The Sun Shines Bright | |
---|---|
Directed by | John Ford |
Screenplay by | Laurence Stallings |
Based on | The Sun Shines Bright 1931 short stories in Cosmopolitan Magazine by Irvin S. Cobb 1912 short story The Mob from Massac The Sun Shines Bright "The Lord Provides" in The Saturday Evening Post (1915) |
Produced by | Merian C. Cooper John Ford |
Starring | Charles Winninger Arleen Whelan |
Cinematography | Archie Stout |
Edited by | Jack Murray |
Music by | Victor Young |
Color process | Black and white |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Republic Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | U.S. theatrical cut: 92 minutes Director's cut: 101 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
The Sun Shines Bright is a 1953 American comedy-drama Western film directed by John Ford, based on material taken from a series of Irvin S. Cobb "Judge Priest" short stories featured in The Saturday Evening Post in the 1910s, specifically "The Sun Shines Bright", "The Mob from Massac", and "The Lord Provides".
Ford had adapted some of the same material in 1934 in his film Judge Priest . That film originally had a scene depicting an attempted lynching of Poindexter (and Priest’s condemnation of the act), but it was cut by 20th Century Fox. The omission was one of the reasons Ford loosely reshaped the Cobb stories two decades later as The Sun Shines Bright for Republic Pictures, this time including Judge Priest's defusing of the mob determined to lynch a young black character named Woodford. In both films, Stepin Fetchit plays the part of Judge Priest's assistant, Poindexter. Ford often cited The Sun Shines Bright as his favorite among all his films, and in later years, it was championed by critics such as Jonathan Rosenbaum [1] and Dave Kehr, who called it "a masterpiece". [2] [3]
In post-reconstruction United States, black sheep Ashby Corwin returns to his native Kentucky on a steamboat. He encounters young Lucy Lee, ward of Dr. Lake, and is struck by her beauty.
In court, Judge Billy Priest, who is a candidate for reelection to his post, adjudicates a number of cases, including finding a job for "Uncle Plez" Woodford's idle nephew, U. S. Grant Woodford. Ashby learns that while old General Fairfield is said to be the grandfather of Lucy, he denies it. On the street, after Lucy is the subject of insults by Buck Ramsey about her true heritage, Ashby gets into a whip fight with Buck before the judge comes by and puts a stop to it.
Lucy eventually discovers who her real mother is: a prostitute recently returned to town. Meanwhile, the daughter of Rufe Ramsuer is assaulted and young Woodford is blamed and arrested, causing racial tensions to rise and a large lynch mob to form. Violence seems imminent until Judge Priest confronts the mob at the jailhouse and defuses the confrontation with an eloquent and brilliant argument. Later, Rufe's daughter points to Buck as being her true attacker.
It is election day. Those in the lynch mob realize that Judge Priest has saved them from themselves, and they vote for him en masse, producing a tie with the other candidate, Horace K. Maydew (played by Milburn Stone). It is pointed out to the judge that he hasn't yet remembered to cast a ballot himself, so he wins reelection by a single vote: his own.
The film was entered into the 1953 Cannes Film Festival. [4]
Herbert J. Yates, the head of Republic Pictures, had about ten minutes cut from the film against Ford's wishes. According to film historian Joseph McBride, the full 100-minute version (which did play theatrically overseas) was rediscovered when Republic inadvertently used it as a master for the 1990 videotape release. [5] This full version is currently available from Olive Films as a high-definition Blu-ray release. [1]
Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor, punish a convicted transgressor, or intimidate people. It can also be an extreme form of informal group social control, and it is often conducted with the display of a public spectacle for maximum intimidation. Instances of lynchings and similar mob violence can be found in all societies.
Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry, better known by the stage name Stepin Fetchit, was an American vaudevillian, comedian, and film actor of Jamaican and Bahamian descent, considered to be the first black actor to have a successful film career. His highest profile was during the 1930s in films and on stage, when his persona of Stepin Fetchit was billed as the "Laziest Man in the World".
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Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb was an American author, humorist, editor and columnist from Paducah, Kentucky, who relocated to New York in 1904, living there for the remainder of his life. He wrote for the New York World, Joseph Pulitzer's newspaper, as the highest paid staff reporter in the United States.
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In what appears to be a violation of Argosy's contract with Republic—which guaranteed Ford final cut in the United States unless scenes had to be omitted for censorship reasons—Yates cut ten minutes from The Sun Shines Bright before its domestic release.