Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

Mjeteconer Just perfect...

Bluebell Alcock Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

Marva-nova Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

ianlouisiana I was a remarkably insensitive 14 year old when I first saw "The sun shines bright", a title vaguely familiar from a song sung by my grandfather,a stretcher - bearer on the Western Front who would often break into "The sun shines bright on Charlie Chaplin" whilst working in his tailor's workshop. There were no race issues in England,the only non - white person I had ever met delivered "Easyklene" products to my grandmother's door three or four times a year. The innocence of my vision was indeed enviable. I knew a little about he American Civil War - I'd seen "Gone with the wind" and knew about the abolition of slavery. I'd heard my first jazz record,"Darktown Strutters'Ball" by Bunk Johnson but knew nothing of the indignities suffered by black people despite the war between the states being over for ninety years. I loved this sentimental portrait without actually knowing it was a sentimental portrait. The judge was obviously a wise and human man,I totally didn't get the reference to the whore,the controversial depictions of the black characters(I thought Stepin Fetchit was a great comedian on a par with "Amos 'n' Andy") and the general undercurrent of what seems to many reviewers racism tantamount to KKK levels. Now I do,but I shan't make the mistake of applying 21st century sensitivities to a 65 year old film that's basic aim was to entertain. One perceptive reviewer likened Mr Ford's portrayal of post - bellum Kentucky to his vision of Ireland in "The Quiet Man",a never - never land existing only in his head. This isn't a significant socially realistic film - Mr Ford had very little time for that sort of cinema. It is a rather whimsical,entertaining piece of fiction;an exceptionally well - made portion of Americana that displeases many today. To criticise it because it doesn't suit us today is like criticising "Battleship Potemkin" because it doesn't have commercial breaks every 15 minutes.

Robert J. Maxwell The director was John Ford, a notorious teller of tales. When asked by critics which of his movies he liked best, he sometimes cited "The Sun Shines Bright." To understand why he'd make such an outrageous claim, we must understand that Ford loved to cause disappointment and pain in others -- especially critics.Actually it's a low-budget and confusing jumble of several of Irwin S. Cobb's stories about the laid-back South. Not a bankable name among the cast. But we do get to see the last of John's brother Francis as a tattered old drunk in a coonskin hat, a role he'd been playing for twenty years. Frank had been a matinée idol in the early years of motion pictures, a handsome young hero, and it must have pained him to be so degraded on the screen but, as I say, John loved to see pain.And if you're truly into political correctness, this is an excellent place not to look for it. The judge is the pudding-faced Charles Winninger. He's a fair and courageous judge. Everyone realizes that. But still he has one of those chocolate-colored jockeys holding up a hitching post in front of his gate. That's not to mention Steppin Fetchit: "Yassuh, Boss, but you overslepp." But it's certainly a John Ford project. Many of his stock company put in their appearances: Jane Darwell, Jack Pennick, Russell Simpson, Grant Withers, Milburn Stone, among others. We even get to see an early work of John Russell and the teen-aged Patrick Wayne. Russell is a curious-looking guy. He was an intelligence officer on Guadalcanal with the Marine Corps and he looks it -- tall, brawny, handsome. But handsome in a way that's uncanny, unearthly, as if he were really an animated plastic mannequin.It's definitely a lesser work, by turns raucous and sentimental. Ford pulls out all his usual stunts and throws them haphazardly together. There's the grand march, the singing of hymns, the mano a mano fight, the Ladies Temperance Society. If you want nothing more than to sit back and be diverted for an hour and a half, this should do the job.

fisherelle One of the odd aspects of this film is the post Civil War background that looms large to a greater or lesser degree throughout. This takes the form of a blatantly obvious pro Confederate stance, and an almost religious idolatry of 'Dixie'. Halliwell tells us that Judge Priest, the moral heart of the film, "has trouble quelling the Confederate spirit" - but the opposite is the case - the judge is absolutely central to maintaining and celebrating that spirit. The oddness comes because, it seems to me at least, we are not used to seeing such a character defending black rights, preventing a lynching, etc. Even more peculiar is to see such a 'happy' black population - particularly the quite disturbing courthouse scene where 2 black characters suddenly burst into a grotesque song and dance routine. "Mississippi Burning" this certainly isn't! But certainly a film worth watching, and the prostitute's daughter's funeral scene is excellently done. It somehow feels older than 1953.

gw5438 '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?!