Duel In The Sun has to rank as one of the worse films I have ever seen, but different from a lot of other dreadful films, this one is so awful it's brilliant!! David O. Selznick clearly tried to do another Gone With The Wind and threw a massive chunk of money at the project, which is why it looks so spectacular. However on the human side, he ended up with was one of the most ridiculous melodramas of all time. Jennifer Jones is half-breed Indian, Pearl, expect she's caked in make up and makes Scarlett O'Hara look calm. After her father is hanged for murder she goes to live on grouchy Senator Barrymore's ranch and falls in love with both his sons: callous cowboy Peck and calm lawyer Cotton. Except she can never bring herself to love Cotton fully, while her relationship with Peck is extremely love-hate that tragedy strikes several times. All this sounds like it could have made a serious and stirring epic, except it that the script and direction are so dreadful that from beginning to end it's soap-opera mush, except most soaps aren't as silly! However everyone to do with it, the actors in particular are going at it hammer and tongs, (clearly under the illusion that they ARE making Gone With The Wind), that it's perversely compelling stuff all the way. Even if you spend most of the time laughing, especially the spectacularly ludicrous finale, perhaps the most memorably awful in cinema history. Thank you Michael Sauter, author of: The Worst Movies Of All Time, who yet again introduced my to yet another pricelessly bad gem!
Review of Duel in the Sun
