Monday, May 6, 2013

Movie Review: Desert Fury

 
Desert Fury (1947) 
directed by Lewis Allen, starring Lizabeth Scott, John Hodiak, Mary Astor

Note: This is my entry in the Mary Astor Blogathon, hosted by Tales of the Easily Distracted and Silver Screenings.

The desert town of Chuckawalla is a quiet, sleepy place on the surface but roiling with greed and sin underneath. And nobody understands it better than Fritzi Haller (Mary Astor), the tough, no-nonsense owner of the Purple Sage Bar and Casino. She may not be respectable but she's fought her way into wealth and power and nothing's going to change that. However, Fritzi's plans are derailed when the gangster Eddie Bendix (John Hodiak) rolls into town. He immediately catches the eye of Paula, Fritzi's rebellious young daughter. And it seems everyone's got a stake in keeping their rapid-fire romance from going anywhere. There's Tom Hanson (Burt Lancaster), the deputy, in love with Paula but too hesitant to plead his case. There's Johnny (Wendell Corey), Eddie's brooding partner, who burns with hatred at the thought of a woman coming between them. And of course, there's Fritzi, who wants her daughter to have a chance at a respectable, stable life. But nobody in this town is quite what they seem and it won't be long before Paula realizes the world is very different from what she imagined.


Desert Fury is a bizarre, colorful, and unsettling film, a pure example of Hollywood filmmaking at its most suggestive. The plot is actually pretty simple: a naive girl falls in love with a man who's no good for her. Of course, there's also a nice guy waiting on the sidelines for her and a mother who wants what's best for her daughter. But it's what's happening around the edges of those relationships that makes them interesting. Because in this movie, the girl's mother is no Stella Dallas, fighting valiantly through her tears. Instead she's a cool businesswoman with a butch haircut, cooing over her daughter's beauty like a possessive lover would. All while the daughter exults that she's finally found a man like her mother, except "bigger and better and stronger."

I mean, do you kiss your mother like this?


Or how about the dangerous gangster that the girl falls in love with? Who spends most of his time ordering around his ever-present partner while said partner tends to his every need and glares daggers at the woman who dares to intrude on their domestic bliss.


It's the weird little unspoken undercurrents that make Desert Fury such a memorable trip. I've never seen anything quite like it and I think anyone who's a fan of classic film should check it out at least once. That said, it's not really a good movie. At times, the script feels like a private bet on the part of screenwriter Robert Rossen to see if he could get away with making a movie that's essentially just one scene, repeated on an infinite loop. Said scene can be summed up in three steps:
  1. Paula, the daughter, confronts someone who is trying to control or reject her.
  2. Paula gets upset and leaves.
  3. She reconciles with the person so that they can have the same argument all over again
After over an hour of this endless reshuffling, the movie finally picks up the pace for a climax that's genuinely disturbing and strange and satisfying. It's like the inverse of Gilda, another movie that brimmed with dark passions and subtext. But where that movie had a fierce, snappy pace and a lousy ending, Desert Fury has a strong ending but weak plotting. It's a lucky thing that the movie has a pretty talented cast to pull it off, including Lizabeth Scott, Mary Astor, and, in his film debut, Wendell Corey.


Lizabeth Scott was an actress made to order for film noir. Her deep, throaty voice suggested cigarette smoke and bar hopping and a lifetime of harsh experience. The haughty tilt to her chin and the flowing blonde hair gave her a touch of class. During her heyday, she was always compared to Lauren Bacall, but Scott was always more reserved, never as playful. Perhaps that's the reason she never became a big star; she always seemed to be holding something back.

