The Duel at Silver Creek

The Duel at Silver Creek is a 1952 American Western film directed by Don Siegel; his first film in the Western genre. It starred Stephen McNally, Audie Murphy and Faith Domergue.[2] It was the first time Murphy had appeared in a film where he played a character who was good throughout the movie.[3] The working titles of the film were Claim Jumpers and Hair Trigger Kid.[4]

The Duel at Silver Creek
Theatrical release poster
Directed byDon Siegel
Screenplay byGerald Drayson Adams
Joseph Hoffman
Story byGerald Drayson Adams
Produced byLeonard Goldstein
StarringStephen McNally
Audie Murphy
Faith Domergue
CinematographyIrving Glassberg
Edited byRussell F. Schoengarth
Music byHerman Stein (uncredited)
Joseph Gershenson (musical direction)
Color processTechnicolor
Production
company
Universal Pictures
Distributed byUniversal Pictures
Release dates
  • August 1, 1952 (1952-08-01) (New York City)
  • August 2, 1952 (1952-08-02) (Los Angeles)
  • September 5, 1952 (1952-09-05) (United States)
Running time
77 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Box office$1.25 million (US rentals)[1]

Plot

Luke Cromwell, aka the "Silver Kid" (Audie Murphy), loses his father to mining claim jumpers. He is deputised by Marshal Lightning Tyrone (Stephen McNally) of Silver City, who wants to defeat the claim jumpers. The two men fall for different women, Tyrone for the treacherous Opal Lacey (Faith Domergue), who is secretly in league with the claim jumpers, and Cromwell with tomboy Dusty Fargo (Susan Cabot) who pursues Lightning.[5]

Cast

Reception

“The damaged, vulnerable hero and the anti-hero are facets in the same persona and cannot be separated, even when the harm is physical as in The Duel at Silver Creek. The issue of vulnerability, of the complementary nature of good and evil, is central to the comprehension of Seigel’s films.—Biographer Judith M. Kass in Don Seigel: The Hollywood Professionals, Volume 4 (1975)[6]

Quentin Tarantino called The Duel at Silver Creek "a very well conceived and executed picture, as well as being obviously a Siegel picture."[7]

Film critic Judith M. Kass remarks that Audie Murphy is “ludicrously attired in black leather, like a Western The Wild One (1953).”[8]

Theme

The Duel at Silver Creek dramatizes the perils of personal isolation and infirmity, conditions likely to prove fatal to the forces of evil. Film critic Judith M. Kass writes:

In this movie, solitude is equated with vulnerability in a straightforward manner. When Murphy, on an errand, leaves his father alone, the old man is shot by bandits. Domergue strangles a wounded oldster when entrusted with nursing him. Alone with McNally, Domergue vamps him into forgetting his job…In a sense, McNally’s gun had abandons him by becoming lame after an injury, leaving him more open to assault.[9]

Footnotes
  1. 'Top Box-Office Hits of 1952', Variety, January 7, 1953
  2. The Duel at Silver Creek at Audie Murphy Memorial Site
  3. Don Graham, No Name on the Bullet: The Biography of Audie Murphy, Penguin, 1989 p 228
  4. p. 63 Larkins, Bob & Magers, Boyd The Films of Audie Murphy McFarland, 19 Aug 2009
  5. Kass, 1975 p. 111: Plot summary
  6. Kass, 1975 p. 75
  7. Tarantino, Quentin (December 24, 2019). "The Shootist". New Beverly Cinema. Archived from the original on January 24, 2020. Retrieved March 23, 2020.
  8. Kass, 1975 p. 77
  9. Kass, 1975 p. 77, p. 111

Sources
  • Kass, Judith M. (1975). Don Seigel: The Hollywood Professionals, Volume 4 (1975 ed.). New York: Tanvity Press. p. 207. ISBN 0-498-01665-X.
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