This has always been one of my favorites westerns, although I never went to the trouble of getting a DVD version, until it came up on my Amazon recommendation list. I ordered it right away, and received the usual good Amazon service, and quick, free shipping, and have not been disappointed. Gregory Peck is one of best actors, and makes the movie, playing the bad guy this time, instead of his usual hero role. I can personally recommend this movie, going against a number of the negative reviews that are posted here.

My quick opinion: 3 stars because I'm sentimental about the great stars in it. The fatal flaw, picked up on decades ago--and correctly--is that the emotions are overwrought, the characters underdeveloped, and the attempts to create genuine emotional tension, and involvement on the part of the viewer, too calculated and artificial to be "real". Rightfully assessed as a failed attempt to reproduce the oomph of "Gone With The Wind". It's basically a turgid, forced melodrama, despite the best scene-chewing efforts of the admittedly sexy Jennifer Jones and a very against-type Gregory Peck. A legendary film, but not a great one. "Lust In The Dust" indeed.

"Duel in the sun" is the "Gone with the wind" of the Western genre. The movie begins with a warning, a cactus flower that epitomizes and warns us about the tragic love of Perla Chavez , a free and gentle flower who grew wild, a half bred girl who was born signed by the disgrace. She is witness of her mother' s death by the hands of her own father, who sends her to his second cousin Laura Belle, happily married with a wealthy Senator and mother of two sons; Jesse, the good guy and prominent lawyer (Joseph Cotten) and Lewton , the bad seed of the family (Gregory Peck). Both of them will be engaged by this sensual woman at the same moment she arrives to the "Little Spain" ranch.

The plot suggests us much more that it shows, the febrile passion she feels for one is compensated by the candid love she feels for the other one, but she knows about her origin and nothing in this world will be capable to redeem her.

King Vidor was the director of this mature sex western that still stands out as one the most superb westerns ever made. As a matter of fact it has everything you demands about a western, legal clashes between the arrival of the railroad in these lands, a sublime photography, unforgettable scenes supported by the depth of field that remits us to John Ford's style but with a particular taste, fabulous performances of all the cast, not only the presence of Lyonel Barrymore justifies plainly your inversion, but the smart idea to hire the veteran Walter Huston in the role of preacher after his unforgettable role in "The devil and Daniel Webster" was emblematic and even mordacious

To my view, one of the twenty westerns in all time.

King Vidor was a long-serving and much-respected Hollywood grandmaster who took a serious interest in movie-making... "Billy the Kid" and "Duel in the Sun" hold an important place in the history of the genre... These two films in particular, along with "Northwest Passage," show Vidor's romantic vision of backwoods America and his love of natural landscape; they share, too, an earthy quality which is missing from his more routine action Westerns, "The Texas Rangers" and "Man Without a Star."

Photographed in rich color, the visual magnificence of the film was manifested in the shots of the cowboys galloping across the rolling hills; in the spectacular confrontation between the McCanles forces who aimed to defend Spanish Bit with lead and the U.S. Cavalry; in the deep red sunset sequence with Lionel Barymore as "the lonely Senator"; and in that long shot of the surreptitious meeting between Lewt and his father on the hilltop at sunset...

"Duel in the Sun" is extravagantly and grandiosely passionate and romantic and its characters are much larger than life... A poignant scene was the tremendous moment between two legendary actors (Lionel Barrymore & Lillian Gish) when Laura Belle said to her husband "I'm a nuisance to you even to the end. It's the first time you've been in this room since that night./I loved you, Laura Belle. Yes, sir, I loved you."

Now, when a single movie offers murder, rape, attempted fratricide, train wreck, fiery sensual dance, drunkenness, religion, range wars, prostitution, sacred and profane love and sex as the principal motivation and not as an incidental subplot, and all that against an epic background of empire-building, well, it is for the first time in a Western in such a big scale...

The film featured the story of Pearl Chavez whose past is dark as her coca-stained skin and who loves everybody but loves bad Lewt most often...

Gregory Peck character as Lewt is barbaric, undisciplined, untamed, overwhelming... He is a bad man, all bad, but he is also the lowest, dirtiest, meanest and cool, and he knows how to laugh and have a good time...

Jennifer Jones as Pearl, is the 'prettiest girl ever to set foot on Spanish Bit.' She is a marvelous overwrought minx, wild and sexy...

Joseph Cotton is the calm, educated, refined, pleasant son Jesse who ultimately sides with the railroad against his father...He even threatens to cut the fence wire promising: "I'd rather be on the side of the victims than of the murderers."

Lionel Barrymore is the invalid Senator Jackson McCanles who orders his son, calling him a "Judas," to leave his ranch for as long as he lives...

Lillian Gish is the delicate Laura Belle who blames her husband of spoiling Lewt and she let him do so ever since he was a child making him think that rules weren't made for him...

Herbert Marshall plays Scott Chavez the condemned Southern aristocrat gentleman who sends his daughter to Laura Belle, his second cousin...

Charles Bickford plays Sam Pierce, the boss who gets a little ranch of his own but never run across anybody he wanted to marry... Besides, he never got up nerve enough to ask anybody...

Impassions, pulsating, barbaric, and thunderous, the music matches perfectly the fervid emotionalism of the story...

The film received only two Academy Awards nominations...

The color and music in this film was a great advancement over pre-1946 movies. The color is exceptionally vibrant, and the musical score is fresh and dramatic. The cast comprises several of America's greatest actors and they give solid performances. This film, most of all, has photography beyond anything seen before 1946. It will always be considered an American classic.