DUEL IN THE SUN: Blu-ray (Selznick International 1946) Kino Lorber

When David O. Selznick elected to make a picture from Niven Busch’s infamous novel, Duel in the Sun (1946) he had but two primary objects; the first, to create another opus magnum on par with his unimpeachable masterwork, Gone With the Wind (1939), still – thanks to reissues – ringing cash registers around the world; and second, to force through the curiously stagnated career of his lover (and soon to be wife) Jennifer Jones. What ‘Wind’ had done for the South, ‘Duel’ was going to do for the ‘West’ – or rather ‘western’; a much maligned genre. Indeed, prior to Duel in the Sun, even Selznick shown little interest in the western as ‘legitimate’ entertainment; once asked by a reporter, how far it had come, slyly commenting, “From Wyoming to Arizona…and back!” Perhaps Selznick was blind sighted in this former endeavor by his own affaire du coeur with Jones, whom he had helped launch to critical acclaim in her first major role; a loan out to Fox for The Song of Bernadette (1943), before recalling her to his own stable for the then renowned (though today, largely forgotten, Since You Went Away (1944). Lest we remember, Hollywood then needed to at least imply it adhered to the moral stringencies that the rest of the United States subscribed, and Selznick’s divorce from Irene Mayer (Louis B. Mayer’s daughter) to marry Jones, after wrecking her marriage to actor, Robert Walker, had its share of hectoring detractors. Selznick may have thought he could merely whitewash and glad-hand all of this bad blood away. The Song of Bernadette ought to have made Jennifer Jones a great star. Instead, and with the exception of Since You Went Away, she all but languished thereafter. Hence, Selznick approached Duel in the Sun as a star re-making opportunity to elevate Jones’ stature to that of the bona fide grand dames from this golden epoch. The difficulty here was Jones herself, whose wholesomeness in ‘Bernadette’ was rechristened as unadulterated sexpot sinfulness – an awkward attempt on Selznick’s part to transform her into another Hedy Lamarr after Lamarr first turned Duel in the Sun down.

To this end, Selznick assembled the finest cast of the year, headlined by Jones and Gregory Peck, amply supported by Joseph Cotten, Lionel Barrymore, Herbert Marshall, Lillian Gish and Walter Huston; to say nothing of Dimitri Tiomkin’s iconic score, and the formidable cinematographic lushness achieved by three of his stellar contract artisans, toiling in Technicolor: Lee Garmes, Ray Rennahan and Harold Rosson. To direct, Selznick handed the reigns of his unwieldy and mammoth production to Hollywood war horse, King Vidor – who hadn’t made a good picture since 1939’s Stella Dallas. The property had come to Selznick’s attention as early as 1944, when RKO expressed an interest for the loan out of Jennifer Jones to star as Pearl Chavez, the Mestiza blossom of the sagebrush and pampas, pursued by two brothers from the same family. In the novel, the spitfire is repeatedly raped by the younger brother, Lewt McCanles (Gregory Peck) from the age of fourteen until her young adulthood when, after refusing to marry her, she pumps a bullet into him, leaving open another path of desire to pursue his elder and more forthright brother, Jesse (Joseph Cotten), always in love with Pearl from afar. Try as he did at considerable expense to fashion another road show epic in blazing Technicolor, lightning would not strike twice for Selznick on Duel in the Sun. Referenced by its detractors as ‘Lust in the Dust’, big, sprawling, overheated, colorful, but not very good, Selznick could only stand back and observe with incredulity as his staggering wealth of talent fell short of everyone’s expectations, on a particularly problematic and occasionally dull screenplay cobbled together from his own efforts, slightly augmented by playwrights, Oliver Garrett and Ben Hecht.

