Sunset movie storyline. In Hollywood in the late 1920s during the waning days of the industry’s transition to sound film, producer and studio head Alfie Alperin (Malcolm McDowell) wants to produce an epic Western film about Wyatt Earp. Tom Mix (Bruce Willis) is cast as the great United States Marshal and the real Earp (James Garner) is on the set as a technical adviser.
While Earp and Mix, the “real” and “reel” western heroes, are involved in their film adventure, they also get caught up in an actual case of murder, prostitution and corruption. Together, they try to straighten out the problems of the missing son of Earp’s former girlfriend, Christina (Patricia Hodge). She is now the wife of studio boss Alfie Alperin and he is not pleased by Earp’s investigation. Hostess Cheryl King (Mariel Hemingway) becomes romantically involved with Earp.
Alfie’s sister, Victoria Alperin (Jennifer Edwards) is dating a notorious mobster and all three were at the scene of the murder of Madam Candice Gerard. Soon Earp unveils the true sadistic character of Alfie Alperin. Two of his accomplices, studio Chief of Studio Police Dibner (M. Emmet Walsh) whose interest is in protecting Alperin and corrupt Capt. Blackworth (Richard Bradford) turn nasty.
Sunset is a 1988 American crime mystery Western film written and directed by Blake Edwards and starring Bruce Willis as Western actor Tom Mix, who teams up with lawman Wyatt Earp, portrayed for the second time in a theatrical film by James Garner. Based on an unpublished novel by Rod Amateau, the plot has Mix and Earp team up to solve a murder in Hollywood in 1929.
Although Sunset had some comedic elements, it veered much more to the period mystery genre of old Hollywood. Reviewers, such as Roger Ebert, struggled trying to define the film. Ebert noted, “The strangest thing about ‘Sunset’ is that it’s not a comedy, not exactly. It has some laughs, but it’s a sort of low-key, elegiac mood film…”
While Willis received top billing in Sunset, Garner actually has much more screen time in the film. This was the second film in which Garner played Wyatt Earp, the first being John Sturges’s Hour of the Gun, released in 1967. This was director Edwards’ second collaboration with Willis, whom he directed in Blind Date (1987), which had been Willis’ first film; Sunset was Willis’ second.
Sunset (1988)
Directed by: Blake Edwards
Starring: Bruce Willis, James Garner, Mariel Hemingway, Kathleen Quinlan, Jennifer Edwards, Malcolm McDowell, Patricia Hodge, Richard Bradford, Andreas Katsulas, Dermot Mulroney
Screenplay by: Blake Edwards
Production Design by: Rodger Maus
Cinematography by: Anthony B. Richmond
Film Editing by: Robert Pergament
Costume Design by: Patricia Norris
Set Decoration by: Marvin March
Art Direction by: Richard Y. Haman
Music by: Henry Mancini
MPAA Rating: R for sexuality.
Distributed by: TriStar Pictures
Release Date: April 29, 1988
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