Rating: 
Summary: This film has Jennifer Jones....what more can you need?
Review: "Duel in the Sun" was David Selznick's attempt to outdo "Gone With the Wind". Sure, it has lavish and sweeping production, glorious cinematography. But nothing can outdo "Gone With the Wind". But it was still a valiant attempt.The film revolves around Pearl Chavez, a half white/half Amerind girl whose became an orphan when her father was hanged for murder. She was sent to the family of her father's ex-fiancee (Lillian Gish). Unfortunately, the patriach of the family harbors racist attitude toward Pearl ("PEARL??? Why aren't you called POCAHONTAS?!!"). The two son, blond Jesse (Joseph Cotten)the saint and dark haired Lewt (Gregory Peck) the devil both fell for Pearl, and this love triangle eventually leads to the climatic event suggested by the film's title. As usual, the ever reliable Jennifer Jones demonstrate her talents that other Hollywood actresses can only hope they had. If you are used to seeing Ms. Jones in goody two shoes virginal roles in films such as Song of Bernadette, Since You Went Away, Love Is A Many Splendored Thing, Portrait of Jennie, and even The Towering Inferno, Duel In the Sun shows that she can exude sex as well. Typical of Jennifer's performances, she don't just act with her face, she acted with her entire body as well. She BECOMES the character. Gregory Peck is also excellent, being a rotten rakish rogue for once rather than the defender of right and virtue we use to get from him in films such as A Gentleman's Agreement and The Paradine Case. Highly sexually charge in its day, Duel In the Sun was jeered by critics as "lust in the dust". But given how this film has gone on to be a classic, both Peck and Jones can jeer back. Their performances, and the film itself is still remembered and celebrated. And where are the critics now?
Nuff said.
Rating: 
Summary: Love it or Leave it
Review: "I'm trash I tell ya". This movie is pure camp, politically incorrect in every way, and immensely entertaining. As Greg Peck said to Jennifer Jones at the water hole, "We've been spoofing ain't we?". I think that says it all!
Rating:
Summary: I LOVE THIS MOVIE!
Review: "Lust In The Dust" as I fondly call it is the cheesiest movie ever.Jones as a"fiery half-breed".Peck playing a less than righteous person.Talk about miscasting!It is a bizzare,entertaining movie with an ending that will leave you shaking your head,baffled.Peck is a little too friendly with that horse if you know what I mean.Jones' character was life-imitating-art if i've ever seen it.Rumor has it she was a casting couch type of girl.Limburger indeed!
Rating:
Summary: Bigger than any other movie
Review: --and a little bit hollow, too, for the filmmakers try to blow up an ordinary love triangle into a social and economic canvas the size of GONE WITH THE WIND, but it's just too small to fill that much space. However on all other fronts the film is magnificent and it is definitely one of the strangest pictures of the entire postwar period. The colors are rich, troubled, seething with pixels, and the musical score shouts and clamors what we all knew at heart, the west is another word for s-e-x. Selznick cleverly cast a number of silent film veterans in the cast, to trace the long history of melodrama in the movies, most notably Lillian Gish but also Lionel Barrymore, Harry Carey Sr and the incomparable Herbert Marshall, who plays Pearl's gambler father "Scott" during the first reel or two.
The younger generation, as represented by Cotten, Jones, and Peck, all visibly strain trying to be colorful, and in the case of Jones and Peck, they are rewarded with twin triumphs of overacting and sheer ham. Selznick must have sat Jennifer Jones down and force-fed her the complete filmic works of her predecessor, Maria Montez, to get her to be so over the top. As for Peck, the whole audience explodes with gasps and laughter when we hear him whistling, mournfully, "I've Been Working on the Railroad" after we see him blowing up an entire train just for the hell of it. In contrast, Cotten's a little flimsy and distracted in his part--he doesn't hold up his end of the triangle very well. Maybe Robert Walker would have been better, or Montgomery Clift, one of many to whom Selznick offered the part.
When I first saw DUEL IN THE SUN I was about fifteen and it blew me away. Contemporary films rarely feature the kind of soak-through Technicolor that Rosson and Garmes (and I guess von Sternberg, who worked on the film for many months) were able to produce here. The dancing (by Albertina "Tilly" Losch, the European answer to Martha Graham) is out of this world, and the oracular voice of Orson Welles blows the whole narrative into another dimension the minute his narration begins.
Rating: 
Summary: Baaaaaaaaad with a capital B
Review: Bad, big bad...bad beyond all words.
But a total kick in the unintentional ... when it comes to seeing a movie self distruct before your eyes. The movie Cecil B. De Mille probably watched just before filming the 10 Commandments....(Oh Moses, Moses, Moses!)
Lionel Barrymore's cantakerous attitude....
Gregory Peck chuffing up his crop to be as freakin nasty as he can be....NOT!
Jennifer Jones......how many words can summon the idea of MISCAST! Actually its not her fault. A benzedrine addled Selznick was convinced he could carry her as a Mexican Scarlet O'Hara. Can you see the puppet strings? Hello....Eliza Dolittle!
Lillian Gish who is the ONLY remotely sympathetic character. Her death scene will ellicit chuckles if not guffaws! HELLO....MR VIDOR what where you thinking???!!!!
