More than the actual story itself, what intrigued me about this picture was the way it mashed together historical elements at the turn of the silent era in Hollywood. At the time, Tom Mix was a genuine movie legend, and he lived a lavish lifestyle that the picture barely touches on. The story references Mix as having made his last silent film, and he's about to appear in a picture about the Gunfight at the OK Corral, on which Wyatt Earp has been called in to be a technical adviser. In real life, Earp did become friends with Tom Mix and another veteran silent film star, William S. Hart.

The setting for the film is 1929 with the very first year of the Academy Awards serving as a backdrop to the murder mystery at the center of the story. The event was held on May 16th, and Earp was already deceased for four months. It's unlikely an eighty year old Earp would have been running around Los Angeles getting involved with crooked cops and hookers, though I wouldn't put it past Mix. Even so, Mix would have been fifty himself, and it was getting harder with each passing year to get up on a horse.

As cowboy star Tom Mix, Bruce Willis gets to wear some outrageously colorful outfits and drive some of the best looking vintage vehicles I've ever seen. Mix had a free spending lifestyle, and Willis's reference in the picture to owning sixteen cars was probably pretty close to the mark. Content with portraying Mix as a rather hip and fashionable playboy, no mention is made that he was married five times in real life. Just as well, it wouldn't have worked for the story at all.

For his part, James Garner does a competent job as former marshal Wyatt Earp, now a private citizen and working as a consultant in Hollywood. I like Garner, and if you're going for a buddy team-up, the chemistry between himself and Willis is enjoyable. However the script calls for an affable Earp, and from what I've read about the real life lawman, Garner's portrayal seems out of character here. Which is OK, just not very believable. But we already established that.

The main villain of the piece is portrayed by Malcolm McDowell in a thinly based caricature of Charlie Chaplin. A number of reviewers on this board opine on why director Edwards would have tarnished Chaplin's reputation with such an obvious parody (Happy Hobo/Little Tramp). It may simply have been a way to include another Academy 'first' in the proceedings. Chaplin was honored that year with a special award for his all around contribution to producing "The Circus".

Another reviewer puzzles over the title of the movie. Personally, having seen hundreds of TV and movie Westerns, it's probably a convenient way to memorialize just about every B oater in which the cowboy star gets the girl at the end of the picture and rides off into the proverbial sunset. But then again, in researching the first Academy gathering in 1929, one learns that the Best Picture winner for 'Unique and Artistic Production' went to Fox Studio's "Sunrise". So if this was another overt accolade to the original Oscars, it was cleverly done.

I guess I'd like to close out by mentioning one more bit of trivia regarding Tom Mix and Wyatt Earp. The last surviving brother of the infamous Gunfight at the OK Corral died on January 13th, 1929. His pallbearers were all prominent men from Los Angeles and Hollywood, including friends William S. Hart and Tom Mix. Newspaper accounts of the occasion state that Mix cried at the funeral.

"Sunset" is the blackest of black comedies. I was surprised to learn from watching it on TV last night what a really fun movie it is, given the uniformly bad reviews it received. Pay no attention to the critics, this is good stuff. Bruce Willis, as Tom Mix, and James Garner, as Wyatt Earp, have never been better at their laid-back charm-boy schtick. The plot, while complex and often violent, is not to be taken seriously -- or better still, not to be thought about at all. In this connection, just remember what the movie itself tells you, "It's all true, give or take a lie or two." In addition to Willis's and Garner's stellar performances, Kathleen Quinlan, as Mix's long suffering girl friend, is a hoot. The mood of time and place -- 1929 Hollywood -- is perfectly captured: interesting costumes, great looking vintage cars, the last gasp of the Jazz Age just before the Depression. Highly recommended, 7 out of 10.

This movie has been kicking around on cable TV lately and I've put off watching it because I expected it to be another very stretched version of a buddy cop movie. The story seems made for it. Experienced old real-life marshal Wyatt Earp teaches callus young phony cowboy Tom Mix how to solve a crime. "Dragnet" on a 1920s back lot. But it wasn't that way at all.

It's true enough that Earp (Garner) hung around Hollywood at the time, or maybe a bit earlier. We don't really get to know much about his past. But although Mix (Willis) drove expensive cars and wore flashy suits and big hats, he wasn't a phony. He'd been a real cowboy too, was a great rider, fought in the Spanish-American war, and could take care of himself. Instead of the expected clash between the master and the tyro, we get two guys who pretty much hit it off with one another right away, and show mutual respect.

It's an interesting friendship.

But then the movie turns darker. A murder takes place. There are fist fights (mostly comic) and several shootouts (done seriously). Willis is kind of cocky. Garner displays the laconic off-hand dignity he showed in "Murphy's Romance," or whatever it was. He's an icon here, with that black outfit and mustache. He's never been a flashy actor, but invariably a competent one. Off-screen he's come up with some dandy spontaneous comments about how the social world of Hollywood and the rest of the country is structured. He's got my vote. Willis isn't bad either.

The rest of the cast does yeoman work but no one has roles that are as interesting as those of the two leads. And the murder story fails to grip the viewer, at least this viewer. I didn't really find myself caring who did it, although it was clear from the beginning who the villains were. There was an exception, though, the British actress playing Garner's former lover. She's simply outstanding in a supporting part, and provides a great example of how to be beautiful without being "beautiful."

I wish the film didn't seem kind of -- I suppose lost is the word. It meanders between comedy, drama, and warmth, without seeming to know just what it wants to do. This isn't a total failure on Edwards' part. It holds together as a story but the characters bounce off one another. Henry Mancini, who wrote many scores for Edwards' films, shows his versatility here.

The score is quiet and unobtrusive (except for one or two brass bands that seem to follow Tom Mix around) and is punctuated by contemporary recordings, including one by Duke Ellington. The photography is first rate. It must be getting hard to find locations that look like Southern California looked in the 1920s before the irruption of humans and their artifacts.

It's worth watching. But I don't know where that title came from. "Sunset." What is the sun setting on? Not Earp. He's old but not doddering, and he can shoot and make love even at the "risk of permanent damage." It's not setting on Hollywood, which would continue to book for another two generations or so. I suppose we'll settle for its being one of those generic titles that could mean anything. "Another Dawn." "Guns of Darkness." "On the Edge." "Sunset." "The Muppets Conquer the Mustang Ranch."