An atypical John Ford Western. Not solely due to the strong de-emphasis of gunfighting, but also due to the fractured sense of community. Plagued by racial tensions and economic disparity, those elements serve to test the comradeship of the town. While Bill Priest is portrayed as the agent of change, what's made clear is that turning the town around requires more than just the efforts of one man. Everyone else needs to find forgiveness in each other and recognize their mistakes in order for there to be an understanding. Such themes are complicated when the film adopts some somewhat sterotypical depictions of the black characters in the film (such as the disproportionately spooked black character trope), and I also found a central romance sub-plot unnecessary, but I don't know that Ford's primary goal was to necessarily create a masterpiece so much as correcting a prior mistake. Though I don't believe this was billed as a remake (someone can correct me on this if that's untrue), "The Sun Shines Bright" adapts some of the same material in John Ford's earlier film "Judge Priest", along with some of the same characters. Calling "The Sun Shines Bright" a retread of the earlier film's themes though misses the point as there's a crucial difference between both films. Ford initially wanted to include a scene of an attempted lynching (as well as a condemnation of the act) in "Judge Priest", but this scene was cut by 20th Century Fox. Once studio intervention was no longer a threat nearly two decades later though, Ford then went on to direct the film he originally intended to make, along with the aforementioned scene.
While I respect what Ford was going for though and while I recognize that his heart was in the right place, his intentions came off as naive. The film establishes early on that women and people of color in the town are walking on thin ice and one small misstep could put their lives in danger. Take an early scene where a black character has to stop another black character from unknowingly playing a Yankee song to a group of Confederate veterans. This should set you up for the tone of the rest of the film. Unfortuately, we instead get an outdated idea that an authority figure with a good sense of morals and justice is all that's needed to fix the hierarchical and systemic problems with the town and turn it into a utopia, and this idea is just pure fantasy. If anyone from the upper class wishes to provide a perfect solution to systemic racism, they first need to recognize their complicity in the hierarchical system which still exists today. Ford didn't properly do this. After the two main conflicts are resolved in the film, the resulting, supposed fixed society is still hampered by the same hierarchy and status quo which engendered those issues in the first place. Overall, Ford certainly has good intentions. His message just wasn't well-thought out.
While I respect what Ford was going for though and while I recognize that his heart was in the right place, his intentions came off as naive. The film establishes early on that women and people of color in the town are walking on thin ice and one small misstep could put their lives in danger. Take an early scene where a black character has to stop another black character from unknowingly playing a Yankee song to a group of Confederate veterans. This should set you up for the tone of the rest of the film. Unfortuately, we instead get an outdated idea that an authority figure with a good sense of morals and justice is all that's needed to fix the hierarchical and systemic problems with the town and turn it into a utopia, and this idea is just pure fantasy. If anyone from the upper class wishes to provide a perfect solution to systemic racism, they first need to recognize their complicity in the hierarchical system which still exists today. Ford didn't properly do this. After the two main conflicts are resolved in the film, the resulting, supposed fixed society is still hampered by the same hierarchy and status quo which engendered those issues in the first place. Overall, Ford certainly has good intentions. His message just wasn't well-thought out.