The Sun Shines Bright

'The Sun Shines Bright' is my all-time favourite movie and, though it is now more than 50 years old, there is not one better that has been made since. I first saw it on BBC TV way back and, having taped it for my own use, I never tire of it. The plot, based on stories by Irvin S. Cobb, is beautifully acted out, especially by Charles Winninger as Judge Billy Priest. The evolving drama is most moving. The post-Civil War period setting and atmosphere are perfectly caught by the greatest of all movie directors, John Ford, and the 'moral' (an apparently out-dated word, but still as relevant today as in the 1950s when the movie was made) of this splendid entertainment is still worth marking, learning and inwardly digesting. If Kentucky is still as it is pictured, even if in black-and-white, may I please move there right now?!

John Ford had a fondness for The Sun Shines Bright. It's a beautiful tale of an honorable old man who even while facing a tough re-election for town judge refuses to be a hypocrite or play up to a lot of his town's hypocrites. The film was done before as Judge Priest with Will Rogers in the title role. As good as The Sun Shines Bright is, it would have been even better had John Ford not chosen to use Stepin Fetchit in the same part he had in the original film. Stepin Fetchit is, well Stepin Fetchit. Funny thing is that a whole lot of black players are used in this film and their roles are not as stereotypical as his is. Charles Winninger is every bit as good as Will Rogers in the lead. If you can imagine Captain Andy from Show Boat had he taken up the law instead of show business, you get some idea of what Judge William Pittman Priest is all about. Justice is blind in his courtroom, but it isn't deaf and dumb also. In Winninger's life as well as his courtroom. He's up for re-election in his small Kentucky county and he's got a hard fighting opponent in prosecutor Milburn Stone. Priest is a proud Confederate veteran, but he's not above saving an innocent black kid from a lynch mob. Nor is he above a little Christian charity when it comes to seeing a fallen woman who just came to town to see her daughter before she died given a proper funeral service. When no accredited minister will do the service, Winninger fills in at the pulpit and has some choice words taken from the parable about the woman caught in sin. My favorite scene in The Sun Shines Bright is the funeral procession for the same woman. Winninger is the head of the local United Confederate Veterans and Henry O'Neill is the head of the local Grand Army of the Republic chapter. They are friends and friendly rivals. Yet on that day Republican O'Neill and Democrat Winninger both lead the funeral procession. Too bad our Republicans and Democrats of today can't agree on some common values. How does this impact on Winninger's election? You'll have to watch the beautiful and poetic The Sun Shines Bright to find out.

It would be nice to be able to discuss this film without having to refer to its politically incorrect depiction of blacks, but it's impossible to do so. The film, which is a remake of director John Ford's own Judge Priest from the 30s (in which Will Rogers played the title role), must have seemed curiously dated even when it was released, and feels like it was made in the early forties rather than the mid-fifties. Whether that's because of its outdated attitude towards blacks and the presence of slow, scratchy-voiced Stepin Fetchit is open to conjecture – it could just be that the fog of nostalgia that hangs over the entire work is the reason. Charles Winninger makes an amiable old judge whose quiet wisdom puts to shame the hypocritically puritanical attitudes of his small town's people and the racist assumptions of an unruly lynch mob out to hang a blameless teenage Negro. The storyline is kind of meandering, reflecting the apparently relaxed pace of life in the turn of the century Deep South, and you do really get a taste of Southern gentility – whether accurate not. Its various sub-plots are linked together by the judge's bid for re-election, which serves to emphasise the importance of standing by one's principles no matter what the possible personal costs may be. Of course, the truth is Billy Priest is too good to be true, but I don't think anyone was out to make him a more realistic figure in this milieu than Santa Claus or God would have been. John Ford's notorious sentimentality is in danger of becoming cloying at times, but he just about manages to rein it in at key moments. The film says as much about Hollywood's take on American social attitudes in the mid-50s as it does about the same in the Deep South at the turn of the century, which isn't in itself a bad thing. I suppose it's even possible that one day films like this will be shown in classrooms to demonstrate the gigantic positive strides made in the cause of racial equality in the latter half of the 20th Century. Better that than they are wilfully ignored in the name of political correctness.