In Desert Fury, she gets the full glam treatment, playing the woman that everyone wants and nobody understands. However, Paula isn't the femme fatale here but the protagonist. The entire movie is basically about her figuring out what she really wants, deciding whether she should tie her life to a controlling mother, a dangerous racketeer, or a friendly lawman. Her mother Fritzi is determined that she be respectable but Paula isn't having any of it."I'm like you, Fritzi, I'm getting more like you every day," she tells her. Scott's ambiguous style of acting helps in her portrayal of a character whose motivations don't really seem tethered to reality. I don't think most women would be turned on after hearing how much they resemble their lover's mysteriously dead wife. Nor do I think most women would look at Burt Lancaster, his magnificent tawny hair blowing in the wind, and then run after John Hodiak, who manages to look more uncomfortable here than he did starving to death in Lifeboat.


Out of all the main cast members, Burt Lancaster gets the least to do. Tom's just the straight arrow love interest, musing out loud over whether he should keep Paula on a short rope or a long. Actually, his methods of wooing his lady are oddly self-defeating. When Fritzi promises him money and a ranch if he'll marry Paula and make her respectable, Tom sarcastically repeats the offer in front of Paula. "Fritzi and I are cooking up a deal--how'd you like to marry me?" Sure he gets to put Fritzi in her place, but he must realize that by doing so, he's ensured that Paula won't go near him. In his review of Desert Fury, Randy Byers posits the theory that Tom might be impotent. It would certainly explain his passive-aggressive approach. 


However, Burt Lancaster as the aloof, moody, mother-approved boyfriend is still more charismatic than John Hodiak as Eddie Bendix. Hodiak makes a convincing gangster, with his ink-smudge mustache and twitchy mannerisms. Everything he says sounds like an order, every time he turns around, it's like he expects a gun in his face. But he doesn't have the kind of dangerous allure that would naturally capture Paula's attention. The film even undercuts Hodiak visually, letting Lancaster and Corey loom over him in group shots. Maybe Lancaster and Hodiak should have switched roles. Still, to give the man his due, he's perfect in the film's climax, when Eddie is finally revealed to be something more pitiable and more monstrous than Paula could ever have imagined.

Unfortunately, Hodiak and Scott have zero chemistry, no matter how much the
Miklós Rózsa score thrashes and wails when they're together. This is unfortunate since we have to spend a lot of time with these two. In Gilda, the ferocious sexual attraction between Glenn Ford and Rita Hayworth was the plot. In Desert Fury, the most interesting relationships are the side ones. It's Mary Astor and Wendell Corey that bring the most passion to their roles. They're the ones with the most to lose. 



I've been guilty of ragging on Wendell Corey in the past. Something about his smug, square face always grated on me. Which is unfair. For all I know, in real life Corey was the kind of man who adopts orphan puppies and donates to scholarship funds. But in movies, he always came off like a serious buzz-kill. 

Desert Fury was a complete revelation to me. Here, Corey is icy and threatening and even kind of sympathetic as Johnny, Eddie's sworn companion and implied lover. Lord, do they imply it. When Eddie describes their first meeting to Paula, it sounds like a pick-up ("He ended up paying for my ham and eggs...I went home with him that night...we were together from then on"). In one scene, Eddie sunbathes shirtless while Johnny offers him coffee, smiling at him with tender concern. Johnny visibly bristles whenever Paula intrudes on him and Eddie, even as Eddie forces him to serve them food and make himself scarce. When Paula tries to understand Johnny, she's thrown back by the totality of his devotion. "There must be some of you apart from Eddie...two people can't fit into one life." Johnny looks back at her unsmiling. "Why would there be some of me apart from Eddie?" It's like the gangster equivalent to Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca.


Wendell Corey delivers the most surprising performance but Mary Astor's is the best. Bitchy mothers are a dime a dozen in 40s films, but Astor had a way of digging beneath the cliche and keep you guessing. Even when she played shallow society snobs like in Midnight, greedy prostitutes like in Act of Violence, or dizzy nymphomaniacs like in The Palm Beach Story, her characters always had a weary intelligence about them that commanded respect. In Desert Fury, her character Fritzi Haller is the smartest one in the room. She strides around in flowing pants, clenching her cigarette holder as if she wants to bite clean through it. She resorts to harsh tactics in order to control Paula, including bribery and imprisonment. But when faced with the possibility of losing her daughter forever, Fritzi is devoid of self-pity. "Nineteen years, like that," she says, snapping her fingers, and the fond, rueful expression on Astor's face tells us everything we could know about loving a person who'll never understand you. Mary Astor would have made one hell of a Mildred Pierce.

