Duel in the Sun

After the huge success of Gone With the Wind in 1939, movie studios spent years looking for the next big epic to springboard off that epic's success. Ah, who am I kidding, they're still doing that now. GWtW producer David O. Selznick tried to duplicate the success with 1946's Duel in the Sun, a western with a feel of a Greek tragedy that has some interesting cast choices, good and bad, but never amounts to much.

Two key roles show the positive and negative in casting. Jennifer Jones, very white Jennifer Jones, plays a young woman who's father was Mexican and mother an Indian so she has to live with some prejudices against her simply because she's of mixed blood. Jones is doused in skin-darkening makeup to make her look like a Mexican/Indian which looks odd. As for her acting, this is one of those roles that critical fans can point to as being too theatrical. She's over-the-top from the start, and yes, the role requires emotion but it's too much and not believable.

The other interesting casting is rising star Gregory Peck who typically played the resolute, heroic good guy in his career. In 'Duel,' it's just the opposite as he plays the bad guy. And to be fair, Peck nails the part. He's the bad guy you love to hate who can spin a story so quickly and smoothly that you forget what a nasty guy is. This development builds from a cowboy who lives his own life and doesn't think much of what others see in him to a raging, psychopathic killer by the end of the movie. It was refreshing to see Peck in such an atypical role.

On to the story now, which begins with Pearl Chavez (Jones) moving to her distant relatives' sprawling ranch in Texas, the Spanish Bit, after her father is hung for murdering his cheating wife and the unlucky fellow she was with. Pearl, half Mexican/half Indian, finds quite the dysfunctional family at the ranch, starting with the family patriarch, Senator Jackson McCanles (Lionel Barrymore), a racist, crippled old man who refuses to admit the times are changing. Pearl falls for Jackson's son Jesse (Joseph Cotten), a lawyer changing with those times, but ends up with loutish Lewton (Peck), a freewheeling type who lives life how he wants it.

It's the years after the Civil War and the United States are developing and moving further west. The Senator wants nothing to do with the expansion, even when Jesse tries to explain it to him. Pearl is dropped into this perilous situation as the family is torn apart and go their separate ways. Trying to hold it all together, Laura Belle McCanles (Lillian Gish) is seemingly the one good person in the house along with her son Jesse.

This movie had issues from the start, especially when it came to the director's chair, just check out the bevy of directors who were at the helm at one point or another. I couldn't help watching the whole thing is that everyone is trying too hard. Some of my friends dislike pre-1960 movies because they are too theatrical, too stiff, and this is the type of movie where I agree with them. Cotten is good as the angelic brother, Barrymore is playing Barrymore, and Gish makes the most of a smaller part. Also Walter Huston has a small but solid supporting part.  But all in all, something doesn't connect. It feels like a Greek tragedy with family rivalries and disagreements, but there's no one to root for.

By the last 30 minutes or so, decisions are made that serve no real purpose or are even vaguely believable other than to drive the movie along. Pearl loves and hates Lewt, and their ever-so normal relationship starts to turn into listening to nails on the chalkboard. I wanted to say 'just let him go! He's messing with your head!' And then the ending, which is too much on any number of levels.

All this is disappointing because money was clearly spent on this big budget western. One scene with Barrymore and Cotten riding to stop the railroad tracks being built on their land has hundreds of men on horseback. They ride over a far-off hill and approach the rail camp, and it's great to watch. It's a gorgeous movie with some shots where you could freeze the DVD and swear it was a painting. But really it tries too hard to be an epic movie but never quite gets there.

Duel in the Sun (1946): **/****