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Post by hitchcockthelegend on May 1, 2019 21:54:18 GMT
Desert Fury (1947) - www.imdb.com/title/tt0039311/reference
Tempting Triangle Trifles
Desert Fury is directed by Lewis Allen and adapted to screenplay by A.I. Bezzerides and Robert Rossen from the novel Desert Town written by Ramona Stewart. It stars Lizabeth Scott, John Hodiak, Mary Astor, Burt Lancaster and Wendell Corey. Music is by Miklós Rózsa and cinematography by Edward Cronjager and Charles Lang.
My my, what do we have here then? Desert Fury is a sort of collage of film noir and melodramatic shenanigans played out in splendid Technicolor saturation and set in amongst spanking vistas. Plot in short form finds Scott as Paula Haller, a late teenager who has quit school and returned to Chuckawalla in Nevada. There her mother, Fritzi (Astor), runs the town casino and has powerful friends. Coinciding with Paula's arrival is that of Eddie Bendix (Hodiak), a one time Chuckawalla racketeer who left town under a cloud when his wife was killed in an accident. Town copper Tom Hanson (Lancaster) has the hots for Paula, so when Paula gets the hots for Bendix he is not best pleased - and neither is the mighty Fritzi nor Bendix's "live in chum" Johnny Ryan (Corey).
Pic is absolutely pungent with psychosexual tension, where lead character's sexual orientation is purposely murky for devilish story strand dangles. Dialogue is often noirishly brisk, ripe with innuendo, all as dark secrets and past revelations boil over into glorious character histrionics. Though the powder keg of frustrated human beings is simple in plot structure here, these characters are rather fascinating, there's quite a bit going on beneath the catty and machismo veneers. Past mistakes and missed opportunities hang heavy, the search for more in life also. The reoccurring theme of the bridge that book ends the story is a structure that is either impossible to cross to freedom, or conversely a route back to the safe haven of Chuckawalla. Road to nowhere?
It's not a great movie exactly, it has evident flaws for sure. Hodiak is a touch unconvincing as a heavy mob like dude, a bit too by the numbers, which is a shame because he was often great in noir styled pics (see Somewhere in the Night for example). Now I don't have a problem with Scott, a poor woman's Lauren Bacall she may well be, but some of the scorn she receives is unfair. She's hard to accept as a late teenager here though, especially with her husky voice and delivery of ripe lines belying her supposed youthfulness. Lancaster was at the start of his film career and is utterly wasted, which when it comes alongside his work at this time in The Killers and Brute Force is even more unforgivable. But to offset the acting missteps there's Mary and Wendell...
Astor is on fire, playing a battle axe domineering mother with obvious sexual kinks and life hang-ups, she is both moving and edgily scary. Yet even she is trumped by Corey, in what is his film debut he brings Johnny Ryan to vivid life. Ryan is a ball of man love fire, with a clinical jealousy simmering away, you just know he has it in him to kill should the need arise. Lewis Allen rightly has a mixed reputation, and his bad trait of sinking into melodrama when not required is evident here, but he brings out frothy turns from his principal players. Two excellent cinematographers on show here, both Cronjager (I Wake Up Screaming) and Lang (The Big Heat) delight in using the Technicolor for snazzy sheen value, while the locales in their hands are a sight for sore eyes. Rózsa has done better compositions in his sleep, but his searing strings fit the tone of plotting superbly.
I loved this, in the way I love Johnny Guitar and Slightly Scarlet. Hardly a genius piece of work or a pic that everyone simply must see, but for those who like noir, Westerns or mellers with bends and kinks, then this you should enjoy. 7.5/10         
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Post by OldAussie on May 1, 2019 22:13:11 GMT
Haven't seen but want to.
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Post by hitchcockthelegend on May 1, 2019 23:37:43 GMT
Haven't seen but want to. Judging by your list on the 47 thread you have a whole shed load from 47 still to see  , get to it, brilliant year. I imagine you seen the Bogart's from that year? Dead Reckoning, Dark Passage and The Two Mrs. Carrolls.
