The Last Sunset (1961)

Directed by Robert Aldrich. Starring Kirk Douglas, Rock Hudson, Dorothy Malone, Carol Lynley, Joseph Cotten, Neville Brand.

Dubious—and sometimes just plain crazy—Western from a Dalton Trumbo script sends outlaw Douglas (a gunfighter armed only with a Derringer) across the border to escape justice, where he then travels to the home of ex-flame Malone with the intention of getting her back, and even informs her husband (Cotten) that he plans to do so. This, of course, means that Cotten hires Douglas on the spot to join him on a cattle drive. And, of course, Douglas convinces the man (Hudson) doggedly pursuing him to come along and serve as the trail boss. (As if that wasn’t enough, Douglas is later on the make for his own underage daughter (Lynley), but at that point, hey, why not?) Clashing with all the lunacy and improbabilities is a fairly routine cattle trail story, where Hudson is a professional bore and Cotten is underused, but Douglas does his usual solid work and Lynley’s warmth makes it easier to take her naivety. Known at various stages of its production by a dozen or so different names, from Day of the Gun to Death Is My Middle Name, but never by the title of the book it was adapted from (Howard Rigsby’s “Sundown at Crazy Horse”). Jack Elam has a small role.

59/100