
Hurry Sundown may refer to:
Such Good Friends is a 1971 American black comedy-drama film directed by Otto Preminger and starring Dyan Cannon, Ken Howard, James Coco, Jennifer O'Neill and Laurence Luckinbill. The screenplay by Esther Dale is based on the novel of the same title by Lois Gould.
Under Your Spell is a 1936 American romantic comedy film with music directed by Otto Preminger. The screenplay by Frances Hyland and Saul Elkins is based on a story by Sy Bartlett and Bernice Mason. It was a remake of the American Spanish-language film, Las fronteras del amor.
The Great Love is a 1931 Austrian drama film directed by Otto Preminger, the first of his career. The screenplay by Ernst Redlich and Johannes Riemann is based on a true story, and was adapted from the play by Fritz Gottwald and Rudolph Lothar.
Steve Sanders was an American musician, singer, and songwriter. After playing rhythm guitar in the Oaks Band, Sanders was asked to replace William Lee Golden, the baritone in The Oak Ridge Boys, who had left the group in 1987.
"Hurry Sundown" is a 1966 song written by Yip Harburg and Earl Robinson, and first recorded by the folk music trio Peter, Paul and Mary.
References
↑ Hirsch, Foster, Otto Preminger: The Man Who Would Be King. New York: Alfred A. Knopf 2007. ISBN978-0-375-41373-5, p. 414
↑ "All-time Film Rental Champs", Variety, 7 January 1976 p 50
1 2 Aiello, Thomas (December 2009). "Hurry Sundown: Otto Preminger, Baton Rouge, and Race, 1966–1967". Film History: An International Journal. Vol.21, no.3. pp.394–410.
↑ Dobbs, John (June 30, 1966). "1966 Goodwood House". The State-Times. Retrieved August 27, 2022. From 1966: AND NOW A MOVIE — Stately Goodwood House, where scenes are now being filmed for the forthcoming movie, "Hurry Sundown," has a colorful history. Built in 1852 on a British Royal Land Grant as part of Goodwood Plantation, which included what is now the Downtown Airport and Goodwood Place, it subsequently served as a night club for a period and during World War II was an apartment house. It was restored in 1964 by Mrs. L.W. Babin and her children. (STATE-TIMES Staff photo by JOHN DOBBS; published 06/30/1966).
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