Hurry Sundown is a 1967 American drama film produced and directed by Otto Preminger, and starring Jane Fonda and Michael Caine. The screenplay by Horton Foote and Thomas C. Ryan is based on the 1965 novel of the same title by K.B. Gilden, a pseudonym for the married couple Katya and Bert Gilden. It marked Faye Dunaway's film debut. The film is considered a Southern Gothic work.
Plot
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.
Cast
Michael Caine as Henry Warren
Jane Fonda as Julie Ann Warren
Diahann Carroll as Vivian Thurlow
Beah Richards as Rose Scott
Robert Hooks as Reeve Scott
Faye Dunaway as Lou McDowell
John Phillip Law as Rad McDowell
Luke Askew as Dolph Higginson
George Kennedy as Sheriff Coombs
Burgess Meredith as Judge Purcell
Madeleine Sherwood as Eula Purcell
Frank Converse as Reverend Clem De Lavery
Robert Reed as Lars Finchley
Jim Backus as Carter Sillens
Production
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.
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.
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 designer Gene 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.