Lure of the Wilderness

Do not confound this film with LURE OF THE SWAMP, made by Hubert Cornfield five years later. Or even with Joseph Lewis' CRY OF THE HUNTED, made for MGM, starring Barry Sullivan and Vittorio Gassman. This movie from director Jean Negulesco, a pure Twentieth Century Fox film maker, is a pale remake of the original, but agreeable to watch, full of charm and pulled by convincing actors' performances. I did not remind that Walter Brennan played in both, and I don't remember if he has the same character. I am not sure that color helpd much the atmosphere of this kind of story, but the swamp, bayou settings, maybe justified this decision for the producers.

The year is 1910 , it stars a hunter, Ben Tyler (Jeffrey Hunter) , a young man living with his father Ned Tyler (Harry Carter) , who is searching for his dog, and strays deep into the treacherous Okefenokee swamp in Georgia. He comes across a young girl (Jean Peters) and her father Jim (Walter Brennan) . The old man Jim Harper several years ago was unjustly accused of a murder , as he is living and hiding in the swamp with his beautiful daughter, Laurie . Lure of love in the devil's own domain ¡ . The Treacherous Swampland of Georgia . The Swamp ! Sinister - mysterious - it shaped the lives and loves and hates of the people who lived around its edges !!

A really off-beat Western regarding young hunter stumbles upon a wanted fugitive and his lovely daughter who have been hiding from law for years until they are befriended by a trapper who penetrates the swamp in search of his dog , and then he helps them return to civilization. It is a romantic and colorful film set in a Georgia swamp , with a triangular romance in which two young people Ben/Jeffery Hunter and Laurie/Jean Peters fall in love, and while another lover/Constance Smith has jealous and schemes her vengeance . And adding the ordinary suntry denizens , such as : alligators , snakes , and quicksands . Based on a story by Vereen Bell that was formerly adapted as ¨Swamp water¨ 1941 by Jean Renoir , Irving Pichel with Walter Brennan , Walter Huston , Anne Baxter , Dana Andrews . Fine acting abounds all around . Decent interpretation by Jeffrey Hunter as Ben, a young who works on getting a fugitive to come out of the wilderness and clear his name . Jean Peters is extremely gorgeous as an intrepid heroine . Walter Brennan is good as an old man who was unjustly accused of murder, seeking refuge in a Georgia swamp . Suppport cast is pretty good , such as : Constance Smith ,Tom Tully , Robert Adler , Harry Shannon , Dale Robertson , and the ordinary nasty Jack Elam. There's glimmer technicolor cinematography , with the overpowering atmosphere of the swamps wonderfully captured by cameraman Edward Cronjager , shot on location in the Okefenokee Swamp Park . His camerawork helps build up a nice sense of the claustrophobic menace conjured up by the lush vegetation .

Evocative production design and art direction from Lyle Wheeler , Thomas Little , Fred J. Rode . Thrilling as well as emotive musical score by the classy composer Franz Waxman . The motion picture was well directed by Jean Negulesco . He was a filmmaker of both popular , polished entertainments , as well as critically acclaimed and he directed all kinds of genres with penchant for musical , drama and comedy . As he realized various dramatic films in the 1940s and 1950s . He helmed a realist war drama : Three came home with Claudette Colbert , a WWII film: The conspirators with Hedy Lamar , Paul Henreid , and made his version of sinking Titanic 1953 with Barbara Stanwick and the hit : Johnny Belinda .Subsequently , he directed : Humoresque , Road house and a remake : The rains of Ranchipur with Richard Burton and Lana Turner , the comedy : How to marry with a millionaire with Marilyn Monroe , Betty Grable ; the colorful movie : Boy on a dolphin with Sophia Loren , Alan Ladd and the musical movies : Daddy long legs 1955 with Fred Astaire and Three coins in the fountain ; furthermore , a Bette Davis vehicle : Phone call from a stranger . His last and unknown films were dramedy as The pleasure seekers , The invincible sex and Hello goodbye . Being his most successful and prestigious movie : Mask of Dimitrios with Peter Lorre .

A remake of "swamp water " ,Renoir's first American movie ,"lure of the wilderness 's is an estimable one ;the star of the movie is the swamp water ,and if it was filmed in black and white in the first version, color landscapes are a feast for the eye .Twelve years later , Walter Brennan plays the same part as in the French director's work .

But the characters are not cardboard; Jim and Laurie are outcasts , but they are not that much anxious to come back to "civilization" because the dice are loaded and the father won't have a fair trial ; Ben runs into them by chance ;he,too ,is some kind of orphan, for his father has thrown it out of the house when he told him he intended to come back to this doomed swamp where many a man got lost .So Jim becomes a surrogate father to him , his life comes now to resemble his/theirs,not the other way about ; and Jean Peters (who would also play an indian opposite Lancaster in Aldrich's " Apache" (1954))is a better "wild " girl than Ann Baxter .

The ball is an important scene because it's the first (timid) attempt to take Laurie back to the community ;as a fugitive outlaw's daughter she does not stand any chance to be accepted by the well-to-do people;the film is as much a man clearing his name as a younger 's initiation rite : the graves he digs is not for Harper ...

Here is an unusual story about a girl and her father, who take refuge in the Georgia swamps as they try to evade a linching mob. The father (excellently played by Walter Brennan) had been wrongly accused of murder in a small neighboring town. The girl (who turns out to be the beautiful -and quite athletic - Jean Peters)grows up in the swamps, away from civilization, until a man (handsome Jeff Hunter) arrives at their campsite looking for his stray dog. Of course the two young actors eventually fall in love, but even this is believable and interwined into the action and adventure of this highly intersting film. Director Jean Negulesco offers us a well balanced and magnificently edited film that deals with prejudices and lies - which can be abundant in any small town. Very well acted by Peters, Hunter, et all...who award us with quite authentic southern accents, for a change.

When I happened to come upon this film on TV, Constance Smith was on the screen. Immediately, I thought of Jean Peters because the resemblance was so great. I even thought she WAS Jean Peters, although the eye color and absence of the turned up tip of the nose gave me reason to doubt my initial impression. Lo and behold, who did I find was also in the film - Jean Peters! I did not see any reference in the film to the resemblance between the two, but I wonder if they were cast together because of this resemblance (admittedly, a subjective impression on my part). Perhaps there was an unstated implication that Jeffrey Hunter was attracted to Jean because of her resemblance to his "fiancee", played by Constance. In any event, a very good, if relatively unknown film, even as a remake of the generally more highly rated film it's derived from (with Walther Brennan in both!).