The Last Sunset

I was exhausted after last semester, so I spent my first two days off sleeping, eating and watching TV.  AMC showed a movie I had never seen before: The Last Sunset (1961).  I got into it because Kirk Douglas and Rock Hudson were in it.

I can't recommend The Last Sunset as a terrific movie, but it has its moments.

It was based on a novel by Dalton Trumbo (who wrote the screenplays for Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, 1944; Roman Holiday, 1953; Spartacus, 1960; Exodus, 1960; Lonely are the Brave, 1962; The Sandpiper, 1965; Hawaii, 1966; Papillon, 1973.) and the plot is interesting.

A gunman (Kirk Douglas) flees into Mexico after killing someone in Texas. A sheriff (Rock Hudson) pursues him. The gunman arrives at a ranchero run by a cowardly, alcoholic ex-officer of the Confederacy (Joseph Cotton). The rancher's wife (Dorothy Malone) is a former girlfriend of the gunman; she is the only woman he has ever really loved. The rancher has been trying to hire hands to drive his cattle to Texas and offers the gunman a job, and he accepts, but he also tells the rancher that he wants his wife. A 16-year-old daughter (Carol Lynley) falls in love with the gunman and pursues him relentlessly despite his interest in his old flame the mother. One soon picks up that the girl could be the gunman's daughter. The sheriff arrives (turns out the murdered man was his sister's husband), but he has no authority to arrest the gunman in Mexico, so he hires on as the trail boss and tells the gunman that he will arrest him once they cross the border into Texas. They finally set out with three Mexican and three American trail hands, and the mother and daughter in charge of the chuck wagon. As the drive approaches Texas, the rancher is killed by some ex-soldiers who accuse him of cowardice. Then the sheriff makes a play for the widow, and she responds. She also tells the gunman that the daughter is his. In an act of selflessness, the gunman tells his daughter that he will always love her (she doesn't know he's her father) and carries an unloaded weapon to the fight with the sheriff, in effect committing suicide. The end.


The cinematography was good, captured the desert West very well, and lent atmosphere to the hard scrabble story.

However, the casting has flaws. Kirk Douglas was good as the gunman, Joseph Cotton as the drunk rancher, and especially Carol Lynley as the love-struck daughter. But Hudson and Malone weren't convincing.

I think part of the problem lies with the director. The tension among the characters could have been raised by a different emphasis in the scenes or maybe even different camera angles. The wife was too resigned to her circumstances, and the sheriff seemed without animus. Also, the gunman, despite having lived life as a wastrel and killer, seemed entirely too philosophical--he was too easy to like and didn't create fear and hatred around him.

I would like to see someone redo this movie because the plot has a lot of promise; with the right cast and director, it has potential to be a wonderful movie.

Below are some items related to this blog.