Kirpianuscus a film about passion. in different aspects and nuances and forms. few great performances - Mary Astor and Burt Lancaster first-. the atmosphere of small town from desert. the geography of bad guy life, weakness and use of people. and the quiet Charming Prince. this is all. at the first sigh. because the most fascinating ingredient is the not so ambiguous relationship between the characters of Wendell Corey and John Hodiak.something missing. the censorship, the scandal, the stones of conservative public. and, maybe, the cause could be the chemistry between Eddie and Johnny, too realistic for our time in same measure, who saves the film. because all is well known. except the extravagant triangle who , to the end, becomes so clear, after few clues. but this is only the op of the mixture of liaisons of love, passion and desires.the love for her daughter of Fritzie, the affection for Paula of the Tom Hanson, the classic fascination of freedom and fake love story are, in same measure important. sure, Desert Fury is far to be the best film of genre. but it remains special. for the strange form of courage/unconscious of its director.

mark.waltz Film Noir and Technicolor have never really mixed well, so in the few of them made, the plot has needed to be extra colorful in order to make it work. For Paramount's "Desert Fury", the color isn't a metaphor for the lives of the characters here, but definitely a contrast to it. The film could also be considered an update of George Bernard Shaw's "Mrs. Warren's Profession" where a seemingly devoted mother is actually a madame, and the daughter (here played by Lizabeth Scott) is a seemingly sweet young socialite. But Scott, like her mother (Mary Astor), is attracted to the dangerous, and for her, that is gambler John Hodiak, whose right-hand man (Wendell Corey) is a bit too "devoted" to his boss.A young Burt Lancaster is cast against his normal type as the local lawman, patiently in love with Scott while out to get the goods on Hodiak. Tension arises as the possessive Astor has her own designs on Hodiak (not to mention a slight mustache, accentuated by the color photography and really obvious in a big screen revival of this which I saw) and Corey gets more possessive of his employer. Astor's showy part (her best since "The Maltese Falcon") outshines the others, although Scott's sultriness in this role makes her unforgettable as well. The truth of the matter is that Ms. Astor and Ms. Scott do not at all seem like mother and daughter, as if Lizabeth's character was actually one of Astor's "girls" rather than her own. The Arizona desert is even more impressive in color and is a unique feature to make this must-see film noir, even if it is filled with flaws.

rafael105 This is one of the great crypto-gay B movies of its day. If you take the ridiculous story line at all seriously, it couldn't rate more than a 4. But, if you scratch the almost non-existent veneer, it's definitely worth a 7 for its ability to sustain the ambiguous sexuality of the plot for the full 90 minutes. Can a good girl who knows she likes it bad be happy with bisexuality and incest? Or will censorship and patriarchy force her into submission? It's a festival of bitch slapping, double entendres, guns as phallic symbols and a pigskin glove. Plus, Mary Astor is great as the hard-nosed old gal who talks straight and steers queer. I wish they still made them like this. Kind of makes you miss the days when they had to really work overtime to make gay films.

nomoons11 Wow Lizabeth Scott was no winner of an actress. She is just dreadful. I can't see how any producer thought she was gonna be the next big thing back in this day and time. She's basically a short version of Lauren Bacall with half the talent.A noted gambler comes back to town to lay low. The town holds bad memories for him because his wife died in a supposed car accident there. It haunts him all the while he's there. He gets involved with a lot of the old friends he knew from there including an old flames daughter. She's young and stupid and is basically clueless about everything. The local deputy likes her and she the same but she decides to take to the local thug/gambler instead. Her mother and the deputy warn her about him but she doesn't care. She goes against their advice and soon...sparks will soon fly.I didn't go into this one with high hopes because I saw Lizabeth Scott's name in the cast. She was never anything special and in this she show's why. Her portrayal of a 19 year old "I'll do what I want" daughter of a local gambling house owner is just laughable. We get a young Burt Lancaster as the Deputy and the great Mary Astor as the mother but when your working with Lizabeth Scott, all the talent there was in this oozed away with her terrible performance. I mean this one had a really decent cast. With John Hodiak and Wendell Corey playing the heavies I thought maybe it could work but nope. The really unbelievable performance by Ms. Scott threw all that other talent right out of the window.I personally have no problems telling any one to save your time and watch something else but this film has one good thing going for in that there's a little twist in the film you try and try to figure out but won't...until the end. The twist is actually pretty good and after I learned it I had one of those "A-ha" moments. It may be a nothing moment to other viewers of this film but it sewed up a lot of questions I had.