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Post by Doghouse6 on May 1, 2019 23:38:19 GMT
Difficult to add anything to your excellent comments; best I can manage is affirmation thereof. First, the rich, ravishing look of the film: DPs Lang and Cronjager demonstrate that Technicolor was no barrier to evocative and moody noir visuals:     And just as the opulent imagery expands the visual signatures of the style, so do Desert Fury's representations expand its thematic ones, delivering not one but two " hommes fatale," neither of whom are all they seem until climactic revelations, along with granite-visaged butch bitch boss Fritzi, who could eat ten-penny nails for breakfast, deliciously embodied by Mary Astor in one of her illustrations of the mastery of character, miles away from her sympathetic yet straight-laced Anna Smith of Meet Me In St. Louis, acerbic Alberta Marlowe of Across the Pacific, flighty and garrulous Maude Hackensacker of The Palm Beach Story, tenderly sincere Edith Cortright of Dodsworth or, indeed, any other of her screen roles. Frustratingly hard to see these days (my copy is an import disc, La Hija del Picado), Desert Fury has been an unabashedly non-guilty pleasure since I first saw it on U.S. broadcast TV over a half-century ago. |
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Post by OldAussie on May 2, 2019 0:28:39 GMT
Haven't seen but want to. Judging by your list on the 47 thread you have a whole shed load from 47 still to see , get to it, brilliant year. I imagine you seen the Bogart's from that year? Dead Reckoning, Dark Passage and The Two Mrs. Carrolls. Definitely saw Dark Passage. The other 2 seem familiar but can't be sure - caught a lot of old movies on tv in the 60s but memory isn't what it used to be. Just watched Desert Fury and liked it a lot. more melodrama than noir, but I have no problem with that.
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Post by hitchcockthelegend on May 2, 2019 2:20:04 GMT
Difficult to add anything to your excellent comments; best I can manage is affirmation thereof. First, the rich, ravishing look of the film: DPs Lang and Cronjager demonstrate that Technicolor was no barrier to evocative and moody noir visuals: And just as the opulent imagery expands the visual signatures of the style, so do Desert Fury's representations expand its thematic ones, delivering not one but two " hommes fatale," neither of whom are all they seem until climactic revelations, along with granite-visaged butch bitch boss Fritzi, who could eat ten-penny nails for breakfast, deliciously embodied by Mary Astor in one of her illustrations of the mastery of character, miles away from her sympathetic yet straight-laced Anna Smith of Meet Me In St. Louis, acerbic Alberta Marlowe of Across the Pacific, flighty and garrulous Maude Hackensacker of The Palm Beach Story, tenderly sincere Edith Cortright of Dodsworth or, indeed, any other of her screen roles. Frustratingly hard to see these days (my copy is an import disc, La Hija del Picado), Desert Fury has been an unabashedly non-guilty pleasure since I first saw it on U.S. broadcast TV over a half-century ago. Totally agree with the photography, colour does of course in the truest sense mean a film can not be film noir, but as you know that's merely a title since a style of film making is just that regardless of colour/monochrome filters. Leave Her to Heaven is another case in point, Shamroy on peak form with a luscious looking piece of work.
Astor looks to be really enjoying the role and she gets great moments - love when Fritzy (great name) tells Tom that if she was 10 years younger she would ruin him! Thanks for the post, glad you're a fan, hopefully we can entice some others to seek it out for the first time.
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Post by hitchcockthelegend on May 2, 2019 2:21:02 GMT
Judging by your list on the 47 thread you have a whole shed load from 47 still to see , get to it, brilliant year. I imagine you seen the Bogart's from that year? Dead Reckoning, Dark Passage and The Two Mrs. Carrolls. Definitely saw Dark Passage. The other 2 seem familiar but can't be sure - caught a lot of old movies on tv in the 60s but memory isn't what it used to be. Just watched Desert Fury and liked it a lot. more melodrama than noir, but I have no problem with that. Good man! Glad you enjoyed it mate
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Post by hitchcockthelegend on May 2, 2019 2:32:50 GMT
I should add that there's great cars and Scott's costuming is quality as well!
