The Sun Shines Bright Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.0
Audio		2.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

The Sun Shines Bright Blu-ray Movie Review

One of the greatest films you've probably never heard of.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 29, 2013

When one takes even a cursory glance at the rather incredible filmography of the legendary John Ford, a number of all time classics virtually leap out to demand recognition. Stagecoach, The Grapes of Wrath, How Green Was My Valley, The Quiet Man, The Searchers—these are a mere handful of titles that could be offered as testament to Ford’s lasting influence in film, and these frankly were chosen only because they’re available on Blu-ray. And yet of all of his films—a list of nearly 150 outings dating back to the silent era and continuing on well into the 1970s—Ford himself listed The Sun Shines Bright as his personal favorite. Was he joking? This would seem to be an absolutely odd choice on the part of the iconic auteur. The film was a sort of remake of an earlier Ford offering, 1934’s Judge Priest which starred Will Rogers, but in 1953, when The Sun Shines Bright came out, some of its depictions of African Americans may have raised a few eyebrows even in that supposed “Dark Age” (though let’s remember that Brown v. Board of Education was only about a year in the offing at the time of the film’s release, so things were in fact beginning to change), but even putting that perhaps understandable issue aside, The Sun Shines Bright is a decidedly peculiar mixture of sentimental (some might argue cloying) nostalgia and an almost bizarrely modern cynicism. And that, in a nutshell, is probably why the film continues to fascinate and also perhaps why it held such a vaunted place in Ford’s own assessment of his career. The Sun Shines Bright bombed rather notoriously upon its theatrical release, and it’s not hard to see why. It both idealizes and pillories the American South of the late nineteenth century, looking on with a weird combination of fondness and (perhaps unintentional?) derision that makes the film tonally one of Ford’s most complex even if structurally and dramatically it often seems paper thin.

There’s a certain similarity between The Sun Shines Bright and a much later, better remembered film, To Kill a Mockingbird. Both films posit an upright leader of a small, fairly backward Southern town, and both have a subplot involving a black man unjustly accused of having raped a white woman, with the hero staunchly defending the accused from a vicious lynch mob. However, The Sun Shines Bright has some recurrent comedy that would seem completely out of place in an outing like To Kill a Mockingbird and which in fact seems at least a little odd in this very film. The hero of The Sun Shines Bright is Judge William Priest (Charles Winninger), a relatively liberal thinker who nonetheless is not immune to the legacy of some Southern traditions, and who attempts to toe a fairly fine line between nudging his town’s residents toward a more egalitarian way of life while being careful to both honor the past and not offend any potential voters, since the Judge is up for reelection.

Judge Priest is a friend to blacks in the film, even if his friendship may strike modern eyes as rather patronizing. His sidekick is his longtime servant (cynics might be tempted to say quasi-slave) Jeff (Stepin Fetchit, who essayed the same role some twenty years earlier in Judge Priest), but the good Judge also shows himself to be relatively unbigoted in some court proceedings as well as the dramatic showdown with the erstwhile lynch mob. The Judge is also seen to be no respecter of social convention, as in one of the film's most justly celebrated segments when he joins a funeral procession for a prostitute, a decision that initially shocks but then inspires his fellow townspeople.

There’s no question that the Judge’s surname is no mere coincidence. Priest acts as the confessor to his “congregation”, and in fact in one scene he actually gives a sermon. In the film’s corny but moving finale, one group of citizens marches past his home displaying the banner “He saved us from ourselves”, just another indication that this character is meant to be a quasi-religious one, in moral standing if not in a formal sense. What’s interesting, in fact fascinating, about this depiction is that Priest is shown to have his own peccadilloes (the film starts with him upbraiding Jeff for not being there to serve him his early morning liquor), as well as a more than passing affection for the Confederacy. He courts his potential voters with remembrances of the supposedly halcyon days of Dixie, but Ford doesn’t shirk from the dark side of this formulation, as the lynch mob scene clearly reveals.

Ford often exploited the world of small communities, whether they be in the confines of a stagecoach or in the gorgeous Irish countryside. He does much the same thing here in The Sun Shines Bright, moving between a gaggle of characters, all of whom have known each other probably their whole lives (at least for the most part), and who have absolutely no qualms about poking their collective noses in everyone else’s business. There’s therefore a kind of rush toward conformity as evidenced by the reliance on tradition (whether or not that tradition be outdated or ill founded to begin with) as well as a sort of reactionary disapproval of even the slightest change. Judge Priest stands at the fulcrum of a world hinging into radical change (and remember, the film is set in the late nineteenth century, for crying out loud—the real change was still decades in the future). He’s the model of a man with one foot in the past and one in the future, knowing in his heart there’s only one way forward, but waiting until his community can catch up with him before he takes the next step.

The Sun Shines Bright Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Sun Shines Bright is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Olive Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.37:1. This is one of the most luminously beautiful looking black and white high definition presentations of a vintage film we've yet seen from Olive, all the more remarkable in that it wasn't from an especially big studio, was never very popular and is a fairly unusual choice to make it to this format. Are there problems? Yes, all expected: occasional minor damage in the form of little specks and flecks, and some very moderate contrast fluctuations. But if you either overlook or just flat out ignore these very transitory problems, what's here is often beautifully detailed, with wonderfully gradated gray scale, deep, rich blacks and bright, vivid whites. The overall image is appealingly clear and precise, though grain is fairly heavy throughout this transfer.

The Sun Shines Bright Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Unfortunately the soundtrack to The Sun Shines Bright has not fared quite as well as the image quality, and this Blu-ray's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono mix has some quite noticeable distortion in the mid and upper ranges. It's obvious right off the bat with the opening credits music, but it continues in spurts throughout the film, at times just slightly hobbling the dialogue and some of the on screen music performances. That said, the vast bulk of the dialogue is clear and easy to hear, and while fidelity here definitely has some issues, those approaching the film with appropriate expectations shouldn't be too horribly shocked with what's on tap.

The Sun Shines Bright Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No supplements are offered on this Blu-ray disc.

The Sun Shines Bright Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Anyone with a passing knowledge of John Ford is going to recognize ripples in this film that touch any number of some of his better known outings. Ford's love of the common man is once again on tap here, even if that common man is spectacularly dunderheaded at times. The democratic process which underlies much of the film is held up to both adulation and ridicule, as with the best political punditry. There are some passing issues with the film's portrayal of its black characters that may grate on modern sensibilities, but even those are forgivable given the moral certitude that Ford expresses in the Judge's clear headed handling of several "race" elements in the story. This is a film that may seem paper thin on first viewing, but which upon reflection reveals an unexpected profundity and emotional wallop. It's in fact easy to see why Ford considered this one of his personal favorites. This Blu-ray offers excellent video but occasionally problematic audio. Highly recommended.