TSPDT placing: #540
Directed by: King Vidor, Otto Brower, William Dieterle, Sidney Franklin, William Cameron Menzies, David O. Selznick, Josef von Sternberg (all but Vidor uncredited)
Written by: Niven Busch (novel), Oliver H.P. Garrett (adaptation), David O. Selznick (screenplay), Ben Hecht (uncredited)
Starring: Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, Gregory Peck, Lionel Barrymore, Herbert Marshall, Lillian Gish, Walter Huston, Charles Bickford, Harry Carey, Orson Welles (voice)
WARNING: Plot and/or ending details may follow!!! [Paragraph 3 only]
With Duel in the Sun (1946), David O. Selznick was obviously trying to emulate the massive success of his Gone With the Wind (1939), and, though the picture is now widely regarded as a failure, I found it remarkably entertaining. This overcooked multi-million-dollar Western epic is dripping with its excesses – the music is loud and sweeping, the melodrama is almost operatic, and the dazzling Technicolor palette is a feast for the eyes. When Selznick gives us a sunset, he damn well gives us a SUNSET! Such an achievement, guided by the producer's fastidious tastes, demanded the efforts of no less than seven directors, including Selznick himself, though only King Vidor received on screen credit; William Dieterle, Josef von Sternberg and William Cameron Menzies were among the filmmakers whose efforts were disposed of during the course of production. 'Duel in the Sun' might also be the most "epic" two-hour film I've ever seen. The story covers an extraordinary amount of ground, and the vivid cinematic style, making copious use of close-ups, is occasionally prescient of Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Westerns.
Then there's the cast, of course. Jennifer Jones plays Pearl Chavez, a half-breed Injun who is invited to live on a respected Texas ranch after her father (Herbert Marshall) murders his unfaithful wife and her lover. Pearl's ethnicity is shamelessly exploited to perpetuate the stereotype that Native Americans inherently possess some sort of uncontrollable base sexuality; Pearl spends most of the film fighting to keep her clothes on, and she is instinctively drawn to Lewt (Gregory Peck), a downright bastard with almost adolescent sexual urges. Joseph Cotten plays the selfless McCanles brother, and Lillian Gish and Lionel Barrymore (probably the only Hollywood actor to carry on a prolific career from a wheelchair) are excellent as the owners of the ranch. The cast is rounded off nicely by Charles Bickford as a genial rancher, and Walter Huston, who hilariously overplays his role as a preacher ("The Sinkiller") and steals every scene. Indeed, most of the performers overplay their roles, perhaps recognising that the story (adapted from a novel by Niven Busch) would not work if played entirely straight.
What I found most interesting about Duel in the Sun is how, even as early as 1946, it subverted the traditional notions of honour and nobility that formed the backbone of the Western genre. Joseph Cotten's character remains the film's only decent male, and yet he is dismissed mid-way through the film, and must settle on marrying a woman who is far less sensuous and desirable than Pearl Chavez. The film's climax involves two lascivious lovers scrambling through the dirt to each other's arms, only seconds after mortally wounding each other with bullets (inspiring the film's derisive nickname "Lust in the Dust"). Their attraction is purely physical – Pearl is disgusted by Lewt's moral decadence, and yet is inexplicably drawn to his embrace, even after sealing his demise. If the film's intention was to present Pearl's struggle for acceptance into "honourable" white society, then she nevertheless ends the film as she started, stranded between conflicting instincts and emotions that she can't control. Her bid for nobility has failed. Perhaps this is the birth of the Revisionist Western.
8/10
Currently my #3 film of 1946:
1) It’s A Wonderful Life (Frank Capra)
2) The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks)
3) Duel in the Sun (King Vidor)
4) Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock)
5) The Locket (John Brahm)
6) The Dark Mirror (Robert Siodmak)
7) The Blue Dahlia (George Marshall)
8) Dragonwyck (Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
9) A Night in Casablanca (Archie Mayo)
Also recommended from director Orson Welles:
Into the rubble-strewn ruins of Vienna comes an American pulp-novelist, Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten), who arrives, without a dime in his pocket, in search of an old friend named Harry Lime. However, upon his arrival, Martins is horrified to to learn of Lime's tragic death in a traffic accident. Unsatsified with the explanations he receives from the authorities and witnesses, he teams up with Lime's ex-girlfriend Anna Schmidt (Aldi Valli) to solve the mystery of his best friend's death. Was it an accident? Was it murder? Who was the "third man" who was seen carrying Lime to the roadside? Of course, as you and I both know, Martins' childhood friend, having faked his own death, is very much alive, and intent on keeping his continued existence quiet. The extraordinary moment, when Harry Lime's face is abruptly illuminated in a doorway, as a cat affectionately nuzzles his shoes, hardly comes as a surprise after fifty years, but the magic is very much still there.