The lesbian undertones to her character are just an added bonus of weirdness. Fritzi lights up in her daughter's presence and fawns over her like a mobster admiring the generous curves of his moll. "You look good to me, baby, even when you're tired," she tells Paula. "Give me a kiss, honey." She wants Paula to call her Fritzi, not Mother, and tries to settle her with shopping and presents. She calls her "baby" all the time and Astor snaps out the word like she's playing Walter Neff in Double Indemnity.  Without giving away the movie's ending, I'll just say that the resolution of their relationship is one of the most suggestively what-the-hell things I've ever seen, a truly memorable example of sneaking things under the Hays Code.


It's a surprise to me that Desert Fury doesn't garner much attention for its Technicolor visuals because it's a truly stunning film. Director Lewis Allen and cinematographer Charles Lang combine vivid color with stark noir compositions and the result is something shimmering and unreal, like a heat mirage. When Lizabeth Scott strolls through the Nevada sunshine, her blonde hair reflecting a thousand rays of light, it becomes achingly clear why everyone is obsessed with this naive girl. Even the frequent day-for-night shots look beautiful. Designer Edith Head also deserves a mention here for the way her eye-popping costumes fit the visual scheme. Scott is glamorous and stands out in each shot like a bolt of lightning. Astor is shifty, changing her style from matronly to garish to masculine as easily as she changes tactics.


Is it too soon to start making a case for Lewis Allen as an underrated auteur? Desert Fury is only the third Allen film I've seen and while it's not nearly as good as The Uninvited or So Evil My Love, it shares some of the same hallmarks. Sharp, varied female characters that actively drive the plot. Lavish but oppressive set design that visually traps the actors. Suggestions of the strange or uncanny. In a way, Allen's direction is even more interesting here than his other, better films since he's stuck with a script that keeps repeating the same confrontations over and over again. Allen compensates by flooding each brilliantly-tinted shot with dense shadows. He keeps the framing tight, even claustrophobic. It all gives Desert Fury a kind of hothouse atmosphere. It burns with contained neurosis and frustrated energy.

Desert Fury never reaches the heights of the truly great film noirs. It takes dark, tormented characters, gorgeous camerawork, and some inspired bits of strangeness and then lets them stew, like a sleek, freshly-painted sports car stuck in parking gear. But for all its weaknesses, it's still an incredibly memorable and worthwhile experience, a movie that's all the more interesting for what it's not saying.


Favorite Quote:

"People think they're seeing Eddie and all these years, they've really been seeing me. I'm Eddie Bendix. Why is it women never fall in love with me?"
  
Favorite Scene:

After getting her first kiss from Eddie, Paula returns home late, coldly brushing off Fritzi's questions. That night, she tosses and turns as a thunderstorm rages outside her window. A lightning flash wakes her up and after bolting up, Paula buries her head in her pillow and cries. Her sobs catch the attention of Fritzi, who comes into the room to comfort her, voice and movements more gentle than we've ever seen from her. "Even when you were a kid, you were afraid of storms, I used to have to sleep with you," Fritzi muses. "If you want to, I'll--?" "No," Paula cuts in, blinking back tears. She's confused and vulnerable, one moment refusing Fritzi's offer to take her shopping, the next begging her mother not to go. "I don't know what I mean," Paula whimpers, as Fritzi tucks her back into bed. 

