REVIEWED BY JONATHAN LEWIS:


FOXFIRE. Universal International Pictures, 1955. Jane Russell, Jeff Chandler, Dan Duryea, Mara Corday, Barton MacLane. Director: Joseph Pevney.

   Is there ever a movie about a mining town that somehow doesn’t involve a mining disaster? I ask because I’m not sure that there is. Or at least there doesn’t seem to be. It’s almost a rule. If you’re going to have a drama, particularly a melodrama, set in a mining town, you’re going to have to have a final act in which there’s a cave-in, an accident, a death, or a horrible something else transpiring in a mineshaft. (For supernatural tales, there’s always going to be a creature lurking in a mineshaft).

   Foxfire, a slightly lurid, slightly campy melodrama, is about as far away from the horror genre as you can get. But it’s set in a mining town – a dying little spot on the map in Arizona to be exact – and sure enough, it involves a whirlwind romance between two mismatched lovers. Jane Russell portrays Amanda Lawrence, a New York socialite vacationing in Arizona. She immediately falls for the tall and hunky Jonathan Dartland (Jeff Chandler), a local engineer consumed with the idea of rehabilitating an abandoned gold mine out in the hills.

   They are divided not only by class, but also by race. Dartland is half-Apache and believes strongly in many of their customs, particularly pertaining to the role of women. He’s also a little bit mean. But then again Amanda isn’t exactly the nicest person either.

   The movie’s view on race relations and the smugness and insular nature of small town 1950s America reminded me very much of Douglas Sirk’s films from the same era. Foxfire, with a strong supporting cast that includes Dan Duryea, Mara Corday, and Barton MacLane, is indeed both a melodrama and a penchant critique of bourgeois societal expectations regarding romance and marriage.

   But it plays in 2019 more like pure camp than like anything one would take remotely seriously. Still, with a particularly effective use of color, it’s a beautiful movie to look at. As Foxfire was the very last American commercial film filmed in three-strip Technicolor, it’s worth a look for the deep saturation alone.