La hija del pecado

Probably the most distinguished feature of DESERT FURY is the spectacular Technicolor Paramount lavished on it, a story of personal conflicts among Nevada's gambling set. Another distinguished feature is MARY ASTOR as Fritzi, a hard-boiled dame who runs a gambling establishment and keeps a tight leash on her willful daughter (LIZABETH SCOTT). Scott is strikingly photographed and reminded me of a more animated version of Veronica Lake.

But complications arise when two men pay too much attention to Astor's daughter--JOHN HODIAK (a no good hunk who may or may not have murdered his wife) and BURT LANCASTER as a wary police officer who keeps Lizabeth Scott on his radar at all times.

It's fun as melodrama, nothing more or less, and at times achieves something of a camp classic with Astor's butch performance as she effortlessly steals the film's acting honors. Take it or leave it, it's all in good, steamy fun with lots of fury going on under those hot Technicolor lights.

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.

Barbara Stanwyck must have been busy, so Hollywood asked Mary Astor to play the hardened "casino" owner trying to protect her daughter from her past mistakes in Desert Fury. Lizbeth Scott is the daughter with bad judgement and a rebellious nature, and she quickly falls for the one man her mother forbids: John Hodiak. John is a gangster and clearly bad news, but Lizbeth insists on ruining herself for him, even when the uniformed, young, handsome Burt Lancaster is in love with her.

The so-called romance between Lizbeth and John is far less interesting than what could be argued as a romance between John and his faithful sidekick, Wendell Corey. Wendell gets an introducing credit in the movie, and he gets an enormously meaty role for his first foray in front of the camera. A villain with many layers, some of which couldn't be discussed because of the Hays Code, he's very protective over his friend and doesn't approve of Lizbeth's moony eyes.

The best part of Desert Fury is Edith Head's costumes. Every single scene, Lizbeth and Mary are dressed in gorgeous dresses that will have you oo-ing and ahh-ing for the entire running length. Lizbeth is very pretty in this film, and dressing her up in such beautiful costumes only makes it more fun to watch her, even when she's exercising bad judgement.

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.

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".