Visiting Film Noir: Desert Fury

1947 Film Noir
From Paramount Pictures
Novel by Ramona Stewart
Screenplay by Robert Rossen
and A. I. Bezzerides
Directed by Lewis Allen

Starring
Lizabeth Scott
John Hodiak
Burt Lancaster
Mary Astor
Wendell Corey

Here's another film noir from producer Hal Wallis, happily ensconced in his palatial offices at Paramount with his band of merry movie-makers.  Actually, these were some very serious folks.  His first star on the roster was Lizabeth Scott who was followed by Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster and his newest discovery, Wendell Corey.  Barbara Stanwyck came and stayed awhile as well. 

Lancaster had made no films when Wallis signed him but the producer chose to send him off to make two films at other studios.  The Killers (1946) starred Lancaster and Ava Gardner and caused tremors around Hollywood, and then came the well-received, violent prison drama, Brute Force (1947).  These films were both noirs and Wallis was mighty impressed with the new actor.  Wallis said he sent an unknown out to make a couple of flicks and the kid came back a star.

Stanwyck, Scott and Douglas had also just completed Wallis' first noir at the studio, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) and Wallis was ready for his second, this film.

Neither Scott nor Wallis wanted her to be in one more film where she supported another actress.  While all five actors here have good roles, it is around Scott that all the action swirls.  She plays the headstrong daughter of a casino owner (Astor) who has just returned to her mother's home in the fictional Nevada town of Chuckawalla after quitting school.  Scott and Astor have a contentious relationship over Mama wanting to tightly control her daughter and the daughter having none of it.  

Lancaster's part was greatly enlarged and the script revamped after Wallis got a look at his other work.  He plays a deputy sheriff who seems to be everywhere in his squad car.  He's a nice guy who has a suspicious nature and knows the scene in gambling communities.

Returning to Chuckawalla at the same time as Scott is Hodiak, a known thug and perhaps murderer since his wife's car mysteriously tumbled off a bridge.  He got off but suspicions remain.  Both Lancaster and Astor believe he did it and neither wants Scott to be involved with him.

Hodiak & Corey giving Lancaster a hard time

Another one who doesn't want Scott around-- and threatens murder to get his way-- is Corey who is Hodiak's right-hand man, cook, housekeeper, chauffeur, lacky.  He is quietly vicious and conniving and obviously in love with Hodiak.  Yes, obvious.  

Astor tries to entice Lancaster into marrying Scott but he is disgusted at her cheap invitation.  She then tries to stop Scott from marrying Hodiak and when the trio is together in Astor's giant foyer, she tells Scott that she herself and Hodiak once had a relationship.  Nothing will deter the lovers until Corey tells Scott (in Hodiak's presence) that his wife's death on the bridge was no accident.  There's a couple of deaths and a tense car chase before the film ends back on that same bridge.

There has always been a question as to whether this is truly a film noir.  There are a few things here... some contrivances and confusion on plot and character, characters who are not exactly upstanding citizens and there is Miklós Rózsa's dramatic score, torn from the pages of any noir playbook.  There is a late night wet street scene although desert rains hardly remind one of the streets of New York.  And I succumb to the fact that the film is always referred to as a film noir.  However, there are none of the great black and white shadows and the clever lighting, noir mainstays?

Lancaster & Scott, two of Wallis's most treasured stars

It is extremely rare to see a noir in color and here it is glorious color.  To tell the truth, the film's colorful look is one of the things I thoroughly enjoyed but it threw many off the film noir track.    

Lewis Allen was a good director but he was probably not a good fit for film noir.  He had never done one before.  Was he perhaps too timid in his approach to the material?  Maybe he never knew people like these characters.  Too bad Billy Wilder, Jacques Tourneur, Edward Dmytryk, Robert Wise, Robert Siodmark, Fritz Lang or Otto Preminger couldn't have directed it.  Wouldn't Wallis pay the big bucks?

The movie, of course, did have the talents of actors associated with noir.  Lancaster, Scott and Corey were all just starting out but they would appear in enough noirs to be associated with the genre.  Astor, of course, was the treacherous Brigid O'Shaughnessy from The Maltese Falcon and Hodiak would make a few noirs, although he would not be as closely identified with noirs as the others.

Lancaster delivers a solid performance but not as showy as we've become accustomed to seeing.  I don't think he ever had third billing in another film.  It's a curiosity that he did here considering he'd been top-billed and caused a sensation in his two earlier films.  Top billing went to Scott in the print media and Hodiak on the screen.  

In case no one has ever read anything I've written about Scott, let me say it... I loved watching and hearing the throaty voice of this pouty and sultry noir actress.  It's that simple.

Hodiak never became particularly famous and yet he was always a good, if dour, dramatic actor.  He got lost in the MGM stable of top stars but was likely given this role because he had just finished playing Judy Garland's leading man in The Harvey Girls the previous year.  He was a great menacing bad guy... no wonder he played them so often.

Astor & Scott waiting for camera set-up

By 1947 Astor's career had lapsed into mother roles... playing Garland's mother in Meet Me in St. Louis (1945) and Little Women (1949) come to mind.  But this mother is not at all like those women.  She's a tough dame, no two ways about it.  No one found anything soft about her and that was what her daughter was seeking.  Mama had a rather mannish approach to her daughter and in one of the final scenes she tells Scott to gimme a kiss on the lips.  I was fascinated.

As I've said before, Corey never accelerated my pulse rate but I must say... okay, I'm even happy to say... that he was certainly first-rate here in his film debut.  His low-key personality type made for a mysterious and most effective thug.

It still amazes me that the gay element slipped by the censors and most of the public.  The script found it necessary for Corey to say three times that Hodiak was good-looking.  Consider this exchange when Scott asks Corey how he met Hodiak...  It was at the automat off Times Square at two in the morning.  I was broke.  He had a couple of dollars.  We got to talking.  He ended up paying for my ham and eggs.  I went home with him that night.  We were together from then on.

I guess it was a little too cryptic for those in '47 but the film has gained a great deal of the attention over the years and it's generally considered to be because folks want to have a look at this friendship.

Acclaimed Paramount costumer Edith Head turned her magic on Scott and Astor.  What a fine look at 40s fashion this film provides.

Desert Fury (a silly, melodramatic title) is beautifully filmed... not just the vivid colors but the desert is made to look about as inviting as I can recall in films.  Bravo to cinematographers Edward Cronjager and Charles Lang and to the art and set decorators.  The mansion used was one in Piri, California as was the bridge.  Desert scenes were filmed around Sedona and Cottonwood, Arizona.  All interior scenes, of course, were filmed at Paramount.

I may never write about a car again but from the first time I saw the film, I was drawn to the one that Scott drives.  It is a 1946 Chrysler New Yorker Town and Country convertible, beautifully decked out with its burgundy color and wood panels.  Lucky Liz. 

A friend asked me if I was writing about Desert Fury under the guilty pleasures banner.  I said I had nothing to feel guilty about.    Of course, it's not perfect on every level but it's a completely entertaining drama, beautifully filmed, with an exciting cast.  It is pure pleasure.  

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He who was so full of himself