In retrospect, Duel in the Sun is hardly an artistic disaster, as say Selznick’s forced march entrenchment on his remake of A Farewell to Arms (1957 and a genuine fanny-twitcher), although, conversely, one could never confuse it with a creative triumph either. On this rare occasion, Selznick elected to deviate considerably from his source material (highly unusual for a man who considered himself a literary purist); deleting pivotal sequences from the novel and transforming Pearl and Lewt from their psychologically complex flagrante delictos in the book into mere sexual ciphers, simply indulging in the trigger impulses of their unbridled lust, ultimately to lead both to their ethical mortification in the desert. Duel in the Sun was to be more lurid, earthy and steamy than the novel; Selznick, charged to launch into in the raunch as it were, but hesitant his foray would cause the censors to get their proverbial knickers in a ball as they had done on Howard Hughes, The Outlaw (1943); a relatively shameless fluff piece of sexploitation with the amply endowed Jane Russell’s heavin’ cleavage – loosely fitted in thin cotton to show off every curve – enough for the Hays Office to revoke the movie’s seal of approval. Regardless, the picture made money. Something else to consider: Selznick too had changed and arguably, not for the better. Ten years earlier he had been a happily married, aspiring indie filmmaker, diligently toiling to make the best pictures in the biz under a somewhat diplomatic self-importance, disseminated throughout his entire organization with a hearty balance of frenzy, good humor, idealism and all those ‘damn memos’ attesting to his daily ‘collaborative’ involvement with cast and crew. However, by the time Duel in the Sun went into production, Selznick had morphed into an almost intractable and calculating autocrat; relentlessly myopic where his passions lay and increasingly at odds with everyone – particularly as his ego had already decided for him he was increasingly surrounded by ineptitude and stupidity. 

Selznick spent a then whopping $3 million on Duel in the Sun; a sizable chunk going to the lengthy location shoot fort miles from Tucson, Arizona where Selznick had Production Designer J. McMillan Johnson and Art Director James Basevi construct a sprawling 2-story prefabricated ranch house, complete with two barns and a windmill. Crew repainted cacti so they would properly photograph in Technicolor and trucked in nearly eight hundred head of cattle and horses; the lavishness of it all hemorrhaging $15,000 a day. It might have been worth it, except the weather refused to comply; a light snow blanketing the area, causing Jennifer Jones lips to turn blue and the sets steadily to deteriorate; constantly in need of touch-ups. As King Vidor settled in to create what Selznick had initially promised him would be “an intimate picture” unencumbered by his constant meddling, Vidor was instead quick to learn Selznick had virtually no intent on remaining true to such a promise. Daily, rewrites came down from on high; Selznick fastidiously authoring ‘new’ additions to his screenplay with giddy excitement to see them filmed. “This began to happen more often,” Vidor would later reflect with startling magnanimity for all the struggles he had endured on the set “…and, of course, it cost extra money…and in that sense, David was the only producer I ever worked with who really earned the title of producer because he wanted the best of everything and he worked like hell to get it…he made sure you go what he thought was necessary.”  

Somewhere in the midst of all this chaos, a general strike of all the set designers and decorators ensued, forcing Selznick to keep cast and crew on the payroll at a staggering expense of $360,000 until their issues could be resolved. And then there was the sudden and untimely death of President Franklin Roosevelt to consider. Roosevelt had been such a watershed ‘father figure’ in the social fabric of the nation that to cogitate on an America now without him seemed almost heretical. As a spokesman for the Republican Party, Selznick wrote one of his finest declarations to both mark and set the tone in Hollywood’s commitment to Roosevelt’s ‘dream’. “Here in Hollywood…” Selznick suggested, “…we of the motion picture business are humbly conscious of the power of the medium which is ours (and) will do its share to the end that “my friends” (Roosevelt’s catch phrase in his addresses to the nation) will be not merely a nostalgic phrase, but a national pledge toward all mankind.” The day after Roosevelt’s funeral, Selznick was back at work. So was Vidor, recovering from the flu and in constant flux with Jennifer Jones to get the motivations of her character down pat.