When discussing this enriched remake of his 1934 film featuring Will Rogers, director John Ford, not one to speak with crossed fingers, is quoted by Peter Bogdanovich: " 'The Sun Shines Bright' is my favorite picture - I love it. And it's true to life, it happened. Irvin Cobb got everything he wrote from real life, and that's the best of his Judge Priest stories." Three Cobb stories: "The Sun Shines Bright", "The Man From Massac", and "The Lord Provides", form the basis of a Laurence Stallings screenplay set in 1905 Fairfield, Kentucky, where incumbent magistrate William Priest (Charles Winninger in a rare starring turn) faces a close election against Yankee prosecutor Horace Maydew (Milburn Stone), while traces from a good many of Ford's customary themes are in place, including his relish for lost causes, Christian based parables, and the significance of closely-knit communities. When 20th Century Fox destroyed expurgated negatives from his initial Judge Priest effort, Ford decided to re-film it, and this unabashedly sentimental essay displays remarkable artistry from this highly visual director, as evil is mastered by simple good nature, even without the "director's cut" that restores over ten minutes of important footage, and is not widely available. Ford employs many of his favourite stock company players including two, Stepin Fetchit and (for the last time in a Ford picture) his brother Francis, who had been cast in the 1934 production, and all perform with enthusiasm, Winninger earning acting honours for his full-blooded performance, and viewers will appreciate the magnificent funeral procession and service scenes along with others where Ford's brother-in-law, assistant director Wingate Smith, utilizes his outstanding control of extras, a superlative element in a film that benefits from many such, and from which was reproduced a large print that was placed over the head of Ford's bed until his death.

It is a lovely film to watch. Archie Stout one of fords favorite cameraman, shot it. The last scene where Judge Priest is seen in the doorway echos the last scene in the Searchers. It is a film about loyalty, honor and redemption. But there are scenes where the black people of the town are shown to be childlike, and in awe of their white leaders. This marks the film as a product of a time long past. Some of the scenes of the black people are demeaning. But over all, Judge Preists sense of honor, his fairness to all, his sense of decency looms over the film. Ford makes Judge Priest (played by Charles Winninger in his best role) a heroic figure. But a figure that is isolated even in a crowd. A former bugler he is left to carry on the codes of honor and fairness that the old south thought it contained. People vote for him, return him to office year after year, yet he goes into his home alone. He is man out of his time. A man of the community but set apart from it by his strict adherence to his code. Some of the acting in the film is over acting. But the last fifteen minutes are lovely to watch.

This film although rarely shown, has one beautiful vignette after another. Although a remake of Fords JUDGE PRIEST,we see a small town,where everybody is brought together by Charlie Winninger who portrays Judge Priest. The scene where he campaigns for the decent burial for the Prostitute who has come home to die, just might be one of the finest sequences ever put on film. A film only Ford could pull off, and does!! Don,t miss this one.

"The Sun Shines Bright" is an offensive portrait of the post-Civil War South and it's hard to imagine the film NOT offending anyone. Instead of showing real life in Kentucky, it's super-idealized to such a point that the film is ridiculous. The Confederate Civil War veterans get along just great with the Union vets (Kentucky was one of the few states that had folks fighting on both sides), the blacks are all extremely happy and life is grand. No matter that all this just isn't true and that blacks were treated, often, as subhuman. In the original film, "Judge Priest", Will Rogers played the Judge and his ever-present lazy, stupid black sidekick, Poindexter, was played by Stepin Fetchit. Rogers, however, had been killed long ago in a famous plane crash and here the character is played by Charles Winninger and Fetchit is back to play the same stupid and lazy guy-- something Fetchit did in many films back in the day when laughing at a stupid and lazy black man was considered the rage. But his subhuman characterization is more sad than anything else...and I cannot imagine folks today thinking it's funny. As for the stories in the film, they are all mildly interesting and they are engaging. You can tell it's a John Ford film even without a decent budget and fancy cast because it is highly sentimental. It also paints a portrait of what life SHOULD have been like--with the paternalistic white man looking out for their good little black children. It's odd, however, that the same racist director then went on to make "Sergeant Rutlidge" with Woody Strode--a film far ahead of its time and extremely sensitive to the dehumanization of black Americans. So would I recommend this film? Not really. It's certainly among the director's lesser movies and is so inaccurate a portrayal that the retired history teacher within me felt a bit sad as I watched. Not horrible...just not what life was ever like in Kentucky...ever.

