Rid­ley Scott’s first fea­ture film The Duel­lists (1977) is based on the Joseph Con­rad short story “The Duel.” Fer­aud (Har­vey Kei­tel) and D’Hubert (Keith Car­ra­dine), two French sol­diers serv­ing under Napoleon, become loyal ene­mies locked in a life­long adver­sar­ial rela­tion­ship. D’Hubert, eager to appease his supe­ri­ors and advance his career, vol­un­teers for a mis­sion in which he obliv­i­ously humil­i­ates Fer­aud. Both men are at fault: D’Hubert for his ambi­tion, and Fer­aud for obses­sively nurs­ing his per­pet­ual griev­ance. Their per­sonal bat­tles super­sede French his­tory, with even the reign and fall of Napoleon a mere back­drop to their per­sonal feud.

Don’t let the frilly sleeves fool you, Fer­aud (Har­vey Kei­tel) will frite your pommes and manger your croissant

The Duel­lists is respected for the his­tor­i­cal authen­tic­ity of its French mil­i­tary uni­forms and depic­tions of period wartime con­duct, but Kei­tel and Carradine’s flat Amer­i­can accents threaten to undo its achieve­ments in verisimil­i­tude. Luck­ily, the impor­tant bits, the duels, are staged silently. Scott, with his back­ground in adver­tis­ing, films every­thing beau­ti­fully, although one does catch glimpses of the occa­sional lamp and smoke machine. The land­scapes dur­ing the final duel are espe­cially breathtaking.

Keith Car­ra­dine is a comin’ ta getcha, Mr. White!

I’ve seen hardly any of Carradine’s movies, but I do have great respect for his bril­liant por­trayal of one of America’s first celebri­ties, Wild Bill Hickok, in the HBO series Dead­wood. And Kei­tel gets to show off his seri­ous mus­cles in a gra­tu­itous arm-wrestling sequence.

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Buy any of these fine prod­ucts from Ama­zon and kick back a few pen­nies to The Dork Report:

 

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