Diagonaldi Very well executed

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Derry Herrera Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

Yazmin Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

JohnHowardReid Copyright 15 May 1947 by Hall Wallis Productions, Inc. Released through Paramount Pictures Inc. New York opening at the Paramount: 24 September 1947. U.S. release: 15 August 1947. U.K. release: November 1947. Australian release: 27 November 1947. 8,656 feet. 96 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Girl falls for out-of-town gambler with murky past.NOTES: Film debut of Wendell Corey. Also Lizabeth Scott's first color film. Shooting time: 72 days. Locations: Sedona (northern Arizona); Navajo Reservation (north of Flagstaff); and the small mining settlements of Cottonwood and Clarkdale.COMMENT: An odd film - but not without interest. The basic plot is typical soapie fare which allows an ultra-glamorous heroine to emote against richly glossy interiors and spectacular mountain locations. Unashamedly, it's a Lizabeth Scott vehicle. Stunningly made up and costumed, she receives more close-ups than anyone else in the cast, and if she fails to give more than a superficial earnestness to her characterization, who will notice?Enveloped in all the trappings of Hollywood expertise at its most pointedly glamorous, Desert Fury pre-dates Ross Hunter's Universal veneers - and easily outclasses them in sophistication and style. Lang's atmospheric photography, Rozsa's haunting music, Perry Ferguson's sets, Edith Head's costumes skittle the Universal talent. Admittedly Lewis Allen's direction is no more than ordinarily competent (which places him only marginally ahead of Douglas Sirk), but this one has a script by Robert Rossen no less and a strong support cast including Wendell Corey making a memorable debut as the vicious man-behind ("Eddie Bendix? I'm Eddie Bendix. I've been Eddie Bendix all these years. Why don't women fall in love with me?")John Hodiak is effective as the hollow Bendix, while Mary Astor displays an appropriately dominating manner as a strong-willed "operator".Burt Lancaster has a rather thankless role as the "other man". He has stated that his part was built up at Wallis' insistence - which we can well believe - and it's certainly true that he handles himself with his usual assurance. (The rest of the players, including Kristine Miller who is rather prominently billed, and silent star Jane Novak, have strictly minor roles.)All in all, Desert Fury is so attractive to look at - and the music so spellbinding to listen to - it doesn't much matter that the script has a great deal of furious talk but (aside from the climactic chase in which everything is magically put right) little furious action.

bkoganbing Although Desert Fury was the first film actually released under his studio of Paramount, Burt Lancaster had already made quite a splash for himself in The Killers and Brute Force. In this one he's third billed behind John Hodiak and Lizabeth Scott and all he really does here is flash the pearly whites and be a stalwart hero as a deputy sheriff.John Hodiak is a notorious gambler/racketeer has come home to Chuckawalla, Nevada where the Queen of the town Mary Astor with her casino runs the place. Hodiak left the place under a cloud with the death of his wife in an automobile accident which looked suspicious, but no one can prove anything.Astor's daughter Lizabeth Scott who just quit yet another school is intrigued with Hodiak, but everyone's against the pairing, Astor, Lancaster who has a thing for Scott himself, and Hodiak's sidekick and gunsill Wendell Corey who has a most interesting and quite gay relationship with Hodiak.Desert Fury is one of those several films from the studio days where gay was strictly taboo yet it somehow got to the screen. That scene where Corey tells Scott how he met a ragged and hungry Hodiak at the Automat and bought him a meal and took him home sure sounded like a pickup to me. Many from the generation before Stonewall told me that the Horn&Hardart Automat was one of the great pickup places in New York. Romances and flings have started in stranger places. No way that the writers would not have known that. Corey's devotion to Hodiak can't be explained any other way as the story unfolds. In fact he's the stronger of the two.Corey and Mary Astor walk off with the acting honors. Astor covers a lot of the story's defects with a bravura performance that Bette Davis or Barbara Stanwyck would envy. Desert Fury neither helped or hurt the rising career of Burt Lancaster, but he's far from the center of this story.

David Traversa You Tube is a great place to watch all these old movies. But as I wrote as my "Summary" (1947--2010) too many years have gone by and no matter how much we like the interpreters..., something has to give. Now we see too many downfalls that at the time (maybe) people weren't aware of.For example: Lizabeth Scott, as lovely and personal as she was (her voice was as attractive in its whispering as Ava Gardner's) was a wrong choice to play the daughter of Mary Astor (excelent, beautiful, very talented actress) since the age difference was minimal, most of the time unnoticeable. But..., since at the time Scott was the producer's... friend, there was no other choice!! John Hodiak was in no way presentable on his bare chest, at least now that we have become accustomed to gym exercised torsos. Burt Lancaster set of hair was so gorgeous that every time he appeared I, at least, lost track of what they were saying. Lizabeth Scott hair was also a miracle, product of Hollywood hairstylists: Fabulous. Something that drove me mad was that oval window in Scott's bedroom... Have you ever seen anything so outrageously artificial outside of an amateurish theatrical production?? Censure at the time was so frightful that most of the dialog is highly hilarious, trying to say without saying what was going on between Mr. Hodiak and Mr. Corey's characters (they were lovers).The final resolution of the story is so abrupt that one could think Scott's character was an alien without human sentiments. All of a sudden she falls in love with the remaining man, because obviously she was "a good girl" after all. Silly movie. The most enjoyable thing: That extraordinary "Town and Country" convertible she was driving all the time. Magnificent car.

dbdumonteil I've always wondered why Lizabeth Scott never became a big star;part of the reason can be found in the fact that she resembled Lauren Bacall.She plays opposite a bossy Mary Astor and a young Burt Lancaster with whom she would team up again the following year in " I walk alone" .But neither her nor Lancaster have interesting characters in "desert fury".The real meat lies in the John Hodiak/Wendell Corey relationship.It seems sometimes that Johnny is in love with Eddie and is jealous of the women he woos."He's a bad man,he might have killed his wife " Johnny warns Paula ,but he cannot hide his misogyny and he tells her so:he hates her,and never Eddie will leave HIM for HER.