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Post by Doghouse6 on May 2, 2019 16:03:23 GMT
Totally agree with the photography, colour does of course in the truest sense mean a film can not be film noir, but as you know that's merely a title since a style of film making is just that regardless of colour/monochrome filters. Leave Her to Heaven is another case in point, Shamroy on peak form with a luscious looking piece of work. Among the most lively and long running debates are those surrounding what does or doesn't define film noir, even down to elemental aspects such as whether it's a style or a genre. The fact that it's a term retroactively applied to films so designated seems to complicate matters all the more. I've always taken the position that it requires combinations of both visual and thematic components and, although it puts me in what I perceive to be a minority, I've never considered black & white to be a necessary one, even though those in color are the rarest of exceptions. While many do, I can't put either Leave Her To Heaven or its equally glossy predecessor Laura into the category. Among those color exceptions, Niagara, I feel, comes closer to satisfying both the thematic and visual components, among the latter of which are highly focused and directional lighting (from above, the side or below) that puts players and/or sets into shadowed relief... +thinks.png)   ...and geometric, expressionist-influenced compositions:    It may or may not be pure coincidence that most of the films now classified as noir were those made under conditions of fiscal austerity that was reflected in artistically stark minimalism and economy, but those budgetary constraints certainly limited chromatic experimentation that could have added layers of stylistic and emotional richness to those stories of crime, betrayal, angst, corruption, alienation and bitter cynicism.
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Post by hitchcockthelegend on May 2, 2019 21:58:57 GMT
Totally agree with the photography, colour does of course in the truest sense mean a film can not be film noir, but as you know that's merely a title since a style of film making is just that regardless of colour/monochrome filters. Leave Her to Heaven is another case in point, Shamroy on peak form with a luscious looking piece of work. Among the most lively and long running debates are those surrounding what does or doesn't define film noir, even down to elemental aspects such as whether it's a style or a genre. The fact that it's a term retroactively applied to films so designated seems to complicate matters all the more. I've always taken the position that it requires combinations of both visual and thematic components and, although it puts me in what I perceive to be a minority, I've never considered black & white to be a necessary one, even though those in color are the rarest of exceptions. While many do, I can't put either Leave Her To Heaven or its equally glossy predecessor Laura into the category. Among those color exceptions, Niagara, I feel, comes closer to satisfying both the thematic and visual components, among the latter of which are highly focused and directional lighting (from above, the side or below) that puts players and/or sets into shadowed relief... ...and geometric, expressionist-influenced compositions: It may or may not be pure coincidence that most of the films now classified as noir were those made under conditions of fiscal austerity that was reflected in artistically stark minimalism and economy, but those budgetary constraints certainly limited chromatic experimentation that could have added layers of stylistic and emotional richness to those stories of crime, betrayal, angst, corruption, alienation and bitter cynicism. Well I definitely fall on the side of noir being a style of film making. You are of course right, the original wave that has come to known as film noir really was quite often a cost saving necessity. Ouch, we definitely have to agree to disagree on Leave Her to Heaven - www.imdb.com/review/rw2174480/?ref_=tt_urv 
I love Niagra, long overdue a revisit, thanks for the pics, noirville nirvana.
What say you about Track of the Cat? I love it from a technical standpoint, interesting colour film from a black and white palette. Actually find it a bit dull narratively but keep going back to it for its visual daring.     
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Post by wmcclain on May 2, 2019 22:12:21 GMT
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Post by Doghouse6 on May 2, 2019 22:37:35 GMT
Among the most lively and long running debates are those surrounding what does or doesn't define film noir, even down to elemental aspects such as whether it's a style or a genre. The fact that it's a term retroactively applied to films so designated seems to complicate matters all the more. I've always taken the position that it requires combinations of both visual and thematic components and, although it puts me in what I perceive to be a minority, I've never considered black & white to be a necessary one, even though those in color are the rarest of exceptions. While many do, I can't put either Leave Her To Heaven or its equally glossy predecessor Laura into the category. Among those color exceptions, Niagara, I feel, comes closer to satisfying both the thematic and visual components, among the latter of which are highly focused and directional lighting (from above, the side or below) that puts players and/or sets into shadowed relief... ...and geometric, expressionist-influenced compositions: It may or may not be pure coincidence that most of the films now classified as noir were those made under conditions of fiscal austerity that was reflected in artistically stark minimalism and economy, but those budgetary constraints certainly limited chromatic experimentation that could have added layers of stylistic and emotional richness to those stories of crime, betrayal, angst, corruption, alienation and bitter cynicism. Well I definitely fall on the side of noir being a style of film making. You are of course right, the original wave that has come to known as film noir really was quite often a cost saving necessity. Ouch, we definitely have to agree to disagree on Leave Her to Heaven - www.imdb.com/review/rw2174480/?ref_=tt_urv
I love Niagra, long overdue a revisit, thanks for the pics, noirville nirvana.
