Son of Fury: The Story of Benjamin Blake

This is a pretty entertaining film that works pretty well due to decent writing and an excellent villain in the form of George Sanders. The film begins with a young boy being forcibly taken from his loving grandfather and the boy is made a stable boy for a rich baronet. It seems that this rich guy (Sanders) is actually the kid's uncle but instead of being kind, he treats the kid like dirt. The reasons are because the uncle wants to keep the family fortune for himself AND because something about his dead brother and his wife bother him so intensely that he wants to make their child's life hell. The boy is played by Roddy McDowell, but after the first 15 minutes or so, he is "Hollywood aged" and is played by Tyrone Power. Power is very good in the film, but a few macho scenes didn't seem all that plausible--especially after seeing his rather scrawny frame once he took his shirt off part-way through the film.

Well, Power cannot stay at the manor to take the abuse forever, especially since the uncle seems intent on eventually killing him--beating him savagely and making up a story that Power attacked and tried to kill him! So, he runs off to sea and meets up with a friend, John Carradine --in one of his non-crazy or monster roles. Together they plan to jump ship, make their fortunes and return to England. Well, all this DOESN'T go exactly as planned and Power meets a beautiful native girl played pretty convincingly by Gene Tierney. What happens next I really don't want to divulge--it would spoil the film's many surprises. However, the film does have many twists and surprises--especially at the end and enough that it elevates this film above the norm and makes it very watchable--nearly earning it a score of 8.

Those who claim Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift were the screen's all-time most beautiful couple apparently have never seen Tyrone Power and Gene Tierney. SON OF FURY is a wonderful multi-genre picture that goes from British period piece to South Seas romance quite smoothly. The film's plot has been well-explained by multiple IMDb members so I'll just concentrate on the performances.

The entire cast does fine work. Gene Tierney doesn't appear until a full hour as passed and her role doesn't require much except smiling and looking utterly beautiful and that she does to perfection. George Sanders (looking amazingly like John Wayne in the early scenes) has one of his most brutally villainous roles and he plays it without flinching, this is no character you love to hate, he's one scary SOB. This major 1942 film is also notable for giving breaks to two actresses who had been brushed off by many in Hollywood, the troubled Frances Farmer who plays Sanders' daughter (and Power's first love) and early talkie star Kay Johnson, making a very rare appearance, as Sander's wife. John Carradine has one of his most likable roles as a seedy castaway who turns out to be a great friend. There's also an exceptional performance from Harry Davenport (best known as Doc Meade from GONE WITH THE WIND) as Power's beloved grandfather.

And I've saved the best for last, the one, the only Tyrone Power. Was there ever a more gorgeous man in movies? And SON OF FURY fairly revels in his beauty, his beautiful mop of thick black hair, his stunning profile, manly arms, friendly eyes and infectious smile. And as a bonus, there are numerous scenes of Power shirtless, running around the island in sarong-like swim-shorts. To top it all off, Tyrone is a fantastic actor, one of classic Hollywood's best. He would have been a superstar in any era.

This film stars two of the most stunning women ever to step before a camera, and two of the most troubled ones: Gene Tierney and Francis Farmer.

Set in Georgian era England, this is an absorbing film. It's the story of Benjamin Blake (played as a child by Roddy McDowell and later by Tyrone Power) who after being orphaned at an early age, is cheated out of his title and inheritance by Sir Arthur Blake (George Sanders), his sadistic uncle who keeps him as a bonded servant.

Ben escapes and stows away to a remote island in the South Pacific at a time when travel was a lot more difficult than dropping into Harvey World Travel or hitting the Trivago App on your iPhone. Years later he returns to England to put things right.

Along the way he falls in love with two women. The first is Sir Arthur's daughter, Isabel Blake (Francis Farmer). Not much of it is made in the film, but this surely would have to be a non-starter as she was his first cousin. Nevertheless, Francis Farmer was never photographed to better advantage than in "Son of Fury", dazzling is a fair description. This was her last movie before her life fell apart.

The second is Eve, the native girl Ben meets on the island played by Gene Tierney. The camera loved her and those amazing cheekbones that allowed her to play a wide range of ethnicities from Ancient Egypt to Polynesia - nearly always as a princess. It's sad knowing that this was about the time she too was overwhelmed by personal problems.

