HotToastyRag Everyone knows Gregory Peck as the very picture of American integrity, but my favorite of his performances is Duel in the Sun. There's no trace of Atticus Finch in this movie; every bit of him is bad, and he never looked so good. In this wildly romantic drama, Jennifer Jones is torn between the kind, stable, respectful Joseph Cotton and the bad, manly, sexy Gregory Peck. Tough decision! After his successful production of Gone with the Wind, it's no wonder David O'Selznick created such a beautiful, exciting love triangle. And while the script was original written for Teresa Wright, Jennifer Jones ended up playing the lead and marrying her producer three years later. You can find lots of trivia about what a headache the film was to make, including a very funny argument between O'Selznick and Dimitri Tiomkin about the musical score, but in my review I'd rather focus on the positives.Jennifer Jones plays a "half-breed" who comes to live with Lillian Gish and Lionel Barrymore in Texas. Yes, it's terribly politically incorrect, but you've got to get into the dated mindset to appreciate the story. Lionel is grouchy and racist, Jenny desperately wants to cling to her "purity", and marrying a "half-breed" is unthinkable in a respectable family. Despite all that, it's a wonderful romantic drama. Lush, exciting, well-written, well-acted, dramatic, and heart-wrenching, Duel in the Sun earns its place among the greatest classic romances of all time. Jenny gives a wonderfully layered performance, juggling sweet, sultry, innocent, trampy, and passionate. Greg is a delicious bad boy; it's a miracle he didn't get typecast as a villain for the rest of his career. Add in crotchety Lionel, Lillian as an unfair mother, Joseph Cotton as a pre-Atticus Finch, Herbert Marshall, Charles Bickford, Walter Huston, and Butterfly McQueen, and you have an unforgettable cast.While this might not be the best first date movie, watch this with your long-time sweetie pie, or with a bunch of your girlfriends. It's pretty heavy, but it's definitely one to watch.

Claudio Carvalho When Scott Chavez (Herbert Marshall) kills his wife and her lover, he contacts his cousin and former passion Laura Belle (Lillian Gish) and makes arrangements for his daughter Pearl Chavez (Jennifer Jones) to live with her and her family since he will be executed. On the arrival, Pearl is welcomed by Jesse McCanles (Joseph Cotton), the younger son of Belle that is a lawyer that brings her to the huge ranch Spanish Bit that belongs to his father, the invalid Senator McCanles (Lionel Barrymore) that lives on a wheelchair. Pearl is also welcomed by Laura Belle, but the Senator is cold and ironic with her, calling her half-breed. Soon Pearl meets Belle's older son Lewton 'Lewt' McCanles (Gregory Peck), who is a scoundrel and a wolf, and he tells his intentions to her. One night, Lewt forces Pearl and she submits to him and she becomes ashamed and angry with Lewt. Meanwhile the railroad is ready to trespass the Spanish Bit fence and the Senator organizes a group of men to defend his real estate. However the railroad people has a court order and the army on their side and Jesse tries to explain the Senator that he should let them in. However the Senator expels his son from the ranch and when Jesse is going to say goodbye to Pearl, he finds Lewt in her room. Jesse leaves Pearl behind and Lewt promises to marry her; but when she learns his real intention, she believes she is trash and becomes her lover. "Duel in the Sun" is a melodramatic soap opera in the Old West, with detestable characters. Jennifer Jones does not fit to the role of a naive young woman and the viewer does not feel sorrow for her due to her promiscuous behavior. Gregory Peck has an excellent performance in the role of a scum. David O. Selznick's pretension to make a film comparable with "Gone with the Wind" is quite absurd. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Duelo ao Sol" ("Duel in the Sun")

JohnLeeT A truly spectacular motion picture the likes of which simply aren't made today. Selznick produced an unforgettable cinema experience with a vision so majestic it is almost too much to endure. Starting with a script that smolders with raw passion, King Vidor gets ultimate credit for directing what is simply a masterpiece after other directors proved to be overwhelmed by the scope of this project. The cast is uniformly superb and a group of finer actors, giving performances as grand as the movie itself, could never be imagined. Tiomkin's score is masterful in conveying the savage emotions that run wild across the screen and the cinematography is incredibly beautiful, with burning sunsets and stunning prairies, purple rocks bursting with color, and fiery, flashing gunplay. This is cinema as it was meant to be, alive and flaming, depicting the adventure and violence of the Old West in a way no other motion picture has ever equaled. The characters are simmering with emotion until the untamed hearts of the era finally explode, no longer contained by the flimsy restraints of civilization that are not yet strong enough for the wild wilderness. This is man at his most primitive, clashing with a law that is meaningless to him. Thundering posses of thousands are merciless as they try to bring order to chaotic vistas against which showdowns are illuminated. The mighty magnificence of Duel In the Sun is everything the West was and what we want it to be. This is a place where gunfire is the only language spoken by both men and women, the only words listened to coming from the barrel of a gun, with epitaphs written on the head of a bullet. Passions are laid bare in the dunes of sunbaked sand and love and hate blur into one. This is Duel In the Sun! It stands as an everlasting monument to a Hollywood that was once populated by producers and directors both bold and unafraid to make big motion pictures with huge themes and giant stars.

timmy_501 This is a rather unusual Western. It has one of the most excruciatingly ignorant main characters I've ever seen in a movie. I know that the idea is that she hasn't had much education but I don't understand how anyone her age could possibly be as stupid as she is, especially given her close relationship with her supposedly well-educated father. The other interesting thing about the film is that it portrays the traditional masculine cowboy in a negative light, instead favoring this character's non-violent intellectual brother.So at first I was annoyed by how stupid Pearl is but eventually I started to understand where they were taking this idea. We're meant to see her develop from a typically weak and powerless female living in a pre-feminist society to an empowered but conflicted heroine. I still think that exaggerating her ignorance to such a degree was a big mistake on the part of the filmmakers and actually even her development feels like what it is, a contrivance of the plot to lead to a climactic showdown.Lewton McCanles fits into the typical hard-riding alpha male archetype that's so familiar from countless other Westerns. Instead of possessing a rough hewn morality, though, he's really a terrible person who seems to delight in causing trouble for others. The real problem with this character is that he has no nuance, he's very predictable and uninspired. His brother also falls into an unsurprising pattern fairly quickly but his role as the one truly admirable character is surprising given his lack of willingness to do whatever it takes to beat the villain. This is where the snubbed heroine's interesting side comes in as she eventually seems to realize that she has to put a stop to the villain's reign of terror before he makes things even worse than they already are.What I really liked about this film was the sense of the inescapability of the past of the characters. Mrs. McCanles's choice of husband pretty much destroys her life and her unresolved feelings for another man sow the destruction of her family both from the conflict within the nuclear family itself and without from her other suitor's daughter. This film is nearly as epic as the oddly long prelude leads you to expect it to be.