The Sundowners

The fifth nominee for Best Picture of 1960 was The Sundowners, a genial but bland entertainment from the estimable Fred Zinneman, who made for more interesting Best Pictures nominees High Noon, From Here to Eternity, and The Nun's Story. This one is a big-looking film that really has very little to say, and is for people who don't want much from their movie-going experience.

Set in Australia, Robert Mitchum, with an accent that comes and goes, is a drover who doesn't like to stay in one place too long (the title refers to people who constantly follow the sun, and have no permanent home). Deborah Kerr is his long-suffering wife, and Michael Anderson his teenage son. They long for some roots, and have an eye on a farm for sale, but know it's a long shot to get Mitchum to change his ways.

Kerr does convince Mitchum to at least settle in a frontier town to take a temporary sheep-shearing job. They are joined by Peter Ustinov as a sardonic Englishman, in the kind of role Ustinov specialized in.

During the course of the film we get episodes involving a brush fire, a sheep-shearing contest, the birth of a baby, and a horse race. None of it adds up to much--there seems to be little at stake, and aside from some moments during the fire, no one is in any danger.

Kerr, who was Oscar-nominated, works hard to inject some life into this thing, and she's very good. Also nominated was Glynis Johns as a bubbly innkeeper and Ustinov's love interest. Mitchum seems bored by the whole thing. There is nothing objectionable about this film, but there's nothing excellent about it, either. It just kind of sits there.