Sun 20 Jan 2019
A Movie Review by Jonathan Lewis: FOXFIRE (1955).
Posted by Steve under Films: Drama/Romance , Reviews[5] Comments
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.
January 20th, 2019 at 2:40 pm
I disagree that it plays like camp in 2019. It always played like camp. I saw some of it in 1955, but found Foxfire difficult to sit through, so I did not, and to this day, I am not sure I have ever enjoyed a film directed by Pevney.
January 20th, 2019 at 5:09 pm
Be that as it may, and I agree with you 100%, Barry, I can easily see why Jeff Chandler gave up playing Mr. Boynton on the OUR MISS BROOKS radio program to be able to play the lead in movies like this opposite Jane Russell.
January 20th, 2019 at 7:56 pm
I’d never heard of this.
Thank you for an enjoyable review!
I’ve only seen a few of Pevney’s theatrical films.
But I really like his Star Trek work. These include 14 of the series’ best episodes.
January 21st, 2019 at 8:00 pm
One of those half soap opera half adventure films with a social conscience that makes it actually pretty typical of the era both in films and books.
It’s also the basic woman’s novel/woman’s pic setup of the dark brooding wounded hero (here it’s racial prejudice)vs the beautiful headstrong heiress who will melt his stony heart and find she is a “real woman” with the love of a “real man.”
And, yeah, it was kind of campy even then.
That said, it delivers what it promises.
March 28th, 2019 at 11:01 am
Why has no one mentioned that Chandler’s Indian mother speaks with a heavy German accent? How campy is that!