Review: Duel in the Sun

Jennifer Jones incompetently plays the untamed, wild-eyed Pearl, half-breed daughter of troubled Herbert Marshall, who is convicted of murdering his wife and her lover. Jones is sent to live with cantankerous, racist cattle baron Senator McCanles (old pro Lionel Barrymore, in a wheelchair as usual, for the last part of his career) and wife Lillian Gish. There her affections are torn between well-meaning, principled lawyer Jesse (Joseph Cotten) and his uncouth, bullying, possibly psychotic brother, the aptly named Lewt (Gregory Peck!). Guess which son Barrymore favours? Peck is quite forceful with Jones, and in fact, is not above taking on any competition, be it his own brother Cotten, or the simple, older suitor played by Charles Bickford, whom Jones flees to when relations with the dangerous Peck sour.

Well bugger me, Gregory Peck can tackle dark roles after all. I stand corrected then, because in this 1946 King Vidor (“The Wizard of Oz”, “War and Peace”) film, Peck’s brooding, lip-smacking near-villainy is the film’s strongest asset. It’s a weird, unevenly acted sex-western, supposedly an attempt by producer David O. Selznick (“Rebecca”, “Spellbound”) to top his earlier “Gone With the Wind”, and in my view this is indeed the better film. His heroine this time, Jones, is no better (or any more likeable) than Vivien Leigh’s Scarlett O’Hara, but that’s OK when you’ve got great work by Peck (seemingly channelling Robert Mitchum), the always tops Cotten (an actor I like as much as I do Peck, if perhaps a more versatile actor), as well as sympathetic turns by Marshall, Gish (who earned an Oscar nomination, astonishingly her only one, aside from an Honorary Oscar in 1970. Criminal for someone who pretty much invented screen acting!) and Bickford, and a terrific hambone special from Barrymore.

Butterfly McQueen’s dim-witted, baby-voiced servant character will be seen as racist by some, but I reckon it’s a step-up from her awful Prissy in “Gone With the Wind”, in that she’s genuinely funny here, no matter the quality of the role. In fact, I’d argue that this film’s treatment of racial issues is a little more sophisticated than in “Gone With the Wind”.

It’s melodrama, and kinda goofy at times (especially whenever the out-of-her-depth Jones tries to act, though she did earn an Oscar nom for this, presumably because her lover and soon-to-be-husband Selznick offered his sexual services to Academy voters), but it sure is entertaining. Screenplay by Selznick (who was one of several people who acted as director on the film at some point) and Oliver H. P. Garrett (one of many scribes at work on “Gone With the Wind”), from the Niven Busch novel. Busch of course was at one time the husband of one of my favourite actresses, Teresa Wright, who apparently had the Jones role until she fell pregnant. As bad as Jones is in the role (and bad she indeed is, floundering in any attempt at complex emotions), Wright would be all wrong for the role, if you’ll pardon the pun.

Excellent colour cinematography credited to five people; Lee Garmes (“Jungle Book”, “The Paradine Case”), Harold Rosson (“The Wizard of Oz”, “The Asphalt Jungle”, “Singin’ in the Rain”), Ray Rennahan (“Gone With the Wind”, Cecil B. De Mille’s awful “Unconquered”), Charles P. Boyle (“Old Yeller”), and Allen Davey (“Western Union”).

Although nothing brilliant and probably overblown, this film is far too crazy, entertaining, and visually pleasing to dislike.

Rating: B-