A simple scene but it's ripe with strange overtones. There's the way the two women are costumed and lit. Paula has her hair tied back with a purple bow and looks like a kid. Fritzi is in a gauzy peach nightgown, the perfect vision of maternal concern, and yet the sickly green scarf around her hair turns her into something unwholesome. There's the way Fritzi's rejected offer sounds a little too much like a come-on. There's the sexual implications of the storm raging outside after Paula has just had her first kiss, a storm that's interrupted by the arrival of her mother. It's a prime example of the weirdness and beauty of Desert Fury, a film that always seems to know more than it's telling.

Final Six Words: So static yet so strangely mesmerizing

40 comments:

  1. A truly excellent and insightful post. Your description of all of this marvelous weirdness makes me want to see this NOW! And your description of Mary as "weary" is just perfect.

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    1. I'd love to hear your opinion on this one, FlickChick. There was a weariness to Mary offscreen, by all accounts, as she rarely felt like acting was enough to satisfy her active mind. I'd say it comes through in her work. Even when she's calling people, "Snoodles" as in The Palm Beach Story.

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  2. While I've never seen this, it does sound wild. Hard to believe all those homosexual under and overtones got past the Hays Code. Of course, there is obviously something wrong with anyone who would pick Hodiak over Lancaster--second on to Paul Newman in my pantheon of men I would sleep with just so I could stare at them.

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    1. Lancaster isn't generally one of my movie crushes, but you're right. He's so incredibly good-looking here that it just adds another level of perversity to Lizabeth Scott's character in the way she brushes him off. And I did have to grind my teeth a little that the filmmakers gave the most boring character to Burt Lancaster and the most interesting one to Wendell Corey and his resistible charms. Am I shallow? Maybe a little.

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  3. I'm another one who hasn't seen this, and I was stunned to read about the subtexts. How did they get away with it?

    Even if the script isn't the best, it still sounds like Mary Astor delivers in grand Mary fashion.

    I love love love how you've written this. Fantastic! Thanks for participating in our blogathon.

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    1. Some of the subtextual stuff seems so gratuitous but in a good way. I mean, what is the point, story-wise, of having a lesbian subtext between the mom and the daughter? Who knows, but it sure grabs your attention. And Mary Astor delivers on all counts, handling the weird, sketchy elements of the character but also making her sympathetic and human.

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  4. You had me at "bizarre, colorful, and unsettling".

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    1. I wanted to make the film's selling points clear from the get-go.

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  5. You've really got me intrigued, especially with your hints about the film's climax.

    "Something about his smug, square face always grated on me." Heh heh, yeah. I plead guilty to similar sentiments. But this sounds like quite the role. Great post, thanks for introducing me to this!

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    1. You know, I think Wendell Corey falls into the category of actors that get much better when you don't have to sympathize with them. In The File on Thelma Jordan, I didn't care about his entrapment by Barbara Stanwyck. Bad girl or not, she was still way too good for him. But I do like him in Rear Window, where he's perfectly cast as the spoilsport who ruins all our fun. And Desert Fury is the best I've seen him.

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  6. I yearn to see Desert Fury!I revere Lizabeth Scott (for me, the most haunting of 1940s actresses) and most of her filmography unavailable on DVD in the UK. Desert Fury used to be available on Youtube (cut up into segments) and I couldn't bring myself to watch it like that, when I knew it had to be seen to maximum advantage! (Scott adn Wendell Corey were re-united in the 1957 Elvis Presley musical Loving You -- Scott's last film for many years).

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    1. I can understand a fascination with Lizabeth Scott. So far, my favorite performance of hers was in Pitfall where you think she'll be the femme fatale, but she turns out to be more sinned against than sinning. The ending shot of her is haunting. Still haven't seen Too Late for Tears, which has a lot of fans. And Desert Fury really does deserve to be seen on a screen where you can enjoy the gorgeousness of that Technicolor.

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  7. Here's my take on it:

    http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft5h4nb36j&chunk.id=d0e10981&toc.id=d0e10981&brand=ucpress

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    1. David, so glad you decided to share a link to this! I know the Randy Byers review I linked to in the post basically said, "Ehrenstein has the definitive take on this movie, go read him." Although it's just as well I didn't read it before writing my review since it probably would have left me without anything original to say.

