Duel on the Mississippi (1955)

65% User Rating

1h 12min

"The Roaring Story of the Notorious Lili Scarlet -- Gambling Queen of the Mississippi!"

In bustling era of 19th-century Louisiana, sugar is as valuable as gold, and pirates like Lili Scarlet will do anything to get it. After robbing Jules Tulane’s 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, 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 — 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.

William CastleDirector

Reviews (1)

All Reviews

CinemaSerf

Rating 60%

November 14, 2023

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.