Poor Gene Tierney! After luring her away from the Broadway stage where she had scored in comedy roles, Hollywood proved at a loss as to how to showcase her acting talent. Accordingly, she was cast in a series of improbable roles in which her chief responsibility was to look ravishingly gorgeous. "Sundown", filmed while Tierney was still just 20 years old, is a prime example of how her acting abilities were wasted during her first couple of years in films. In this patriotic WWII action-adventure set in Africa, she plays an exotic half-caste caravan owner (later revealed to be British!) who helps the Allied forces keep the continent from becoming an Axis stronghold. The plot is confused and silly claptrap, but it's all beautifully photographed by Charles Lang (who would work with Tierney again on "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" at Fox), excitingly scored by Miklos Rozsa ... and Tierney is indeed breathtakingly lovely in her midriff-baring costumes, which is reason enough to watch. (Also pay close attention to catch a very young Dorothy Dandridge in a small featured role!)
The VCI Home Video DVD is definitely the version of this movie to see. The original copyright had lapsed, and the film had fallen into the public domain. As a result, the marketplace was flooded with cheaply produced video copies transfered from grainy, washed-out multi-generational prints. The VCI DVD has been restored and digitally mastered, and the result is a sharp, crisp presentation offering excellent video contrast and vastly-improved sound that has been appropriately copyrighted by the archivists.
The DVD also offers a small, but well-chosen, stills gallery; a newly created video trailer; and well-written albeit flawed cast biographies (Tierney's actual birthdate is November 19, 1920, not November 20 as misreported by "The New York Times" ... and her first film was "The Return of Frank James", not "The Return of Jesse James"). There's also a bonus featurette of Ronald Colman, Angela Lansbury, and Nigel Bruce in the 1954 television adaptation of Somerset Maugham's story "A String of Beads" ... which has nothing at all to do with the feature film, but is a most welcome and entertaining surprise nonetheless. Overall, this edition is highly recommended for Tierney fans, and a fine example of the potential inherent in the DVD format.