“Pearl was dominated completed by her physical emotions,” Vidor later explained, “…and Jennifer wasn’t like that at all… (But) she’s like putty in your hands.” Vidor had less difficulty getting co-star Gregory Peck ‘in the mood’. Despite the actor’s reputation for being a man of integrity, after one consultation with Vidor, Peck slipped into the insolent and smoldering sexuality of his alter ego. More delays and another strike, and Duel in the Sun’s budget ballooned to $4 million; by far the most expensive production shooting in Hollywood then, and arguably, the costliest of all time until then. In the middle of preparing the picture’s absurdly lavish $1 million dollar marketing campaign, Selznick and his wife split for good. Irene Mayer Selznick had been more than David’s mate. Indeed, he had often referred to her as “…the smartest woman I ever knew” and the multifaceted nature of the parts she played in their marriage, as confidant, confessor, counselor and the singular stabilizing figure in an otherwise totally chaotic lifestyle, were what kept David sane, if hardly humble. But she had had quite enough of her husband’s erratic behavior. Meanwhile, Selznick was incurring wrath of another kind from censor Joe Breen, who, upon viewing the rushes from an erotic dance choreographed by respected Viennese Tilly Losch and performed by Jennifer Jones, where Ms. Jones appeared to be ‘humping a tree’, reasoned the picture would never receive his approval. The ‘obscenity’ was promptly re-choreographed. And then there was the final split with Vidor, who walked off the set, forcing Selznick to regroup, direct part of the picture himself, before hiring William Dieterle, who had emphatically refused any part of it the first time around.

In retrospect, Duel in the Sun attests to an old adage in an industry that considered directors mostly as ‘part of the staff’, interchangeable and frequently to share the rigors of a single production without receiving any credit for their work. In tandem with Vidor’s sizable efforts, ‘Duel’ possessed the expertise of such stalwart filmmakers as Sidney Franklin, William Cameron Menzies and Josef von Sternberg. Selznick, more wounded than baffled by Vidor’s exacerbated refusal to partake any longer and his sudden departure, now sought to have their contractually agreed upon title card “King Vidor’s production of…” removed from the credits; a decision incurring Vidor’s displeasure and a lawsuit where Selznick attested to the Screen Directors Guild Vidor has shot 6,280 ft. of useable footage in comparison to 7,739 ft. photographed by himself and the aforementioned ensemble of talent that had replaced him. For whatever reason, and in their infinite wisdom, the Arbitration Board awarded Vidor sole credit. As the dust had yet to settle on Duel in the Sun, Selznick reasoned he had already spent $4,575,000 more than the negative cost of Gone with the Wind; his extensive rewrites/re-shoots yielding 26 hour and 13 minutes of footage now in desperate need of editor, Hal Kern’s gentle finesse. Even under Kern’s guidance – with Selznick right at his side – the nearly 4 hr. rough cut preview held at Oakland’s Grand Lake Theater elicited some of the worst reviews of any Selznick picture. Desperate to save Duel in the Sun, Selznick began two months of extensive retakes, toting more additional scenes that added another $500,000 to the post-production budget. Whittling down the run time to just 2 hrs. 18 min., Selznick turned his attentions to Dimitri Tiomkin’s scoring sessions. 

In the meantime, RKO’s studio chief, Charles Koerner unexpectedly died; his replacement, Dore Schary whom Selznick released from his ironclad contract with the provision that virtually all of Schary’s already scheduled Vanguard Productions would be made by RKO. The studio agreed, but United Artists (UA) was appalled Selznick had orchestrated such a lock, stock and barrel sell-off of properties in whose considerable profits they would have preferred to partake. Now, UA retaliated, absolutely refusing to distribute Duel in the Sun for Selznick and filing a lawsuit against Selznick for breach of contract. Selznick reacted with a suit of his own against both Mary Pickford and Charles Chaplin (co-founders of UA), asking $13.5 million in damages. Refusing to bend, and with time running out to recoup Duel in the Sun’s epic $5,255,000 outlay, Selznick finally did what he had been threatening to do all along: set up his own distribution apparatus, calling it Selznick Releasing Organization, and slashing the costs of distribution by almost sixty percent.  But a last minute strike at Technicolor threatened Selznick’s plans to simultaneously release Duel in the Sun into several theaters at once. Prostrating himself on the altar of Technicolor founder, Herbert Kalmus, the deadline to produce two prints for a dual release at Hollywood’s Egyptian and Vogue theaters was narrowly achieved on time. Only one thing worried Selznick now: how the Catholic National League of Decency would respond to his efforts. Unlike Hollywood’s governing board of censorship, the league held no ‘official’ authority on the matter. But its influence on parishioners of the Catholic faith in deeming certain pictures ‘morally unsuitable’ was enormous and could ostensibly hamper Duel in the Sun’s market saturation. Indeed, Selznick’s greatest fears were realized when Archbishop John J. Cantwell condemned ‘Duel’ as ‘morally offensive and spiritually depressing’ urging Catholics in good faith to abstain from attending it. More disconcerting to Selznick was the harsh reaction ‘Duel’ was presently receiving in the press; Life magazine leading the charge with “When a single movie offers murder, rape, attempted fratricide, train wrecking, fisticuffs, singing, dancing, drunkenness, religion, range wars, prostitution…sacred and profane love – all in 135 minutes, the fact it has neither taste nor art is not likely to deter the unsqueamish!”

