Duel in the Sun

Today I watched Duel in the Sun, 1946 with Gregory Peck, Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, Lillian Gish, Lionel Barrymore. It was my Netflix video pick. I would give this movie four stars. I had seen it once before and remembered that I had been impressed with it. I think Native Americans today would say it's racist. Jennifer Jones was a lusty half-breed, and the white women were virtuous women. Vashti, Butterfly McQueen, the black servant wanted to be married but didn't realize how complicated the white people were. The white women were virtuous, but Jennifer Jones could have married the nice Joseph Cotten if she had not been attracted against her will and better judgment to the handsome but devilish Gregory Peck. I was feeling down because black films seem to deal with the seamy side of life: incest, child molestation, drugs, rape. This is a movie about white people behaving badly, but they did make the dark Native American girl not be able to help herself being bad. This movie made me want to work on my screenplays and submit them to Sundance May 1. Let's see if I have the energy to work on that this April. Supposedly, I'm supposed to be enrolling in PhD school May 1 to study to save Haiti.