Duel sur le Mississipi

In bustling era of 19th-century Louisiana, sugar is as valuable as gold, and pirates like Lili Scarlet (Patricia Medina) will do anything to get it. After robbing Jules Tulane's (John Dehner) estate of his crop, Scarlet takes over Tulane's land debt and forces him to pay or go to prison. In exchange for postponing his debt, Scarlet allows Tulane's son, André (Lex Barker), to work as her servant. When André and Scarlet fall in love, it leads to jealous rage from Scarlet's former paramour, expert swordsman Hugo (Warren Stevens) - and when Hugo looks to raid the Tulane estate again, it is up to André and Scarlet to take him down and save the estate.

River pirates, planters, saloon brawl featuring ladies fighting, gamblers and a sword duel - you get all this in this entertaining little film that is set in an era not normally covered. Lex Barker plays the stalwart hero who becomes Patricia Medina's slave - what a tough proposition- in exchange for suspension of his father's debt and Patricia Medina plays Lili Scarlet, and she's the best thing here- she totally leads in her role. It's a pleasing film with an interesting subject and a strong flavour. There's a vigorous machete fight at the finale.

Duel on the Mississippi (1955)

** (out of 4)

Plantation owner Andre Tulane (Lex Barker) finds himself in debt to the gambler Lili Scarlet (Patricia Medina) and the two are at each other's throats until one day when Tulane comes to the rescue and soon they are teaming up against some pirates.

William Castle's DUEL ON THE MISSISSIPPI is another film from the cult director that is mildly entertaining but at the same time it's pretty mediocre as far as its technical qualities. I say that because watching the film you couldn't help but give Castle a little credit since the film was well-made for the most part but there just wasn't enough here to bring the film alive and a lot of blame can go towards the screenplay.

The biggest issue I had with the screenplay is that there was a lot of plot and subplot but very little brains. In fact, the film was so watered down with various characters being introduced that it was very easy to lose track of what was going on. I never really cared about the battle between the two leads and there really wasn't anything happening in the story that kept my attention.

The cast, for the most part is good and Barker gets to show what he could do outside of Tarzan and the jungle. I thought he was pretty good for what the role required. The supporting players were good and that includes Medina. When all is said and done, DUEL ON THE MISSISSIPPI will appeal to fans of Castle but there's not enough here for most people.

It's Louisiana at the start of the 19th century and sugar is becoming an hugely valuable commodity. The traditional (largely French) plantation owners are trying to capitalise on this crop but so are the inventive pirates who wait til it's all harvested and bagged up, then they pinch it! The leader of these ruthless thieves is "Lili" (Patricia Medina) who, along with her dad "Jacques" (Ian Keith) and sidekick "Hugo" (Warren Stevens) has set her sights on the "Tulane" family. She owns the debt on their land and is determined to force them into ruin. Luckily, that family has an hunky son in "André" (Lex Barker) to whom she takes a shine. She agrees to swap the debt for his indentured servitude and so our adventure of crosses and double crosses begins in earnest. OK, so Barker is easy on the eye but not much of an actor and Medina spends much of the time here wishing she was Maureen O'Hara, but it's got a solid story of greed and revenge before the fairly obvious denouement delivers predictably. It's fairly swiftly paced, there's plenty of action - how often do you see a duel with machetes - and I actually quite enjoyed the hamminess of it all.

I've never been a great fan of Lex Barker Westerns, but DOTM pleasantly surprised me, though I overlook the curiosity of Patricia Medina leading a gang of robbers and the unlikelihood of her relationship with Barker; and there were no surprises about the ending.

But the cinematography was excellent and colourful, and there were a couple of good duels. Barker performed better than in those of his other Westerns that I've seen. It was good to see the dependable John Dehner, aged 40 at the time of the film's release, playing a much older patriarch.

This old movie is so stereotyped predictable, and one scene in this movie is so inevitable to be seen:

She slapped his face angrily>then turned around>then the man she slapped suddenly grabbed her shoulder and turned her around>then forcefully kissed her>then she immediately gave in and kissed him back wholeheartedly.

>At the same time, the romantic music played on to synchronize the scene.

This format had been and has been used thousand times in almost every movies churned out from the Hollywood studios. And this film is no exception.

The other format used thousand times but not related to this particular movie is the scene when a man or a woman picked up the opposite gender and invited her or him to either one's home/apartment/room. They could hardly wait to close the door, and fiercely embraced each other, kissed, groped, or either the man or the woman wildly push the other one to the wall, did the same crazily wild hugging and kissing, the woman might jump onto the man, crossed her legs on the man's waist and kissed him blindly. The next format scene was they either took off their clothes or took off the other one's clothes, and meantime, still kissed non-stop. Then the man will hold the woman in his arms and awkwardly went toward the bedroom, or just pushed the woman onto the floor and started making love to her, while the agitated score played on.....

So what else is new?