I feel like I have to walk over eggshells to say anything at all about this movie, Ford's remake of his earlier, 1934 Will Rogers vehicle Judge Priest. Both films have some hard-to-take racial stereotypes, first and foremost in the personage of Stepin' Fetchit, who, along with Butterfly McQueen, stand as the ugliest black performers of their era. But the offense doesn't stop there. The Sun Shines Bright contains a plethora of objectionable material, some of which probably well deserves to be objected to, and some of which will be construed as hateful by modern audiences when it really isn't. The story concerns an aging judge running for re-election in Kentucky, somewhere near the Mason-Dixie line around the turn of the 20th Century. Judge Priest is a Confederate veteran, as are many of his friends. They celebrate this with open nostalgia, although there isn't really any hatred between them and those in the county who fought for the North. The main story of the film is of Judge Priest's deep humanity, and his love for all people. There are two main plot threads, that of a lynch mob out to hang a young black man and that of a dying prostitute, who happens to be the long absent mother of one of the town's outstanding young women. Priest must defend the black man from the mob and arrange a dignified funeral for the prostitute, even though it very well could cost him the election. The film's treatment of African Americans seems quite more in tune with the 1930s than the 1950s. The original film, Judge Priest, might be less offensive, actually. Yes, the blacks in that film were caricatures. However, the star of that film, Will Rogers, who famously never met a man he didn't like, seemed more like a friend to the African Americans around him, including Stepin' Fetchit and Hattie McDaniel. He even sings with McDaniel at one point. Priest in that film seems something of an outcast from the whites; they respect him, even love him, but he is not exactly one of them. In The Sun Shines Bright, Priest spends most of his time with his fellow veterans. Stepin' Fetchit is there most of the time, too (he even attends a veterans' meeting with a gray cap on his head), but he and Priest don't seem like buddies. Fetchit is his servant. Even though Fetchit and McDaniel were also his servants in the earlier version, like I said, they seemed more like friends. When Judge Priest helps out the African Americans of his county in the later version, his actions seem more patronizing than friendly. He is the father figure to every black person. At the end of the film, it almost seems like they're worshiping him. Worse yet, when the election is held, we see everyone vote except for the blacks. It's not even implied that they have already voted. Despite these very important problems, The Sun Shines Bright is a very good film that would indeed inspire a deep love for humanity long before it would ever inspire bigotry. I would never dismiss the problems of the film, but I think that what it accomplishes is much more valuable than what most would damn it for. 9/10.

Moviecut—The Sun Shines Bright

It would be nice to be able to discuss this film without having to refer to its politically incorrect depiction of blacks, but it's impossible to do so. The film, which is a remake of director John Ford's own Judge Priest from the 30s (in which Will Rogers played the title role), must have seemed curiously dated even when it was released, and feels like it was made in the early forties rather than the mid-fifties. Whether that's because of its outdated attitude towards blacks and the presence of slow, scratchy-voiced Stepin Fetchit is open to conjecture – it could just be that the fog of nostalgia that hangs over the entire work is the reason. Charles Winninger makes an amiable old judge whose quiet wisdom puts to shame the hypocritically puritanical attitudes of his small town's people and the racist assumptions of an unruly lynch mob out to hang a blameless teenage Negro. The storyline is kind of meandering, reflecting the apparently relaxed pace of life in the turn of the century Deep South, and you do really get a taste of Southern gentility – whether accurate not. Its various sub-plots are linked together by the judge's bid for re-election, which serves to emphasise the importance of standing by one's principles no matter what the possible personal costs may be. Of course, the truth is Billy Priest is too good to be true, but I don't think anyone was out to make him a more realistic figure in this milieu than Santa Claus or God would have been. John Ford's notorious sentimentality is in danger of becoming cloying at times, but he just about manages to rein it in at key moments. The film says as much about Hollywood's take on American social attitudes in the mid-50s as it does about the same in the Deep South at the turn of the century, which isn't in itself a bad thing. I suppose it's even possible that one day films like this will be shown in classrooms to demonstrate the gigantic positive strides made in the cause of racial equality in the latter half of the 20th Century. Better that than they are wilfully ignored in the name of political correctness.