Review of Duel in the Sun: Roadshow Edition

Introduction

There is much to fault with Gone With the Wind. It is long, overblown, rambling, slackly-plotted, and racist for a start but it still manages to overcome these faults to be one of the most compelling pieces of cinema ever. And it made movie mogul David O. Selznick a fortune. Naturally, Selznick tried to recreate the GWTW formula and came up with Duel in the Sun. This is another overblown epic set in the Western genre. The plot is rambling, disjointed and at times thoroughly bizarre. It goes something like this:

A half-breed Indian girl named Pearl (Jennifer Jones) is orphaned (through lust and jealousy) and comes to live with a Texan land baron Senator McCanles (Lionel Barrymore). Lust and jealousy seems to follow Pearl and she soon gets into trouble. Pearl captivates both the Senator’s sons: decent Jesse (Joseph Cotton) and downright nasty Lewt (Gregory Peck) who just happens to be the Senator’s favourite. Jealousy rears it ugly head and the brothers fall out resulting in shoot-outs, betrayal, some more jealousy, even more lust and recriminations.

On release, the film was nicknamed Lust in the Dust and was as lucrative as Selznick could have hoped. It wasn’t necessarily a good film, though.

Video

Presented in a straight 1.33:1 transfer (as filmed), Duel in the Sun looks gorgeous. The image is clean and richly coloured. There are some blemishes as you would expect from a 50 year old film but nothing of note.

The visuals are the high point of the film. Lighting is used to fabulous effect and glowing desert sunsets feature heavily. Good use is made of the location and (if you accept the more is more attitude) the cinematography is of a high standard.

Audio

Audio is straight mono and is perfectly acceptable. There is nothing to praise or criticize.

The score is sweeping and epic and complements the overblown histrionics of the film perfectly. You get a chance to savour the score because it forms the basis of a musical suite that opens and closes the film. In this “Roadshow” version of the movie, you get the movie plus orchestral suites which bookend it as it was originally presented.

Features

A cursory looks at the back of the DVD suggests rich pickings: a cluster of trailers, various biographies, comments by Gregory Peck and Martin Scorcese and the aforementioned orchestral presentation of the music.

The trailers are interesting enough but you’ll only watch them once. The biographies are text based and informative. The extra music presentations are lush and worth a listen. But the expected highlights of commentaries by Peck and Scorcese are, if you read the box carefully, not commentaries; they are “comments”. All they are is four pages of text that summaries their views of the movie. Disappointing.

Conclusion

While Gone With The Wind manages to rise above its faults, Duel in the Sun gets crushed by them. It is overblown, overwritten, overacted, overwrought and not over soon enough. Sure, there is plenty of visual spectacle on show but it is unlikely that you will be able to take the film seriously. The plot confuses and the acting is, at times, truly bizarre.

The DVD does little to redeem this 40s curio.