Immediately following Dimitri Tiomkin’s bombastic main title, Duel in the Sun opens on a saloon in an almost forgotten Texas backwater. Like everything else in the picture, the saloon is neither squalid nor small, but a sprawling western-esque gambler’s paradise, complete with live entertainment for the men. It is here that we catch a glimpse of Pearl Chavez’s mother (Tilly Losch), an Indian performing a bawdy dance for the patrons, much to the chagrin of her husband, Scott Chavez (Herbert Marshall) who shortly thereafter murders his beloved and her lover (Sidney Blackmer) out of sad-eyed jealousy and regret. The couple’s daughter, Pearl (Jennifer Jones) is overwrought with guilt. Scott’s one true regret is he did not give his broken-hearted girl a better start in life. As something to make the mends, on the eve of his execution he arranges for Pearl to make a journey far away and live with his prosperous second cousin, Laura Belle (Lillian Gish) who has married the boorish, Senator Jackson McCanles (Lionel Barrymore). Pearl’s journey is dealt with short shrift in a montage of picturesque sunsets; her arrival on the McCanles’ gigantic cattle ranch, Spanish Bit, cause for some consternation.

The Senator is, in fact, a racist, regarding Pearl’s half-blood heritage as something of a curse upon her otherwise potent womanhood. Pearl’s stagecoach is met by the elder son, Jesse McCanles (Joseph Cotten); gentle, polite and thus, considered the slighter in line to inherit Spanish Bit. The younger McCanles is Lewt (Gregory Peck), a drop-dead handsome lady-killer, manipulative, decisive and cruel. Lewt’s overt and immediate attraction to Pearl is outwardly rejected; Pearl, determined not to meet a similar end as her own mother. However, sensing the hypnotic pull Lewt has on her, Laura Belle calls upon Mr. Jubal Crabbe, (Walter Huston), a gun-toting preacher, to sternly counsel the girl on the evils of temptation. Pearl is also introduced to the family’s dimwitted servant, Vashti (Butterfly McQueen); increasingly, a constant reminder of her own ‘impure’ bloodline. Though Pearl may ‘pass for white’ she cannot deny her heritage. Hence, when she finally submits to Lewt's hard-hitting advances one night she views her indiscretion as deriving from the inherent weakness of her own mixed race. Vowing to take an interest in Jesse instead, Pearl’s future with the more sensitive brother is ruined when the Senator orders him off the ranch for siding with the railroad men headed by Mr. Langford (Otto Kruger).

