While I would not agree with Harry Medved that this should have been one of his inclusions in his exceptional book "The Fifty Worst Movies of All Time", it is a bad film...but it's also highly entertaining. Plus, while bad, it just isn't bad enough to make any list of worst films. Now if there was a list of overdone and stupid soap operas, then it WOULD clearly make that list--with nearly enough crazy plot and overacting to put it up there with the best of the worst! The film may have at one point begun with high-minded aspirations. Heck, a film about people triumphing against race prejudice in the 1940s is a good idea. But, unfortunately, somewhere along the way, the film makers lost there way and the end result was a shrill and silly spectacle. Too bad, but the film in no way is in the same league as good race relations films with similar themes like "Pinky" and "Intruder in the Dust"--two fine films that I strongly recommend.

Why is the movie so enjoyably bad? Well, much of it has to do with the often cartoon-like characters. The good guys are perfect and noble and the bad guys are like Snidely Whiplash! In particular, you've got to see the snarling and scene-chewing performance by Burgess Meredith--who, I think, kept mixing up this role with the Penguin from "Batman"! That much bellowing and wheezing is like watching a couple of pigs rutting--not a real Southern bigot. Real bigotry is often deceptively nice or at least overtly evil--not funny like his character in the film. It's funny because it was just so badly overdone--like a pot roast cooked for 9 hours! Another hilarious portrayal is George Kennedy as the Sheriff--they don't come much dumber! Now this isn't to say the rest of them were particularly great, though a few performances were decent--Jane Fonda was good and Michael Caine's character was stupid and one-dimensional, but at least I could respect his assuming a somewhat credible Southern accent. They it begs you to think "of all the actors in the world, why pick Michael Caine for the part".

Apart from that, if I were to try to describe the film it would be like "Miss Jane Pitman" combined with "Dynasty" combined with "Valley of the Dolls" and "Peyton Place"--it's not a pretty concoction to say the least. Yet, the combination is so bad and hokey and silly that you want stop watching--even if the film is ridiculously overlong and bad. And the ending was, perhaps, the most overdone and awful ones I've seen in some time--as the director apparently lost his mind and just blew everything up! To make things worse, the kid at the end might just be the dumbest child in movie history!! Having all the cast hold hands and sing "We are the World" would have been more believable!

By the way, director Otto Preminger has long had a very good reputation. Sure, he made some wonderful films like "Laura" and "Anatomy of a Murder". However, later in his career his output became craptastic--with films like "Bunny Lake is Missing", "Skidoo" and this film--hardly the sort of end to a famous career.

I'm really not understanding why folks are so down on this film. Hurry Sundown is far from the masterpiece of Otto Preminger's career. But he did assemble a good cast who as an ensemble do quite well in their roles.

Michael Caine and John Philip Law are cousins. Caine used to work on a shrimp boat but married into southern gentry when he wed Jane Fonda. He's now trying to be a big shot businessman putting together parcels of land. Only two won't sell out Law and black neighbor Robert Hooks.

Law has just returned from World War 2 to wife Faye Dunaway and their kids. The war has taken him away from the south and given him an itch to wonder. He might sell, but Caine relies too much on the blood connection and approaches him all wrong.

Law does the unheard of thing in the post World War 2 south, he partners with Hooks and they dig some needed irrigation ditches using explosives.

That sets off all that follows because law and with some trepidation goes into a partnership with a black man. Something that just wasn't done in Georgia of 1946.

Both Fonda and Dunaway are ravishing and both are coming into their own as name players. Caine follows in the tradition of British actors playing southerners that seems to have started with Leslie Howard and Gone With The Wind. Law is the key character in this drama, it's his decisions are what turn the plot and he runs a good range of emotions doing it.

Hurry Sundown is not a bad picture of the south just before the civil rights revolution. Believe me pay no attentions to the bad reviews.

And it has an all-star cast. Director Otto Preminger trails down Tennessee Williams territory in this southern saga of greed, prejudice, power struggles and romantic longing. Set in Georgia just after the end of World War II, the epic surrounds the attempts of a land developer (Michael Caine) to get his hands on two farms-one owned by white John Phillip Law, the other supposedly by aging Beah Richards. Ms. Richards was the nanny of Caines' heiress wife (Jane Fonda),and claims that decades ago, her grandfather purchased the land. Fonda and Caine have many difficulties in their married, one of which is a mentally disturbed young son who throws tantrums and cries at just about anything. Law is married to the beautiful Dunaway, and has three children, one of whom resents his parents and wishes he were Caine's son. Ms. Richards' recently returned veteran son (Robert Hooks) has been taking care of the farm for her, and has hopes that beautiful school teacher Diahann Carroll will marry him. Everything explodes for these people when Fonda pays a visit on Richards at Caine's request to ask her to move. Richards refuses, and the resulting trial (from a lawsuit filed by Fonda) explodes into chaos with a violent outcome.

Family ties and long acquaintances are all threatened in this tragedy that makes "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" look like "Song of the South". The plot line is convoluted and the film a bit overlong, but it moves fast, and features outstanding production values. The acting is another matter. Some performances are mixed (Fonda and Caine's Southern accents are not always convincing),overacted (Burgess Meredith as the town's bigoted judge),subtle (Madeline Sherwood as his seemingly loyal wife who has a mind of her own),or heartbreaking (Richards). Familiar faces as Robert Reed, Jim Backus and Doro Merande also appear. I was looking forward to seeing future mega-stars Jane Fonda and Faye Dunaway working together, but the only scene they share does not have any real dialogue between them. Both of them do share scenes with the lovely Diahann Carroll, and her scene in a white ladies' bathroom with Fonda is unforgettable. As I mentioned, Meredith overacts. It seems like he hadn't gotten "Batman's" Penguin out of his system before doing his scenes, only the makeup. The film seems very well intended, but with the plethora of Southern based melodramas at the time ("The Chase", "This Property is Condemned"),"Hurry Sundown" comes off as just another trashy novel flashily adapted for the screen.