Tyrone Power made every movie he was in seem important. Not just darkly handsome, you felt there was depth to his characters, and he could wear a Regency top hat and coattails as though he was born to the era.

For anyone who loves movies of the golden age, the fact that the film stars George Sanders is reason enough to see it. Along with his trademark disdain he projects a powerful physical presence. He was a big dude and in the boxing scenes he looks surprisingly fit, and as though he knew some moves. It would be best to smile when calling him a fop.

The whole production is polished with plenty of glass shots and moody sets; the slightly unreal quality gives it a touch of movie magic. The film features brilliant characterisations right down the cast list, and Alfred Newman contributed a vibrant score drenched in salt air and the aroma of the South Seas.

You don't have to be a film buff to enjoy "Son of Fury", but it adds to the enjoyment if you know something of the stars and the filmmakers. They have all gone now, but this film is a lasting testimony to their talents.

Some may remember Kenneth Anger taking this lush film's title and gender-bending it a bit to give his Frances Farmer chapter in "Hollywood Babylon" its tabloid tone, but this is truly a great movie (outside of the fact that it features not one, but two Tinseltown beauties who, in Anger's salacious words "drank at the well of madness") ... Farmer, after a string of uneven pictures, is relegated to a supporting role here, but actually fares better than leading lady Gene Tierney because 1) her role is far more complex and 2) her on-screen chemistry with star Tyrone Power is much more palpable. Perhaps the saddest thing about "Son of Fury" is the knowledge that despite the now recurrent difficulties being reported from the set, Farmer had caught herself a break and maybe a chance to finally ride out Paramount's punishment -- starting in 1938, of course, with the aptly-named (and perfectly awful) "Ride A Crooked Mile". But as we all know, the road got bumpier, the turns sharper and the potholes unavoidable ... To see Farmer surrounded not only by the likes of such A-list talent as Power and Tierney, but a stellar George Sanders and very young Roddy McDowell is to get a glimpse of what might have been. To read accounts of Farmer being tricked into watching this film years later while incarcerated in an insane asylum, if indeed true, is unforgivable ... Watch "Son of Fury" for everything the Golden Age of Hollywood purported to be -- solid, if not overly- spectacular, entertainment. It may not be the last film of Farmer's short-lived career, but it is our last look at this fine young actress at her peak -- as stunning and mythic as she was years earlier in "Come And Get It" -- but now with an undeniable sadness melting from within.

Done a year before Tyrone Power went to war in those lovely South Sea Islands depicted here, Son of Fury is the film adaption of a best selling novel of that period, Benjamin Blake. I think Darryl Zanuck decided that Son of Fury had more of a box office ring to it.

Our protagonist is the disinherited scion of a landed gentry family. We meet Benjamin Blake as a child played by Roddy McDowall. No proof of the marriage of his parents can be found and his uncle George Sanders has taken over the family estate and made McDowall his ward, binding him legally to him in essential slavery. He puts him to work in the stable.

As McDowall grows up to be Tyrone Power, he gets a thing for Sanders's daughter Frances Farmer and she him. To be perfectly fair, we are treading into incestuous territory here and even a cad like Sanders has some reason for concern. It is the one real weakness of the plot. I wonder how this slipped by The Code.

Of course Power decides he's had enough and goes off to the South Seas where he gets involved with native princess Gene Tierney. In fact Son of Fury is distinguished because of Power's involvement with two of the great screen beauties, Gene Tierney and Frances Farmer. Tierney is busy poaching on Dorothy Lamour's sarong territory and had this been a Paramount film, Lamour would have had Tierney's part.

As for Farmer this was her last film before being confined to the mental hospital in a story that is now too well known. What a tragic waste of beauty and talent.

In a sense this is a reunion picture of sorts. Tyrone Power's break out film was Lloyd's of London, also set in Georgian England and also having George Sanders playing a Georgian cad. In fact the word cad is virtually synonymous with George Sanders on the screen. Nobody could play the cad better, no one ever has since.

Sanders is my favorite in Son of Fury, the man you pay your ticket for to boo. Seeing Son of Fury is to see Sanders at his finest.