Duel in the Sun is a film that almost makes the "great grade" for several reasons. First of all, every time I think of the film, I think of lush color cinematography, deep blues and bright yellows, excellent shadows, and fierce light. Deep browns, reds, and brown-skinned Gregory Peck, looking extremely handsome. This is one film where Peck's looks played havoc on the mind, because he’s the bad guy in the film. But he appears to be having the best time of his acting career. He molds to the role, unlike many of the roles he has acted in, and should probably have considered more bad guy roles in his film repetoire.

One reason for a "great" grade is the Dimitri Tiompkin score, which I’ve only recently realized was the crucial link to making this film bigger than it actually projects. The score is absolutely majestic and adds more import to the scenes than the actual script. Not to say the script is bad. It’s a good script, if a bit melodramatic at times. In one scene where the camera captures a stand-off between two rival cavalries, the music turns a face-off into a great show-down of competing powerful forces. But I’m jumping ahead of myself. It’s a rousing score, even if it gets maudlin and sentimental at times.

Overall, the reason the film passes muster is because of Jennifer Jones. Jennifer Jones is one of my recent personal discoveries of the past five or six years. I have seen most of her popular films, several times, but only in the past couple years did I realize that I consistently appreciate her as an actress. Period. She is one of the few actresses I can list as liking almost all her works. Jones is a versatile actress. She does great comedy, drama, and can play roles as diverse as playing a woman with Indian parentage (I think the term “half-breed” as she is universally described in this role is derogatory), a Japanese woman (“Love is a Many Splendored Thing") and a French woman who sees Jesus ("Song of Bernadette"). I will side-step the politics of not allowing a native to play those roles. Suffice to say, I believed her in those roles because she acted so well. It was not a stretch for me to see her play those parts.

Though she was born British, she’s mastered the ability to hide her accent in some of her American roles, but can play the Brit, in excess when necessary. In “Beat the Devil,” a wonderful off-beat film produced and co-starred by Humphrey Bogart, she absolutely shines and carries the film.

Interestingly enough, "Duel in the Sun" is great because unbeknownst to me until I started putting my facts together, several directors and writers worked on the film. Internet Movie Data Base lists the names of several directors who played a role in its making (Dieterle, Menzies, Selznick, Sternberg), but it is King Vidor who got the credit. I am surprised every time I watch the film, because I would never consider this a Vidor film, per se.

I’d be very intrigued to read more about the politics behind the making of this film, as it appears to be another virtual “Gone With the Wind.” Interestingly enough, David O. Selznick did produce it, and even included Butterfly McQueen, of “Gone With the Wind” fame to reprise her high-pitched ditsy maid. I would have loved to have seen Butterfly McQueen in her youth back then, transported to today's filmdom. She would have been a millionaire, hopefully not playing maid roles, but showing us her brilliant comic genius. In another piece of trivia, Selznick also eventually married the film's leading actress, Ms. Jones, and it's no wonder, considering the sexuality she displays on the screen. She sizzles.

I can never do the plots justice because I don’t believe in divulging the details exhaustively. In any case, in this film, there are many sub-plots which make it a bit convoluted at times (which also contributes to its second-rate status among the great pantheon of Hollywood films).

To make a long story short: two brothers, one bad (Peck), one good (Joseph Cotten), spend the whole film vying for the affections of Pearl Chavez (Jones), who was "abandoned" by her warring parents. Her mother, an Indian woman, had a wild streak, and was killed in a tavern by her “husband,” and everything goes south for Pearl after that. Pearl's attempts at not following her mother’s independent (translate - “wicked”) ways by remaining tame and honest are thwarted every time, because so many men find her desirable. She’s shapely, sexy, and walks with confidence. So, basically, she’s run out of town. She’s sent after by actress Lillian Gish, who tries to raise Pearl like a daughter, only to be taunted by the attentions of Gregory Peck (“Lewt” – try “lewd”), who knows how to get under her skin.

The film is actually a morality play as we see Pearl struggle with her sexual desires, and her need to be a “good girl.” That duel is the essence of the film, as she battles temptation. Joseph Cotten does an excellent job of playing her priest-confessor, as he, the good son, tries to raise her to be a lady. But several episodic incidents happen, in many vignettes of "is she or isn’t she," that in total make it impossible for Pearl to prove to him, herself, or anybody else, for that matter, that she’s any good. She’s an Indian woman who, because of her color, is destined to suffer the fate of being too lustful and sexual (an unfortunate stereotype).

Joseph Cotten, playing Jesse McCanles, the good son, is milk toast. However, Peck is his Senator-Father’s heart, and the latter will do anything for his ne’er do-well son. Looking a bit more deeply into the film, there's actually a very deft character twist in the film with the Cotten character. After several viewings, I began to question how truly "loyal" Cotten is, when he turns his back on Chavez once he decides that she really is a dishonorable woman (in our vernacular, a “slut”). Cotten turns out to be more like his immoral father, after all, and Gregory Peck turns out to be a bad "good" son, who has more principle than his more esteemed brother. In Lewt's case, however, like Pearl, circumstances corrupted him, too. However, we see him gleefully embrace the life of a rogue. By the end of the film, both Lewt and Pearl are impossibly corrupted though by the end it is their passions that fire them up.

I’ve said too much already. The film is full of drama. The film is about race. It’s about “family.” It’s about loyalty. It’s about Sex. It’s about Sex. It’s about Sex. If you think it’s a Western, it is. But it is to Westerns what “Mash is to war.” It exposes the underbelly of the lives of one family during America's railroad expansion. You won’t find Indians chased by cowboys, that I recall, anyway.

I must note that there is one scene that makes every effort at serious melodrama, that has me on the floor laughing every time, because of its over-the-top melodrama. Watch it yourself to discover it. If I even mention who is in the scene, I’ll give it away.

"Duel in the Sun," is a whopper of a film with great actors -- Herbert Marshall, Walter Huston, Charles Bickford, and Harey Carey, to name the famous ones.

I definitely recommend this film, for being sexy and steamy without anyone "ever taking their clothes off." Well, not quite. There is a scene... see it for yourself.




Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age