Other Titles • Duel in the Sun (1946) • Duell in der Sonne (1952) • Lust in the Dust • Duello al sole (1946)
Synopses for Duel in the Sun (1946)
1.
An incredible all-star cast shines in this "big, brawling, engrossing" (Leonard Maltin) film about a woman taken into the home of a wealthy rancher-only to become the subject of a tug-of-war between his two sons.
(42 votes)
2.
When a vivacious half-breed Indian girl named Pearl is sent to live with the Texas land baron, Senator McCanles, conflict abruptly arises. Hot-blooded Pearl captures the attention of the Senator's sons: upright Jesse and fiery Lewt. Soon both of the brothers are vying for her attention, which leads to betrayal, wild desert shoot-outs and a lusty love-hate relationship between Pearl and one of the brothers.
(41 votes)
3.
Only the producer of Gone With The Wind could have conceived a film so massive in scope and sweet as this epic Western which received several Academy Award nominations in 1947 (including Best Actress for Jennifer Jones) and made Variety's All-Time Top Box Office list. With an all-star cast headed by Gregory Peck, Jennifer Jones and Joseph Cotten, Duel In The Sun is a Western, a love story and a family saga rolled into one and features some of the most breathtaking photography ever seen.
When a vivacious half-breed Indian girl named Pearl (Jennifer Jones) is sent to live with Texas land baron Senator McCanles, conflict abruptly arises. Hot-blooded Pearl captures the attention of the Senator's sons: upright Jesse (Joseph Cotton) and fiery Lewt (Gregory Peck). Soon both of the brothers are vying for her attention, which leads to betrayal, wild desert shoot-outs and a lusty love-hate relationship between Pearl and one of the brothers.
(41 votes)
4.
Legendary producer David O. Selznick dreamed of another magnum opus like his 1939 production of Gone with the Wind; he also purposed to make Jennifer Jones, his ladylove and eventually second Mrs. Selznick, a megastar. Accordingly, he micromanaged the making of Duel in the Sun (Lust in the Dust to some), an extravagant Technicolor epic about the collision of the old West with the new, wide-open spaces with railroads and barbed wire, and hot-blooded outlaws with civilized folk, often wimpy or unwell. Beginning among giant rocks drenched in a blood-red sunset, with velvet-voiced Orson Welles intoning the leibestod legend of doomed Pearl Chavez and her demon lover, Duel never strays far from lush romanticism, spiced with a dash of S/M. Orphaned Pearl (Jones) comes to live at Spanish Bit Ranch, where frail Laura Belle McCanles (Lillian Gish) tries to make a lady of her, despite her questionable origins and insistent voluptuousness. Sexual license versus law--Pearl's choices--are symbolized by the McCanles brothers: dark, undisciplined Lewt (a lubriciously wicked Gregory Peck) and reasonable, forward-looking, repressed Jesse (Joseph Cotten). The cast is huge (Lionel Barrymore, Walter Huston, Harry Carey, Herbert Marshall, Charles Bickford, Butterfly McQueen) and there are unforgettable set pieces: summoned by a cacophony of bells, the gathering of McCanles cowboys from the four corners of the earth; Pearl in heat, clutching Lewt's leg and being dragged across the floor as he makes his getaway to Mexico; and the lovers' final shootout among those red rocks, as orgiastic a finale as you could ask for. --Kathleen Murphy
(39 votes)
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