      I did read an excerpt by Imogen Sara Smith where she compares the Corey-Hodiak relationship to Persona

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    2. After reading it, I could have sworn it had been written by Myron Breckinridge.

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  8. I am torrenting this movie as we speak, this review was so good and intriguing I simply have to see the film for myself!

    Do you have an pre-Code reviews in the works at all? Just curious what your take on some films from that era would be.

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    1. Cool, I'm always happy to steer people to new movies. As for pre-Code, I'd love to tackle it since I've got plenty of pre-Code favorites (Night Nurse, The Public Enemy, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Me and My Gal, etc) and you pointed out, I haven't done one on this site yet.

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    2. I watched it. And I love it to pieces! And you review was spot-on, it felt kind of weak right up until that bombastic climax. And of course Mary Astor's performance was straight-up gold! I need to find more of her work, I think the only things I've ever really seen her in are this and The Maltese Falcon. I love her as an actress, but haven't really given her filmography a look through. That's a mistake I'm about to rectify!

      My favorite pre-Codes are Night Nurse, also, Gold Diggers of 1933, Thirteen Women, Belle of the Nineties ... actually the list itself is enough to justify a blog of my own. I need to get off my butt and make that happen.

      You're doing a great job here by the way, and I love seeing your updates. And as to steering people towards new movies, you introduced me to Teresa Wright a while ago, which I really truly thank you for ^_^

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    3. Given how eloquently you express yourself in comments, I would definitely read any blog of yours :)

      This blogathon's been really good at showcasing the best of Mary Astor. I'd say you can't go wrong with Dodsworth or The Prisoner of Zenda, for starters. I also love her in Act of Violence, in a very atypical part as a cheap hooker.

      Thanks again for all the kind words.

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  9. Ever since I heard "Desert Fury" described as a western noir, I've been interested in seeing it, but never more than now. Your write-up, as always, was stellar -- it had so many superb descriptions and turns of phrase that literally made me laugh out loud. These are my favorites:

    "At times, the script feels like a private bet on the part of screenwriter Robert Rossen to see if he could get away with making a movie that's essentially just one scene, repeated on an infinite loop."

    "Her deep, throaty voice suggested cigarette smoke and bar hopping and a lifetime of harsh experience." (So awesome.)

    "Nor do I think most women would look at Burt Lancaster, his magnificent tawny hair blowing in the wind, and then run after John Hodiak, who manages to look more uncomfortable here than he did starving to death in Lifeboat."

    Really great stuff, Aubyn.



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    1. You know, if I'd had time I might have talked more about the noir aspect of Desert Fury since it's kind of borderline, as far as the genre goes. Sure, it's got some twisted people, but the story itself is closer to melodrama. But getting into genre definitions in an already long review would have been really pushing it.

      Thanks for commenting, Karen!

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  10. Boy this sounds good. A definite must-see. I have vague, vague memories of seeing this years ago, but I don't remember it at all. Is there a scene where Burt Lancaster and Lizabeth Scott stop for Cokes in little bottles at a gas station? I dimly recall that, but I may have the wrong performers.

    Like you said, the subtext here sounds fascinating. Really enjoyed your post, Aubyn.

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    1. Yeah, they do! It's kind of funny since they keep talking about the hot desert town they live in (Hodiak calls it a "cactus graveyard") and yet Lancaster and Scott look cool and pristine in every single shot. Those little Coke bottles looked kind of cute, too.

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  11. Aubyn, I had to drop everything and see this film after reading your review, then return for a reread. I am so glad to have seen it and think you really nail its strange, lush/overcooked quality with that amazing, shimmering Technicolor bringing across a sense of the heat - even though, as you say, the actors look so cool throughout. I love your line at the end 'a film that always seems to know more than it's telling'.

