Movie Review: Duel In The Sun (1946)

An overwrought Western romantic drama, Duel In The Sun is a barely tolerable exercise in overheated emotions. David O. Selznick's foolish attempt to create another Gone With The Wind unfortunately crosses the line into unmitigated camp.

In Texas, the wealthy Scott Chavez (Herbert Marshall) kills his flirtatious wife (Tilly Losch) and her lover. Before being hanged for murder, Scott arranges for his half-breed free-spirited daughter Pearl (Jennifer Jones) to live with the family of his former lover and second cousin Laura Belle McCanles (Lillian Gish). The McCanles own a massive ranch, and while Laura Belle welcomes Pearl, her wheelchair bound patriarch husband Senator Jackson McCanles (Lionel Barrymore) does not conceal his condescending and racist attitudes.

The two McCanles sons immediately start to vie for Pearl's attention. Jesse (Joseph Cotten) is a calm and educated man, but also lacking in charisma. Lewt (Gregory Peck) is rough and rude, but also passionate and possessing a violent streak. Pearl tries to grab Jesse's attention, but it is Lewt who makes the aggressive move to start a steamy, possession-obsessed relationship, and Pearl can't resist his advances. With the approaching railway supported by Federal troops encroaching onto the McCanles property, a deep rift emerges between Jesse and the Senator, amplifying the tension.

While King Vidor is credited as the director, Duel In The Sun was a troubled production that suffered from Selznick's continuous meddling. In total up to seven directors may have had a hand in creating the film, including William Dieterle, Otto Brower, Selznick himself and none other than Josef von Sternberg, who was hired as a lighting expert to ensure Jennifer Jones always looked good.

And making Jones look good was one of Selznick's main motivations. They were in a relationship that would end in marriage, and Selznick was intent on sparing no expense to make Jones a huge star. He also wanted to top Gone With The Wind with another big-scale romance. Unfortunately, Duel In The Sun fails on all counts.

Despite a hideous makeup job that miserably fails to conceal her whiteness, Jones does look ravishing, and her wardrobe helps her convey an unconstrained sexuality. But Jones' overacting has to be seen to be believed, and in many scenes she descends into theatricality only suitable for the silent era or the amateur stage.

But much worse is a jackhammer script that invests 145 minutes on a romantic triangle featuring love, hate, sex, rape, racism, devotion and repulsion, often crammed into the same scene. An adaptation of a Niven Busch novel, the film does deserve recognition for daring to tackle some thorny issues head-on, including sexual power struggles and discrimination due to race. But the film fundamentally fails to provide any enriching societal or historical context around the romantic complications. The subplot related to the railway expansion appears in brief throwaway scenes and is soon forgotten. Instead the entirety of the movie drowns in the melodramatic emotions of Pearl as she wildly fluctuates between the breathless pursuit and evasion of Jesse and Lewt with no rhyme or reason.

While Lionel Barrymore and Lillian Gish show the younger cast members how its done, the stars surrounding Jones flounder just as badly as she does. Gregory Peck struggles mightily as the bad guy, the script calling on him to transform into an overtly evil man but depriving him of any depth. Joseph Cotten is so bland as Jesse that when he leaves the ranch after his dispute with the Senator, no one seems to notice.

If nothing else Duel In The Sun looks gorgeous, with plenty of sunsets, silhouettes, deep reds, blazing yellows and grand vistas to convey the harsh but wide open Texas terrain. But after a train wreck that seems to belong in another movie but here serves as an apt metaphor for the entire project, the film ends with what is probably one of Hollywood's best bad climaxes: a crawl-in-the-dust fiasco intended as dramatic but that is nothing short of hilarious in the worst possible way. For all the wrong reasons, it really is difficult to look away from the debacle that is Duel In The Sun.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: Grand Hotel (1932)

A multi-star ensemble drama set entirely at a Berlin hotel, Grand Hotel is a lavish production that takes its time to develop some momentum, but eventually ties some threads together into coherent mini stories.

The lives of several people intersect at the luxurious Grand Hotel. Grusinskaya (Greta Garbo) is a Russian ballerina facing a motivation crisis. Baron Felix von Gaigern (John Barrymore) is a suave thief with significant money problems, pretending to be a distinguished gentleman. General Director Preysing (Wallace Beery) is an industrial magnate trying to conclude a key business deal, but he is distracted by stenographer Flaemmchen (Joan Crawford). Otto Kringelein (Lionel Barrymore) is a lowly accountant in Preysing's empire, and has a terminal disease.

Grusinskaya and the Baron meet and fall in love as he is trying to steal her pearls, and she finds her emotional salvation in his affection. Preysing runs into a tough negotiating team and has to bluff his way to a deal. Flaemmchen has to decide whether or not to compromise herself for a shot at glory as Preysing's mistress. And the Baron is the only person displaying genuine affection towards Kringelein. Before they all leave the hotel, their lives will collide with unintended consequences.

Directed by Edmund Goulding for MGM, Grand Hotel is the earliest example of a star-studded cast and multiple interwoven story lines connected primarily by a single location. And the cast of stars is in fine form, although they do all lean towards self-conscious theatricality. With Grusinskaya at her lowest ebb, Garbo gets to say "I want to be alone" and variations thereof three different times in a span of a few minutes, sentiments that would forever jump off the screen and be associated with the actress' general attitude towards life.

Both Barrymores are eminently watchable as they deliver committed performances. Wallace Beery defines "bombastic", and Joan Crawford takes a large step towards stardom as the third-billed star, and gives the film's most affecting performance as the pragmatic Flaemmchen.

The film is staged exclusively inside the hotel, and the sets are made to look appropriately luxurious. But with a running length of 112 minutes, Goulding does begin to run out of ideas on how to make the various hotel rooms and expansive lobby interesting.

The initial lack of focus on any single person or narrative hampers the opening 45 minutes of the film, as the characters take too long to introduce themselves and the events that landed them at the hotel. The early scenes are all longer than they need to be, and it's only once Grusinskaya and the Baron meet and discover a new spark in their depressed lives that Grand Hotel starts to hum.

As usual conflict helps to fan the flames of drama, and the friction between the haughty Preysing and the humble Kringelein finally emerges to provide Grand Hotel with its central theme of rich and poor, healthy and sick, the cold and the caring, the corporate and the individual intersecting at the same venue. By the time the Baron has made his last attempt to secure the funds that he needs, and Flaemmchen has confronted her ticket out of anonymity, all the stories collide in Preysing's suite. At the Grand Hotel the rich and powerful may try to control the agenda, but all the guests have to pays their bills.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.