Desert Fury

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.

Oh god, what a petrie dish fry up! DESERT FURY is literally hysterical, like a shrill daytime soapie with cinema values. Made in 1947 in perfect glossy Technicolor to distract you from the beserkness and tawdry storyline, this is one terrific exercise in censorship busting antics that managed to fulfill it's reputation. Lizabeth Scott, like a naughty green fairy loose from a bottle of Absinthe, Wendell Corey as the housewife to creepy-teeth gangster mate John Hodiak, Burt Lancaster pretending he doesn't know and Mary Astor the battle cruiser mother each out vie each other in every scene with a regular exchange of niceties followed by face slapping or tantrum and threat. Every scene, like a roundelay of temperament. DESERT FURY is genuine queer cinema. With incest hinted, guns and car tyre screeching, sinister sunglass wearing and cactus pricks everywhere, this wacky hussy of a film makes for a terrific couch night with friends who have never seen it.

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.

This is one of the only examples of film noir in color. Burt Lancaster and luscious Lizabeth Scott headline a stellar cast in this twisted romance/thriller. John Hodiak and Wendell Corey's "special" is sorely tested when Hodiak falls hard for bombshell Scott. Scott's mother Fritzi (played by hard as nails Mary Astor) tries to protect her "baby" from falling into the wrong hands (namely Hodiak's) while good guy Lancaster valiantly attempts to rid the town of no-goodniks like Hodiak, Corey and sometimes Astor. It's a two-fisted Technicolor knockout of a film and a classic example of late 40's "adult" fare. See it with somebody you lust after.

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.