    The subtexts you talk about are blatant indeed, especially with Johnny and Eddie where their relationship is all but stated outright. I had to wonder how on earth that scene where Scott sees Hodiak's tangled bedclothes got past the censors! I definitely agree that Mary Astor and Wendell Corey have the most interesting characters, and I was keen to learn more about Fritzi's past.

    Must agree that it is a pity Burt Lancaster doesn't get more screen time. I think his character promises to be interesting early in the film, with the scene of him being thrown off the horse while trying to break it in and the tale of how he was previously thrown and "broke up inside" - for a while I was expecting the film to return to this and show him triumphing in the end, but no, that whole storyline is discarded. Almost as if a Western plot is offered one minute and then sacrificed to the atmosphere of smouldering noir.

    Judy

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    1. Judy, there's nothing I like better than hearing that I inspired somebody to check out a movie so thank you for that. As far as the subtext goes, I was impressed by how much they imply the mutuality of the relationship. Criminal characters that were coded gay were nothing new at the time (Peter Lorre in The Maltese Falcon, Van Heflin in Johnny Eager, etc.) but these two really do seem like a couple.

      You make an interesting point about the barest whisper of a Western plot that gets axed. It does seem to imply that an earlier draft of the screenplay gave his character more weight. As it is, I suppose you can take him as just another misfit in Desert Fury's dysfunctional cast.

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    2. Judy, I'm just curious how you dropped everything and saw this film, since it's so exceedingly hard to come by. The only home media on which it is available is a Portuguese all-region DVD, which I have in my personal collection. Other than that, it's like looking for a needle in a haystack. It hasn't aired on TCM is over fifteen years, and Universal, which sadly owns the vintage Paramount library, has never released it on either VHS or DVD format. Even in film-savvy metropolises, it's rarely revived, so I'm really curious how you got to see it so readily.

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  12. Oooh, how many gorgeous people! The movie may be bizarre, but at the same time interesting and very curious. I love to see Burt Lancaster in color and this is a new to me film, that I'll watch in the first opportunity I have.
    Thanks for the comment in my post!
    Kisses!

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    1. If I'd had more time, I would have taken another dozen or so screencaps because this film really is beautiful and Lancaster and Scott look spectacular. Mary Astor doesn't look half bad either but I think the hairstyle and some of the outfits sabotaged her.

      *Returns kisses*

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  13. Hi, Aubyn! : )

    What a fun film! I've been making it a priority to catch more films in this genre and given that I need to find more good films on Lizabeth Scott for a future post I'm writing, this review was a real treat.

    Oh, before I forget. I would love for someone to say to me, "You look good baby, even when you're tired!" : )

    Also, I have to agree with what you added above with Mary's hairstyle not being that flattering. While it was the style for women her age. (Not old but for Hollywood) It did age her beyond her years.

    Such a fun review of an interesting film.
    Well done!
    Page

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    1. I will definitely want to read that Lizabeth Scott post of yours. She truly was one of the queens of noir, one of the few actresses that worked almost exclusively in the genre. And she's still with us today at 90 years old!

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  14. Aubyn, I've been looking forward to reading your DESERT FURY review, and it was worth the wait! What a wild and crazy hothouse flower of a movie -- heck, it's more like Audrey 2 in LITTLE SHOP OF HORROR, with its gonzo characters and the film's bisexual subtext! That smooch on the lips between Mama Mary Astor and Lizabeth Scott makes Robert Francis' goodbye kiss on his mom's lips in THE CAINE MUTINY look like a peck on the cheek. Miklos Rosza's score and the magnificently lurid (in a good way) art direction is perfect for this fascinatingly insane movie! Aubyn, I'm glad you chose DESERT FURY for our Mary Astor Blogathon, with Mary unforgettable in every sense of the word -- thanks a million for joining our Mary Astor Blogathon!

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    1. Pretty much impossible to write a boring review when you've got a movie like Desert Fury. And that kiss looked pretty damn passionate. I'd forgotten any incest subtext in The Caine Mutiny, but that's probably because I was too distracted by the strange awfulness of the Robert Francis/May Wynn romantic subplot. The musical score is over-the-top but in a good way, very much like Rosza's score for The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (which really belongs on a double bill with this one).