Orson Welles' amused boyish smirk, wryly taunting Martins across the roadway, signals the entrance of one of cinema's most charismatic supporting characters. Despite being absent for the first half of the film, Lime's presence is felt throughout, his darkened shadow continually towering over Martins as he seeks to ascertain the actual cause of his friend's death. Lime is a perfect example of cinema's anti-hero, a vibrant, likable and identifiable personality who commits atrocities that should immediately warrant our detestation. Graham Greene's brisk and intelligent screenplay gives Lime all the best lines, particularly on the Ferris Wheel ride when he muses on the value of those inconsequential "little dots" walking below, though Welles himself takes credit for penning the celebrated "cuckoo clock" monologue; a rapidly-delivered acknowledgment of the creativity born from "warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed." Though Welles justifiably receives a lot of the praise, every other cast member delivers a wonderful performance, particularly Cotten as the bemused and morally-conflicted foreigner, Valli as Lime's steadfast lifelong disciple, and Trevor Howard as the Major who very much wishes that Lime had remained underground.
Director Carol Reed famously clashed with producer David O. Selznick over various facets of the film's production, with Selznick insisting on pivotal casting decisions, and allegedly suggesting that the film be titled "Night Time in Vienna." However, in the case of the suitably downbeat ending, both producer and director saw eye-to-eye, and Greene's original optimistic conclusion (in which Holly and Anna reconcile) was shelved in favour of the wonderful static long-shot, in which Martins is completely ignored by the women whose trust he is perceived to have broken. The Third Man, perhaps as a result of these contradictory artistic influences, has acquired, like no other film I've seen, a distinct personality of its own. Karas' zither soundtrack, as though consciously flouting traditional noir conventions, adds an element of whimsy to the proceedings, and somehow complements perfectly the larger-than-life distortion of Krasker's photography, in which ordinary human shadows tower three storeys in height, and even the most commonplace of interactions takes on the warped dimensions of a drug-induced dream. In Vienna, the truth can be as elusive as a ghost.
The first forty minutes of The Lady from Shanghai left me relatively indifferent, in the sense that I had no idea where the story was heading, and couldn't understand the significance of the film's events to date. My reaction, apparently, differs little from that of Columbia Pictures President Harry Cohn, who couldn't decipher Welles' labyrinthian tale, and demanded that somebody explain it to him. The story itself was lifted from Sherwood King's novel, "If I Die Before I Wake," which was chosen practically at random. Welles had offered to adapt the book when Cohn gave him an urgently-needed $55,000 to finance costuming for his musical stage-show, "Around the World in Eighty Days." Filming for the film took place, in addition to the Columbia Pictures studios, in San Francisco and Acapulco, Mexico, aboard a yacht belonging to none other than Errol Flynn. Welles' original cut for the film ran 155 minutes, but, as occurred with tragic regularity through his career, the studio raised their scissors to his picture, slicing off at least an hour of footage.
It is perhaps because of this studio interference that The Lady from Shanghai cuts rather choppily from a thriller to a courtroom drama. The trial episode is played largely for satire, with Welles emphasising the blatant disorder of the courtroom, abound with constant interruptions from noisy audience members and sneezing jurors {one cut juxtaposes the judge playing chess with an aerial shot of the courtroom, suggesting that it's all just a perverted game}. Welles' inventive use of the camera is always a treat to observe; in one sequence, as Michael (Welles) speaks with George (Glenn Anders) atop an ocean lookout, the downwards-angled camera dangles the two characters over a fatal precipice. The film's climax is absolutely unforgettable, a gripping and innovative shoot-out in a carnival house of mirrors. As each character blasts away at illusory images of their enemies, the bullets shatter their own reflected profiles, fulfilling Michael's foreshadowing anecdote that compares Elsa (Hayworth) and Arthur (Everett Sloane) to sharks gnawing feverishly at their own flesh.
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