I suppose a boy never forgets his first time, no matter what the experience is, some things are just embedded in your memory. Now this blog isn't about my sexual exploits, if it was I wouldn't have as many entries as I do right now, but I've spoken a lot about what movies can do, yet I've failed to mention what it does quite often, and what it did so well back in the golden age of cinema, not so much now; and that thing is sex.
It's easy to depict sex now in movies, but you know what I don't get in the movies today, there's no mystery, there's no seduction, it's just gotten so easy, we miss the chase of it all.
I'm not being prudish saying that the old movies did sex better than anyone else, it's just the plain truth of it, it was just better. There's more to sex than just naked bodies, I don't think that's what gets men so hot and bothered. I think men like the allure, the female body, the desire most of all, I mean to be honest, the real sex can be down right disappointing.
As a boy I think the movies were a way into this forbidden world, my parents were weary as to what I was watching all the time. They didn't like it when I would watch violent movies or explicitly sexual ones either (although to be honest I got my fair share of both). When it came to classic movies, I don't think my parents were worried, to them classic movies meant wholesomeness, non-violent, non-sexual fantasy worlds, but of course what would the fun be if that was the case?
My parents didn't know how much I was really exposed to, you just had to name any type of Billy Wilder comedy like "Some Like it Hot", or "One, Two, Three", where he uses sex as humour. I would watch Marilyn Monroe movies, and she was the dream girl for everyone, but I suppose because she never took off her clothes it never bothered anyone.
But the one I remember, my first time if you will that is burned in my memory has to come from Jennifer Jones in "Duel in the Sun". I must've been 12 or 13 at the time, I had a hankering for westerns, but nothing really prepared me for this erotic, raunchy epic western.
"Duel in the Sun" is one of the most bizarre movies ever made in old Hollywood, I learned years later by Martin Scorsese that it was actually banned by the catholic church, which was the reason his mom took him to see it at such a young age as well. The film is auspicious to say the least, it's not subtle, it's quite glamorous, and grand, it starts with prelude music, that after has overture music. It was directed by legendary King Vidor who was one of the giants of silent cinema particularly with his revolutionary film "The Crowd", it was written and produced by David O Selznick who was trying to top himself after "Gone with the Wind". It's legendary cast consists of Gregory Peck, Joseph Cotton, Lionel Barrymore, Walter Huston, Harry Carey, and Lilian Gish to name a few.
But at the forefront of this film, which was dubbed "Lust in the Dust" in its initial run is Jennifer Jones. Jones stands like a mirage through the dessert heat, her whole performance is brimming with sexuality, the way she moves her body and tilts her head, you can feel the sweat on her face whenever she's on screen. For a small 12 year old boy, she was a wet dream in full technicolor.
I don't remember much of "Duel in the Sun" other than Jones, whether it was the scene where Gregory Peck bursts in uninvited and kisses her passionately for the first time, or the one where he catches her skinny dipping in a pond, or the one where she's bent over scrubbing the floor, and he sees her and she can no longer with hold her passion for him.
Throughout the film Jones is bathed in beautiful technicolor, Vidor and Selznick seemed to want the same thing when you looked at her. But she was also tough and strong, she made everything she did sexy, even in the bizarre finale where she after being fatally wounded, she crawls to her dying lover.
"Duel in the Sun" plays like a dime store novel of the period, it's all about sex and violence, and does a bad job hiding the fact. All through the film Jones plays a girl who is trying to be good, but just can't help but give into temptation, even at the end, she chooses Peck's ruthless killer over the nicer, and sturdy Joseph Cotton.
The film isn't deep, but it's so enjoyable to watch today, it's over the top melodrama, brimming with sexual heat. I'll always remember it for awakening a certain feeling inside of me I didn't know existed in movies until that time, I became just a little bit more grown up. Every now and then I still think of Jennifer Jones bent over scrubbing those floors and sweat dripping from her face, as for myself I may perspire a bit at the thought as well.
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