      I didn't realize how much love and appreciation there was out there for Mary Astor until your blogathon and it warms my heart. You and R.A. truly made this a fantastic event.

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  15. I don't think I had any idea what this movie was about, or how deep the story really went. I learned so much from reading this post and I must say that I am highly intrigued. I will have to find this film soon. Thanks

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    1. Thanks for the comments. It's a movie that I think is worth seeing at least once.

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  16. Just stumbled upon your post as I was looking for Mary Astor information. Thanks for turning me on to this film, loved Astor in it, so different from her other mother roles!

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  17. where did you get your copy of this movie? i would like one.

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    1. Hmm, I can't remember. Watched it online, but don't remember the source. I know I've also seen it floating around on Youtube but I just checked for it and it looks like it was yanked. I'll let you know if I find a copy.

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  18. I agree with everything that David Ehrenstein says in his brilliant piece about “Desert Fury” but would add another subtext to the already steaming brew. To me, it's the quintessential pre-Hollywood Ten movie because one of its chief themes, transformed into a gangster setting, is loyalty on the part of actual or would-be intellectuals (not that any of the characters in "Desert Fury" are actual intellectuals) to the Communist Party no matter what (or rather to some degree because the loyalty the CP required was of the "no matter what" sort).

    This comes through in one key element of the plot -- the belief (held by some committed CPUSA members) that the ultimate test of virtue was one's "hardness" (not only as in toughness per se but also as in willingness to do any deed in the name of submission to Party discipline -- especially if that deed ran counter to the promptings of one's personal [i.e. bourgeois] conscience, convenience, or morality.)

    Thus Hodiak's character is a handsome, narcissistic frontman (a star gambler) who shies away from the doing the rough dirty stuff, while Corey, his sidekick who does do the rough dirty stuff when that's necessary (actually, as I recall, he deeply enjoys doing it), is at once in love with Hodiak's character and his "star" aura and is enraged by the gap between what Hodiak's character thinks he himself is too good to do and what Corey's character both has to and, in some sense, chooses to do instead. Corey, playing a deeply twisted man, gives a terrific twisted performance.

    BTW, Robert Rossen, author of the screenplay for “Desert Fury” (and perhaps its “autuer”?) was a CPUSA member from 1937-47, and his uncredited writing colleague on the film A.I. Bezzerides (“Kiss Me Deadly,” “Thieves Highway,” etc.) was, as they used to say, a “fellow traveler” (according to J. Hoberman’s “The Magic Hour”). Rossen was blacklisted in 1951 and eventually named names before HUAC in 1953.
     
    Also FWIW, although I can't confirm that this is true, a now-deceased great American writer who shall be nameless (because, again, I can't confirm that this story is true, though I trust my source for it) was a committed CPUSA member of the type outlined above (the committed CPUSA member part of this writer’s history is fact; he wrote of this himself). He decamped to Mexico in the post-war Red Scare era, and while there his "hardness"/willingness to follow Party discipline was put to the test, according to the story I was told. He was informed that a member of his circle of political emigrees was in fact relaying information about them to the FBI and that he (i.e. the writer) must now engineer that man's death, which he did -- doing so even (or maybe in some sense because -- see the putting aside bourgeois morality and submitting to Party discipline theme) he was an essentially kind gentle man.

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  19. I have so many questions and speculations about Desert Fury. I return to the scene where Hodiak and Corey's characters stopped in their tracks upon first seeing Scott's character. They agree she strongly resembles Hodiak's character's late wife. If the resemblance is so strong, could Scott's character be the daughter of the late wife? If so, how did Mary Astor's character come to raise Scott's character if she is not the birth mother?

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  20. I love this movie bought it on dvd here


    http://www.classicmoviesandtvcom.com/product/desert-fury-dvd-burt-lancaster-1947

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