Mon 30 Nov 2020
A Movie Review by David Vineyard: DESERT FURY (1947).
Posted by Steve under Films: Drama/Romance , Reviews[4] Comments
DESERT FURY. Paramount Pictures, 1947. Lizbeth Scott, John Hodiak, Burt Lancaster, Wendell Corey (debut), Mary Astor, James Flavin. Screenplay by Robert Rossen, based on the novel Desert Town by Ramona Stewart (Morrow, 1946), previously serialized as “Bitter Harvest” in Collier’s from November 24 to December 8, 1945. Director: Lewis Allen. Available on DVD.
Paula (Lizbeth Scott) is the spoiled daughter (she’s supposed to be nineteen but seems much older) of controlling casino (The Purple Sage) owner Fritzi (Mary Astor) who tries to run her the way she does the little desert town of Chuckawalla, Nevada. She’s just run away from another boarding school tired of being looked down on because of what her Mother does, yet defiant enough to want to be part of the business.
Fritzi (counting money): Are very high.
Complicating things are the arrival of handsome gambler Eddie Bendix (John Hodiak) whose wife died in a mysterious accident years earlier and his dangerous too devoted stooge Johnny (Wendell Corey in his film debut), and washed up rodeo star turned local deputy Tom Hansen (Burt Lancaster) who is attracted to Paula too and still suspicious of the way Bendix wife died.
When Fritzi’s meddling and Tom’s suspicions drives Paula into Eddie’s arms complications ensue.
You couldn’t have much better Film Noir bona fides than this cast, screenwriter Robert Rossen, or director Lewis Allen, and the film is handsomely shot on location and set in color. But despite that, despite the mystery and the broken characters, Desert Fury is more soap opera than Film Noir, Gothic fiction in rancheros and with cactus instead of brooding castles on crumbling cliffs, but Gothic romance for all that.
The film is attractive, and entertaining, but it never quite evolves into the promise of genuine noir. Maybe it’s because Hodiak’s Bendix is so obviously a bad ’un (no Maxim de Winter he, “He’s no good … you think I brought you up for the likes of Eddie Bendix … I’d rather see you dead first.â€) and Lancaster’s Tom so obviously the wounded hero of a thousand Gothic novels from Jane Eyre to Rebecca.
Corey’s Johnny, with his sinister slightly perverse devotion to Eddie and his threat of violence to anyone who might cross Eddie or come between them, is the most noirish element in the film, and Corey, self assured in his debut, cannily underplays it avoiding any temptation to compete with Van Heflin’s Oscar winning debut in the similar role opposite Robert Taylor in Johnny Eager. The undercurrents here are just that, undercurrents.
If a single character was enough to make a film noir, Corey’s Johnny would qualify.
When Eddie chooses Paula over Johnny it brings things to a head and we learn the real secret of Eddie’s wife’s accident and what Eddie has been hiding.
Eddie: Why?
Paula: I’d hate to be left on a desert road at night with my luggage.
Eddie: Keep it in mind.
Gorgeously shot in Technicolor and well written with a lush Miklos Rosza score, Desert Fury is an entertaining Gothic, but it isn’t the Film Noir it wants to be. Its dark secrets are those of romantic fiction and not Noir, its perversions those of soap opera and not existential angst. The big revelation that Eddie and Paula’s mother were once an item is still more soap than noir.
Even the tough guy stuff between Hodiak and Lancaster is half-hearted at best.
As Paula starts to find out who Eddie is and the truth pours out of Johnny when Eddie abandons him the tension rises (“.. he’s never been able to take the rap.â€). It builds to a suspenseful finale, and if taken as the Gothic fiction decked out as Film Noir it is the film does not disappoint, but it really isn’t quite Noir however much it tries to wear the look and feel.
You could almost say the same of Desert Fury. It really isn’t Film Noir. Everything you think is Film Noir isn’t, but accept it for what it is, and it more than does the job.
November 30th, 2020 at 9:50 am
You nailed it, David. Year ago in a review of THE BIG KNIFE, I wrote something to the effect of: Any movie where Wendell Cordey is the scariest presence has its priorities twisted.
November 30th, 2020 at 11:10 am
Summing up for myself, it is what it is, and what it is is a lot of fun to watch. And the cast is terrific!
November 30th, 2020 at 11:25 am
This film does not work for me the way it seems to for others, but when examining the underlying material, it scores big time. By that I mean, Fritzi and Paula are not mother and daughter, but lesbian lovers. That Fritzi, in addition to her club also shepherds a team of prostitutes, and finally, Eddie Bendix and Fritzi have had, at some past point, an affair, with the possibility that Paula is Eddie’s daughter.
Casting. John Hodiak is much too weak and young for Eddie. Wendell Corey does the best he can, but is nowhere near Van Heflin. Can’t even carry his coat or hat. Mary Astor is presented, especially in the early going as incredibly unattractive, and that works for me; she is and was. But — Burt Lancaster rocks. So strong, like a young Gable. Without Lancaster, and the strong desert visuals, no picture.
November 30th, 2020 at 6:21 pm
It’s Lancaster’s film. He brings an energy to every scene he is in that no one else in the film can. It would be a nowhere role for any other actor, but Lancaster’s sheer physicality dominates every scene he is in.
It turns out Hodiak is supposed to be weak. Corey, as the twist at the end brings out, was always the brains and guts and Hodiak nothing but a pretty face, in the end it turns out the dangerous sociopath is Hodiak and not Corey, and always was.