Jesse can see to reason. The railroad must – and will – go through. Moreover, it is a sign of progress for which Sen. McCanles counterintuitively represents stagnation and eventual regression into the past from whence his own fortunes came, but shall now be destroyed. Despite his genuine love for Pearl, Jesse departs for Austin to pursue his political ambitions; later, becoming engaged to Mr. Langford’s daughter, Helen (Joan Tetzel). Pearl willingly falls prey to Lewt; their passion, all fun and games until he eventually reneges on his promise of marriage. To spite Lewt, Pearl takes up with neighboring rancher Sam Pierce (Charles Bickford): an engagement that ends only when Lewt jealously, and without remorse or cause, guns Sam down inside a saloon. Branded an outlaw, surely to be hanged for murder, Lewt rides out of town, vowing Pearl will ‘belong’ to no man but him.  As Lewt was always the Senator’s favorite son, his status as a ‘wanted desperado’ nearly breaks Jackson’s heart. Lewt continues to live obscurely by his devious wits, derailing trains and sneaking back to Spanish Bit under the cover of night to continue his adulterous affair with Pearl, now completely his love slave. She refuses to be parted from him; but after one of their torrid rendezvous, Lewt brutally casts Pearl aside, even dragging her across the floor before kicking her to near unconsciousness.

Aware of the mess and mayhem brought upon their household, Laura Belle’s health takes a turn for the worse; the Senator admitting his love for her before she dies. Jesse returns to Spanish Bit an accomplished statesman – too little/too late to see his mother alive. Despite his stature, the Senator continues to shun ‘the good son’ in favor of the black sheep. Aware Jesse still harbors a yen for Pearl, Lewt confronts his brother as the town looks on, threatening him to get out of town. Jesse is un-phased; Lewt, upping the ante by tossing a loaded pistol in his direction and ordering him to pick it up. Jesse refuses, and instead forewarns Lewt he will hang for murder. In reply, Lewt callously shoots Jesse. At last stirred to compassion, the Senator is comforted by old friend Lem Smoot (Harry Carey) who informs him Jesse's wound is not mortal. A livid Pearl is relieved. Hence, when Helen arrives, Jesse offers Pearl a way out - to leave Spanish Bit forever to live with them in Austin. Pearl agrees. However, as she prepares for their departure she is tipped off by one of the ranch hands, Sid (Scott McKay) Lewt is one the prowl, intending to come after Jesse and finish the job. Refusing Jesse and Helen’s kind offer, Pearl instead arms herself and hides in the nearby craggy dunes to wait for Lewt. She lures her former lover to a high plateau with the promise of rekindling their passion. Instead, she turns her pistols on him and Lewt, mortally wounded but still very much alive, reciprocates the gunfire, mortally wounding Pearl. As the two old flames flicker to extinction, they claw their way through the blood, sweat and dirt, dying in each other’s arms as the noonday sun overtakes them.

It is not overstating the fact to suggest Duel in the Sun shook Hollywood’s ensconced puritanism to its core. Threatened with a ‘C’ rating from the League of Decency, Selznick begrudgingly made several appeals to the Producers Association that fell on deaf ears and was then even more un-generously forced to make thirty separate cuts to the picture after its sneak previews, totaling a very slight loss of three minutes of actual content – most of it virtually unnoticeable. Duel’s initial widespread release caused audiences in New York and other major metropolitan hubs to flock to see what all the fuss was about. For the most part, they were not disappointed. For Duel marked the first time a motion picture of such stature and star-power dared to be so blatantly tawdry; a magnum opus of super-kitsch and the quintessence of Hollywood’s then noteworthy neurotic romanticism; in hindsight, a dizzying ‘last fling’ before the industry, recovering from Selznick’s daring and sweat-laden curiosity with carnality and eroticism seemingly run amuck, settled back into a decade’s worth of ‘good taste’ for the duration of the buttoned-down 1950s.  Alas, Selznick’s reputation, and that of Jennifer Jones, was to suffer greatly thereafter. Despite his formidable marketing campaign, and Duel’s fairly spectacular performance at the box office, its $20,408,163 was offset by Selznick’s crippling final budget of nearly $8 million, not counting his obscene outlay spent profligately to publicize and promote the picture. In the end, Selznick’s reputation as a purveyor of ‘good taste’ was all but left in tatters, save MGM’s re-release of Gone with the Wind in 1947; encouragement for Selznick that a younger audience might come to re-investigate the ole master in his prime.  