What say you about Track of the Cat? I love it from a technical standpoint, interesting colour film from a black and white palette. Actually find it a bit dull narratively but keep going back to it for its visual daring.
is one I've never caught up with, but those images are quite tantalizing; a couple put me in mind of Mitchum's subsequent Night Of the Hunter, and spark my interest. I'll make a point of seeking that one out. Many thanks.
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Post by Doghouse6 on May 2, 2019 22:52:25 GMT
Too many color/widescreen films of the early-mid '50s suffer from CinemaScope-itis: long, static takes of tableau-like and over-broadly-lit mise-en-scènes, not at all dissimilar to what plagued many early talkies. It was good to see master illuminator Alton breaking free of that sort of technological intimidation.
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Post by teleadm on May 3, 2019 20:10:04 GMT
Well I like Leave Her to Heaven and Niagara, so it sure sound interesting. All I can add is some oddities  Do this house look familiar? Exteriors were used in Desert Fury, It's called Piru Mansion, and I can imagine with a bit of gloom it could look like a house one never wan't to enter. Desert Fury was based on a novel by Ramona Stewart, and the only time Hollywood has been interested in her since then was when they made The Possession of Joel Delaney 1971 with Shirley Maclaine, been wondering about that movie, has anyone seen it? |
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Post by Doghouse6 on May 4, 2019 4:55:43 GMT
What say you about Track of the Cat? I love it from a technical standpoint, interesting colour film from a black and white palette. Actually find it a bit dull narratively but keep going back to it for its visual daring.
I've now tracked down Track Of the Cat and watched it in its full 2.55 aspect ratio, and found it quite interesting. I suppose during all these years never much drawn to it, I was assuming it to be a routine wilderness adventure, so a somber and intense psychodrama of dysfunctional family dynamics was not at all what I was expecting. I guess I found that aspect of it more compelling than you apparently did; in the tone and story arc of its somewhat stagey interior scenes, it seemed to be emulating O'Neill or Pinter, albeit without the biting or stylistic prose. I note in passing that the screenwriter, A.I. Bezzerides, is listed on IMDB as having done uncredited work on Desert Fury (featuring another rigid and scoldingly dictatorial matriarch). Isn't that interesting? As to the production design you admire, I agree it was fascinating: every component of sets and their dressing, along with every stitch of costuming, executed in blacks, whites or grays, save for Mitchum's blood red coat (from which I wonder if Spielberg took some inspiration for Schindler's List) and the sunny if pale yellow shirt of Gwen, the outsider. Even in the location exteriors, the low winter light and high contrast provided by acres of snow rendered the evergreens in blacks or murky grays (until, that is, the final scene, during which the sun breaks through and blue skies and green boughs are seen in naturalistic splendor). One can see in retrospect the trajectory Mitchum's career was taking at the time: firmly established, he was then stretching, beginning to expose layers that would be so gloriously revealed in films like Night Of the Hunter, The Sundowners and Cape Fear. I must say, Carl Switzer was a surprising casting choice for Joe Sam; even if it didn't always work, the 27-year-old actor was certainly unrecognizable. Perhaps production execs John Wayne and Robert Fellows, for whom Switzer had already played small but visible supporting roles in Island In the Sky and The High and the Mighty while his career was otherwise in decline, were fond of him. All in all, I'm so glad your remarks led me to this first viewing, and I won't be at all surprised if I have another in the near future to study it even more closely.
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Post by hitchcockthelegend on May 4, 2019 19:26:02 GMT
What say you about Track of the Cat? I love it from a technical standpoint, interesting colour film from a black and white palette. Actually find it a bit dull narratively but keep going back to it for its visual daring.
