Duel in the Sun
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Movie Reviews of Duel in the Sun
Movie Review: A highly original piece of work that remains impressive, baroque folly, not least for the final scene...
Summary: 4 Stars
King Vidor was a long-serving and much-respected Hollywood grandmaster who took a serious interest in movie-making... "Billy the Kid" and "Duel in the Sun" hold an important place in the history of the genre... These two films in particular, along with "Northwest Passage," show Vidor's romantic vision of backwoods America and his love of natural landscape; they share, too, an earthy quality which is missing from his more routine action Westerns, "The Texas Rangers" and "Man Without a Star."
Photographed in rich color, the visual magnificence of the film was manifested in the shots of the cowboys galloping across the rolling hills; in the spectacular confrontation between the McCanles forces who aimed to defend Spanish Bit with lead and the U.S. Cavalry; in the deep red sunset sequence with Lionel Barymore as "the lonely Senator"; and in that long shot of the surreptitious meeting between Lewt and his father on the hilltop at sunset...
"Duel in the Sun" is extravagantly and grandiosely passionate and romantic and its characters are much larger than life... A poignant scene was the tremendous moment between two legendary actors (Lionel Barrymore & Lillian Gish) when Laura Belle said to her husband "I'm a nuisance to you even to the end. It's the first time you've been in this room since that night./I loved you, Laura Belle. Yes, sir, I loved you."
Now, when a single movie offers murder, rape, attempted fratricide, train wreck, fiery sensual dance, drunkenness, religion, range wars, prostitution, sacred and profane love and sex as the principal motivation and not as an incidental subplot, and all that against an epic background of empire-building, well, it is for the first time in a Western in such a big scale...
The film featured the story of Pearl Chavez whose past is dark as her coca-stained skin and who loves everybody but loves bad Lewt most often...
Gregory Peck character as Lewt is barbaric, undisciplined, untamed, overwhelming... He is a bad man, all bad, but he is also the lowest, dirtiest, meanest and cool, and he knows how to laugh and have a good time...
Jennifer Jones as Pearl, is the 'prettiest girl ever to set foot on Spanish Bit.' She is a marvelous overwrought minx, wild and sexy...
Joseph Cotton is the calm, educated, refined, pleasant son Jesse who ultimately sides with the railroad against his father...He even threatens to cut the fence wire promising: "I'd rather be on the side of the victims than of the murderers."
Lionel Barrymore is the invalid Senator Jackson McCanles who orders his son, calling him a "Judas," to leave his ranch for as long as he lives...
Lillian Gish is the delicate Laura Belle who blames her husband of spoiling Lewt and she let him do so ever since he was a child making him think that rules weren't made for him...
Herbert Marshall plays Scott Chavez the condemned Southern aristocrat gentleman who sends his daughter to Laura Belle, his second cousin...
Charles Bickford plays Sam Pierce, the boss who gets a little ranch of his own but never run across anybody he wanted to marry... Besides, he never got up nerve enough to ask anybody...
Impassions, pulsating, barbaric, and thunderous, the music matches perfectly the fervid emotionalism of the story...
The film received only two Academy Awards nominations...
Movie Review: Jennifer Jones stirs up plenty of lust in this western "Duel"
Summary: 4 Stars
DUEL IN THE SUN, otherwise known as "Lust in the Dust" to it's devotees and detractors, remains a guilty pleasure. Full of grand artifice and excess, not to mention Jennifer Jones in a role light-years away from her usual screen assignments, it remains an enjoyable diversion.
Half-caste beauty Pearl Chavez (Jennifer Jones in heavy tropical makeup) is orphaned and goes to live with distant cousins in Texas. Pretty soon she's caught in the middle of a love-duel between brothers Lewt (Gregory Peck) and Jesse (Joseph Cotten), who both want to have her.
The casting of Gregory Peck as the carnal, savagely-sexual Lewt was a masterstroke. Playing against his usual screen persona, Peck instantly commands the screen with his impressive performance. By contrast, Joseph Cotten positively pales as his weak-willed brother Jesse. Lillian Gish and Lionel Barrymore play the parents and manage to climb beyond caricature territory; however Gish's death scene is totally ridiculous. Butterfly McQueen plays the feather-brained domestic (but she might as well be reprising her "Gone with the Wind" role of Prissy).
Comparisons to "Gone with the Wind" have dogged DUEL IN THE SUN since it's original release. It was no secret that producer David O. Selznick wanted to fashion a movie that would emulate some of the visual splendor of GWTW (not to mention the same box-office success). From the rich-red sunsets to the sprawling running time, DUEL IN THE SUN follows the formula, but the overall standard of acting is too forced and florid to truly connect with audiences in the special way that GWTW did.
DUEL IN THE SUN does have the spectacular Jennifer Jones and Gregory Peck in it's favour; when these two stars take to the screen you can't help but be riveted. The DVD includes the full theatrical Prelude and Overture musical sequences.
Movie Review: Duel in the Sun 1946
Summary: 4 Stars
From the acclaimed producer of GONE WITH THE WIND (David O . Selznick 1902-1965) comes a torrid table of passion and romance thats loaded with "all" the sweep and panache of giant American action movie (The New Yorker 1931) ! . Flawlessy cast with a bevy of film legends , including Jennifer Jones (1919 - ), Gregory Peck (1916-2003) , Joseph Cotten (1905-1994) , Lionel Barrymore (1878-1954) and Lilian Gish (1893-1993) , this salacious saga is virtually impossible not to love . When her father is hanged for murdering his wife , the stunning beauty Pearl (Jones) is taken in by a weathy Texan , his wife and their two grown sons (Peck and Cotton) But pearl soon becomes trapped in an emotional tug-of-war between her love for one son and her lust for the other , igniting the most tempestous triangle west has ever seen ! . A Lawish , sensual spectacle ! Irresistibly Entertaining . High Quality Transfer . RecommendedMovie Review: Steamy, cheesy fun!
Summary: 4 Stars
Legend has it that this film was David Selznick's effort to recapture the box-office magic of Gone with the Wind. The movie certainly LOOKS LIKE GWTW---the same orange skies, the same broad-scoped shots of the horizons, the same Butterfly McQueen. It certainly SOUNDS LIKE GWTW, with Pearl's father making dramatic pronouncements about life (you expect him to say, "Land, Katie Scarlett, land. It's the only thing that matters.") And then you have Joseph Cotten playing a Southwestern Ashley Wilkes, Gregory Peck playing a nastier-than-Gable Rhett Butler type, and Jennifer Jones as a Southwestern spitfire who swings between Ashley and Rhett surrogates the same way Scarlett swung between the originals....but with far more sexual energy.
This is fun, ponderous, and oh so steamy. It must have been pretty racy for its time, and truth be told it still is pretty racy. [And a tad racist, too.] See it.
Movie Review: OMG! Somebody catch me while I 4 Stars
Over the top???!!! HARDLY!!!I say it's just right. Suds, steam, lots of foamy froth. Right out in the ol' West,
and smack down in the middle of a hacienda called Spanish Bit (somebody hose me down, PLEASE).
Some might say it's too much...Pearl swimming at the sump'....smacking Lewt full-face with a
handful of dessert.........driving the sin-eater to make her kneel A WHOLE LOTTA TIMES for
prayin' and perspirin'.....
Oh dear, what's a movie lover to do???? Dump me in the sump' girls, it's popcorn time!!!