Alas, the specter of Selznick’s ambition to transform Jennifer Jones into a big star after Duel in the Sun could not be quelled. Throughout the late 1940s, Selznick struggled to keep his reputation, as well as his financial standing above the high water mark of personal debt, hoping against hope his later projects – including Hitchcock’s The Paradine Case, would turn the corner and rejuvenate his coffers. They did not. During this same period, Selznick was also forced to sell off ‘package deals’; projects he had hoped to make himself, now sold in totem to competing studios; albeit at a premium. Hitchcock’s Notorious (1946), The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947) and Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948) all went to RKO and, to Selznick’s everlasting chagrin, proved rainmakers for that company; as did I’ll Be Seeing You (1945), a wartime weepy initially begun by Selznick International’s offshoot, Vanguard, but later carried over by Dore Schary as part of his RKO deal. Selznick would make last ditch efforts to resurrect Jones’ career in another home-grown production: the doomed fantasy, Portrait of Jennie (1948). Gradually, Jones’ reputation in the industry recovered from this, but her best work would be done for other studios throughout the 1950’s.

Today, the jury remains out on the legitimacy of Duel in the Sun. Some regard it as a truly great Selznick picture, while others cite it as the beginning of the end for Selznick’s indie empire and a sign of his having lost the ability to be a great storyteller. To some extent, this latter assessment is not entirely unfounded. There are moments in Duel that hark back to Selznick’s very transparent desire to transform it into another Gone with the Wind; most notably, in the casting of Butterfly McQueen in a part almost carbon-copying Wind’s simply-minded Prissy. The look of the picture is very Wind-esque also; its’ lurid Technicolor hues taken even more to the extreme; the impeccable matte-work suggesting those iconic imaginary vistas from Selznick’s 1939 masterpiece. And yet, Duel is a picture that stands alone and, once seen, is almost osmotically absorbed, continuing to haunt from the peripheries of the mind. A bad movie can achieve a similar effect, remembered for the audacity of its awfulness. However, Duel in the Sun is not such a movie. Rather, it is Selznick’s last hurrah as a filmmaker of quality beyond compare. If the sum of its parts proved more powerful than the whole, this remains quite another aspect from its production to consider best upon repeat viewings and further analysis.

For now, we turn to Kino Lorber’s Blu-ray release. The original film elements were re-composited more than a decade ago at Disney Inc.’s ABC Video offshoot, and this Blu-ray is characteristic of the limitations achieved in an analog world with no further digital re-visitation and/or clean-up. There are some wonky opticals scattered throughout this 1080p release and a few cringe-worthy problems where the recombine of the cyan, magenta and yellow records is a complete fail. Without a proper restoration – hell, even a half-ass appropriation of necessary dollars assigned to do the bare minimum – nothing more could have been achieved herein. Color saturation on the Blu-ray is far cooler than anticipated. That said, the bulk of Duel in the Sun in 1080p is still very impressive looking…for the most part. The technical shortcomings exhibited herein could only be addressed by a full-on 4K rescan of the original camera negative (it still exists). Cost prohibitive, perhaps. Necessary? Well, it would have been prudent to see Kino or Disney go the extra mile. As the former cannot afford to and Disney of late seems most unwilling to revisit even its own catalog in hi-def, we will begrudgingly accept this is the best Duel in the Sun will ever look in hi-def…for now. The DTS 2.0 mono is more than acceptable; occasionally strident, but otherwise in keeping with the vintage Westrex track. Kino has gone the extra mile with a pair of great extras; chiefly, an informative audio commentary by historian, Gaylen Studlar, plus another 10-minute interview puff piece with Gregory Peck’s children, Cecilia Peck, Carey and Anthony, waxing about the making of Duel in the Sun and Selznick. Bottom line: Duel in the Sun is required viewing for many – and a hell of a big and boisterous picture for the rest. The Blu-ray is imperfect – as far too many Blu-rays of vintage Hollywood product are – but watchable nonetheless. Enjoy. With caveats, I certainly did.

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

3.5

VIDEO/AUDIO

3.5

EXTRAS

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