I've now tracked down Track Of the Cat and watched it in its full 2.55 aspect ratio, and found it quite interesting. I suppose during all these years never much drawn to it, I was assuming it to be a routine wilderness adventure, so a somber and intense psychodrama of dysfunctional family dynamics was not at all what I was expecting. I guess I found that aspect of it more compelling than you apparently did; in the tone and story arc of its somewhat stagey interior scenes, it seemed to be emulating O'Neill or Pinter, albeit without the biting or stylistic prose. I note in passing that the screenwriter, A.I. Bezzerides, is listed on IMDB as having done uncredited work on Desert Fury (featuring another rigid and scoldingly dictatorial matriarch). Isn't that interesting? As to the production design you admire, I agree it was fascinating: every component of sets and their dressing, along with every stitch of costuming, executed in blacks, whites or grays, save for Mitchum's blood red coat (from which I wonder if Spielberg took some inspiration for Schindler's List) and the sunny if pale yellow shirt of Gwen, the outsider. Even in the location exteriors, the low winter light and high contrast provided by acres of snow rendered the evergreens in blacks or murky grays (until, that is, the final scene, during which the sun breaks through and blue skies and green boughs are seen in naturalistic splendor). One can see in retrospect the trajectory Mitchum's career was taking at the time: firmly established, he was then stretching, beginning to expose layers that would be so gloriously revealed in films like Night Of the Hunter, The Sundowners and Cape Fear. I must say, Carl Switzer was a surprising casting choice for Joe Sam; even if it didn't always work, the 27-year-old actor was certainly unrecognizable. Perhaps production execs John Wayne and Robert Fellows, for whom Switzer had already played small but visible supporting roles in Island In the Sky and The High and the Mighty while his career was otherwise in decline, were fond of him. All in all, I'm so glad your remarks led me to this first viewing, and I won't be at all surprised if I have another in the near future to study it even more closely. As you now know it's an odd and unique picture, so I was surprised to see you hadn't yet caught it, purely because of your ties and vested interests in film photographic process. Delighted you sought it out so as to share your thoughts. I wrote this in 2009, which was the last time I viewed it > Track Of The Cat, Sting In The Tale. We are up in the snowy mountains near Aspen, we are in the company of the brooding and feuding Bridges family. Their inner fighting is not the only thing blighting their lives, for a panther is on the loose and as it kills all in its way, it becomes evident that it's also symbolising something deep and foreboding. Track Of The Cat is directed by the highly accomplished William A Wellman and adapted by A.I. Bezzerides from the novel written by Walter Van Tilburg Clark. Hauntingly eerie and dripping with a sense of unease, it's however more triumphant as a technical piece than it is as a crux story driven one. Wellman had long wanted to make a colour film whilst only working from a black and white palette, he does it here and the result is fascinatingly gorgeous, helped no end by ace cinematographer William H. Clothier's CinemaScope cinematography brilliantly bringing the Mount Rainier location to life (the only way to watch this is in widescreen). All the production needed was to get snowy weather, and they got it, and then some! An interesting point of reference to the weather is that lead man Robert Mitchum (Curt Bridges) stated it was the hardest shoot he ever worked on. Some scenes are truly magnificent, atmosphere drips across the sparse snowy ground, with dark trees seemingly waiting to attack the small framed actors, a burial sequence viewed from the POV of the dead is sumptuous - in short the picture looks gorgeous, but what of the core story and acting heart? Frankly the story is guilty of being over talky, because as we marvel at the surrounds and buy into the sense of dread that hovers throughout, we are subjected to what can only be described as over written waffle, making me actually wish that I had read the novel prior to viewing the film. The extensive chatter would have been easily forgivable if the pay off via the panther itself was dramatically impacting, but sadly we are robbed of a crescendo ending - something Wellman would later say was an error of judgement (he is rumoured to have even disowned the film at one point). Of the cast, Mitchum is good, moody and bully like, watch as he baits Diana Lynn (poor) as Gwen Williams, while William Hopper puts in a fine turn as Arthur Bridges. The rest? well they are solid enough, though Carl 'Alfalfa' Switzer as a very aged portentous Indian raises an unintentional laugh. After plodding around like a decrepit old crippled specimen throughout the picture, he suddenly turns into an Olympic 100 meters champion at the films finale! Yes it's safe to say that Track Of The Cat is a very odd picture indeed. 6/10 I never picked that up for a possible link, Schindlers List, it's very possible given Spielberg makes no secret of admiring and drawing inspiration from olde classic cinema. Bezzerides a possible mother issue candidate? Yes, very interesting. I'm due another viewing to see if my 10 year old thoughts change in any way. Cheers Dogs 
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