Desert Fury (1947)

The Worst Film Ever

the audience applauded

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

a film about passion. in different aspects and nuances and forms. few great performances - Mary Astor and Burt Lancaster first-. the atmosphere of small town from desert. the geography of bad guy life, weakness and use of people. and the quiet Charming Prince. this is all. at the first sigh. because the most fascinating ingredient is the not so ambiguous relationship between the characters of Wendell Corey and John Hodiak.something missing. the censorship, the scandal, the stones of conservative public. and, maybe, the cause could be the chemistry between Eddie and Johnny, too realistic for our time in same measure, who saves the film. because all is well known. except the extravagant triangle who , to the end, becomes so clear, after few clues. but this is only the op of the mixture of liaisons of love, passion and desires.the love for her daughter of Fritzie, the affection for Paula of the Tom Hanson, the classic fascination of freedom and fake love story are, in same measure important. sure, Desert Fury is far to be the best film of genre. but it remains special. for the strange form of courage/unconscious of its director.

I wanted to watch this film because the idea of a film noir in color that works always intrigues me….especially one with Burt Lancaster, Lizabeth Scott & Mary Astor…..unfortunately, it doesn't work here….which, for me, leaves "Chinatown" as the only color noir that's true to the genre….Desert Fury is not really film noir- more like a melodramatic soap opera with a very soap opera score by Miklós Rózsa…..and terrible 'soap opera' over-acting with the exception of Lancaster….add in a thin storyline and poor editing, leaving only the above average cinematography (great desert landscapes) to appreciate…..Plus it always cracks me up when characters in any movie of any era meet each other, kiss a couple of times and all of a sudden they're 'in love' with each other…and the storybook ending where the bad guys die and the couple walks off into the sunrise together is not remotely film noir…..for the real stuff, watch "Out of the Past", "The Killers", "Double Indemnity" or the "Asphalt Jungle"…..

The main town used in this movie is Cottonwood AZ, I know because I live here. My husbands family are pioneers of Sedona and the Verde Vally area. Cottonwood is about bout 5 minutes from where the bridge scene was used at (Tuziegoot)filming was actually at lower Clarkdale area by the Verde River. The Jail, Drugstore, main street, Purple Sage(was Rusty's Bar in old town Cottonwood, in fact Rusty changed the name of his bar to the Purple sage after that movie was filmed there). Scenes of the ranch and out on the roads are at West Sedona, and Big Park by Sedona. We also have a street named Chuckawalla because of this movie. It's really amazing to see what it looked like compared to now days. They give historical tours in old town and Desert Fury is on their pamphlet. It was a big bootlegging town in the prohibition days that made it so popular. Cottonwood was called "the biggest little city in Arizona".

Back in the forties, when movies touched on matters not yet admissible in "polite" society, they resorted to codes which supposedly floated over the heads of most of the audience while alerting those in the know to just what was up. Probably no film of the decade was so freighted with innuendo as the oddly obscure Desert Fury, set in a small gambling oasis called Chuckawalla somewhere in the California desert. Proprietress of the Purple Sage saloon and casino is the astonishing Mary Astor, in slacks and sporting a cigarette holder; into town drives her handful-of-a-daughter, Lizabeth Scott, looking, in Technicolor, like 20-million bucks. But listen to the dialogue between them, which suggests an older Lesbian and her young, restless companion (one can only wonder if A.I. Bezzerides' original script made this relationship explicit). Even more blatant are John Hodiak as a gangster and Wendell Corey as his insanely jealous torpedo. Add Burt Lancaster as the town sheriff, stir, and sit back. Both Lancaster and (surprisingly) Hodiak fall for Scott. It seems, however, that Hodiak not only has a past with Astor, but had a wife who died under suspicious circumstances. The desert sun heats these ingredients up to a hard boil, with face-slappings aplenty and empurpled exchanges. Don't pass up this hothouse melodrama, chock full of creepily exotic blooms, if it comes your way; it's a remarkable movie.