Like I said...bad, bad, bad, but a guilty pleasure none the less.
Watch it with a good eye for Selznick's ironfisted promotion of JJ....also remembering that this production team brought you Gone With The Wind. One of my all time favorite movies.
Can you say MAJOR STUMBLE!
Rating:
Summary: A very Strange Film but a Classic just the same
Review: David O. Selznick's Duel in the Sun looks strange right from the opening shot. The Technicolor images in this film have a nightmare quality about them. The whole film almost feels like a very disturbing dream. It is a Western but uses the landscape and the overly sexual Jennifer Jones to spark some erotic emotion inside the viewer the enters regions we normally would not enter. There is a very dark quality about the film that tries to explore the lust the drives the human animal. But we a are more than just animals because of our ability to reason. This film attempts to make the viewer forget all reason and give oneself up to these hidden feelings. Even Dimitri Tiomkin's score tends to reflect this strange nature of the film as he often mixes his traditional Western scoring to something more obscure and enigmatic. The finale between Jennifer Jones and Gregory Peck (cast against type) is so vivid that the images of it my last with you forever. This is powerful filmmaking, but I don't know that I could take a steady diet of it.
Rating: 
Summary: Texas-sized Entertainment
Review: Duel in the Sun is an epic in both it's themes and production. Although it doesn't hold up nearly as well as other films from the 1940s, it has many things which will please film lovers. When Jennifer Jones, a half-breed Indian Girl named Pearl Chavez, goes to live with her dead father's ex-fiancee and her family, a love triangle develops between Lewt and Jesse McCanles, Gregorgy Peck and Joseph Cotton respectively. Peck is the low down spoiled son of Senator (Lionel Barrymore) and Laura Belle (Lillian Gish) McCanles, whose interest in Jones is purely physical. Cotton's character on the other hand has a genuine affection for Pearl and tries to protect her from his raffish younger brother. The inevitable showdown between brothers ensues, with Peck appearing the winner for Pearl's affections. Filled with enough sweep and grandeur for twenty films, Duel has some of the most interesting color cinematography ever put on celluloid. The scenes during the building of the railroad and the confrontation that follows are most impressive. Everyone in the cast seems to believe the storyline, which makes for a fun ride in spite of the downright hokiness of the plot. David O. Selznick spent six million dollars on a film that was supposed to be another Gone With the Wind and it shows. Released in 1947, Duel became one of the biggest grossing westerns of all time. It's also a testament to how popular stars can turn a mediocre story into a full blown blockbuster. With all its faults, this is a highly entertaining movie.
Rating: 
Summary: what were you all thinking?
Review: Duel in the Sun is an epic production. It is beautifully filmed -- with great music, expert stunt work, well-trained horses and a superb cast of superstars. ... end of story. It doesn't hold up as well most other films from the 1940s (or the 50's, 60's, 70' ,80's and rest of the century for that mattter), and the script (sic) which is corny, campy, unbelievable and painful to watch is an insult to discerning film-goers now, just as it must have been 60 years ago. King Vidor ( the name fits, and he wears it well) has teamed up with David O. Selsnick to foist this multi-million dollar spectacle on overzealous groupies of the film-classic genre who, (as you can read from the surrounding reviews) just adore it! It has three things which will please film lovers: 1.Jennifer Jones 2.great scenery (redundant) and 3.the best stunt horses this side of - - wait -- I already said that.
Despite a tremendous effort on the part of Gregory Peck, Jones, Lilian Gish and the rest of the talented cast to make this horrendous script come to some sort of life-form, the movie ultimately sinks to a level of jabberwocky so low that it makes the script of Paul Verhoeven/Elizabeth Berkley's "Showgirls" seem like "A Place in the Sun" by comparison.
This is two and a half hours of my life I can never get back.
I give it 2-stars -- only because of the stars.
Rating:
Summary: EPIC WESTERN CLASSIC
Review: DUEL IN THE SUN was David O. Selznick's expensive attempt to outdo his own GONE WITH THE WIND, by producing the biggest, meanest horse opera ever made. Hundreds of galloping horses run a poor second to SEX, as Jennifer Jones and Gregory Peck 'lust in the dust' while the 1946 camera discreetly pans to lightning in the sky. Gorgeous in technicolor, great script, and grandiose Dimitri Tiomkin musical score that cries out to be released on CD. Star-studded supporting cast includes Joseph Cotten, Lillian Gish, Lionel Barrymore (Drew's uncle), Walter Huston (Anjelica's grandpa), and GWTW's own Butterfly McQueen. Don't miss this one, my all-time favorite western.
Rating:
Summary: Duel in the Sun--A truly "big" movie
Review: Duel in the Sun was seen as overheated, over-hyped and over-done when it opened in l947, though it did huge business. Today I find again and again that I and many others it are hypnotized by it, find it fascinating, its outsized emotions, feelings, visual splendor, epic-geared acting all fascinate audiences. This is King Vidor in what is called his "delirious period" and Selznick as having his ambitions as well as his talent in full control, before he started down. Glorious "big" performances by the Jennifer Jones asnd Gregory Peck and world class supporting cast. Great music by Dmitri Tiomkin. A major treat!
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