| | This is my kind of movie; sexy, brilliant and so weird you can't figure how it got made. David O. Selznick may have peaked too soon, never gave up on trying to top his triumph with Gone With The Wind. His best effort was this 1946 sprawling cult-classic epic Technicolor sex western that was derisively referred to during production as "lust in the dust." Under-rated auteur King Vidor directs this tale of a beautiful "half-breed", and the passions she arouses in frontier brothers. When her father is hanged for shooting his wife and her lover, half-breed Pearl Chevez (Jennifer Jones in weird, almost "black-face" make-up) goes to live with distant relatives in Texas. Welcomed by Laura Belle (Lillian Gish) and her elder lawyer son Jesse (Joseph Cotton), she meets with hostility from the ranch-owner himself, wheelchair-bound Senator (Lionel Barrymore), and with lustful interest from womanizing unruly younger brother Lewt (Gregory Peck). Almost at once, already existing family tensions are exacerbated by her presence and the way she is physically drawn to Lewt. Walter Huston as a preacher named "The Sin-killer" rounds out the giant cast. Run Time: 128 minutes |
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