Les furies

This thing is a wild ride - it really crackles with energy! Plus its one of those rare films where the actors chew up the scenery and spit it back out, and its expertly done, absolutely right, and works beautifully. Also its a film made by adults, for adults, starring adults; all the leads are in their late 30s and up. It is very stylized and the black-and-white cinematography was nominated for an Academy Award. So many scenes stand out, but the whole section involving the "battle" with the Herrera family is particularly vivid. Gilbert Roland registers surprisingly well also, the role was perfect for him at that age. The Herrera mother nursing her hatred is wonderful. Its possibly the peak of Stanwyck's career; I'd argue that she was never able to make as good a film again. I would pay 100 TCs to see it another time!

This is a good film to watch as autumn turns to winter. It's filled with old hatreds, revenge both old and new, explosive emotions and a subtle intelligence. Walter Huston and Barbara Stanwyck go on a powerful tear as T.C. and Vance Jeffords. There are hints of incest in the complex presentation of the lives of this father and daughter.There, most of all, is a escalating chill that sweeps down into the furies, that freezes hearts and cools ardor.Films like "The Furies", swirl around the omnipotent lives of stern and demanding patriarchs. We await their comeuppance, their downfall. We await it and we regret that these larger then life men fail to hold on to their wealth, their loves, and sometimes their lives. It is a shame that Walter Huston was dead a year before this, his final film was released. His performance is mesmerizing.

This Antony Mann Western is little-known compared to his collaborations with James Stewart or Man of the West or a good number of other Mann films, but it's an equal to his best work. Barbara Stanwyck and Walter Huston (in his final performance) star as a daughter and her father, powerful ranchers who own the titular land. Their relationship, much as the title suggests, has a psycho-sexual tinge. When men call on Stanwyck, her father balks. And when hoochies cling to Huston, well, then things get real ugly! The Furies shows Mann bringing a lot of his noir skills to the Western genre. One can easily see how that genre influenced Mann's characterizations, but, in terms of film-making, he had largely moved on. The Furies is just dark and often nasty. I have to wonder why the film is so little known. My thought is that almost all Westerns feature male protagonists, with the most notably exception being Johnny Guitar. I'm not going to rag too much on that film, because I do like it, but The Furies is far superior. Stanwyck was rarely better. I might actually rate this as her best. Huston went out on one of his best performances. It's hard to believe he died before the film was even released with as much energy as he shows. My only real complaint with the movie is that it peaks too early. The standoff at the Herrera's fort is one of the greatest sequences in the history of the genre, and it's so good that the remainder of the film drags a bit. Still, a masterpiece. Thanks again, Criterion!

Barbara Stanwyck and Walter Huston are reasons enough to see any film they're in and both were nearly always good and more. Have also liked a lot of Judith Anderson's work since her unforgettable Mrs Danvers in 'Rebecca', and Beulah Bondi and Albert Dekker were always dependable. Have also loved a good deal of Anthony Mann's other work, including some of the best Westerns around, and Franz Waxman was one of the best film composers at the time in my view.

'The Furies' does fall slightly short of being the brilliant film that it could easily have been, but goodness wasn't it close to being. That is of course my feelings from my own viewing of it not too long ago, but will never hold anything against anybody that didn't care for it a great deal. My reason for saying that it was this close to being a great film is that 'The Furies' has so many strengths and those strengths were more than well done, they were brilliantly done.

It is hard knowing where to start with the praise, but lets start with the performances which were, with only one major exception, great. Stanwyck is a tremendously powerful presence, bringing her usual steel and vulnerability while Huston in sadly his last film is mesmerising. His best moments are intensely moving at times and have even more so a lot of menacing fire, the lack of any Oscar nomination or any award attention for his performance here is in my view criminal. Anderson proves herself to be a scene stealer and the tension between her and Stanwyck is one of the best executed and most interesting character/acting relationships in 'The Furies', not to mention her great last line. Bondi and Dekker are good, even though their roles are somewhat small and Gilbert Roland is appealing.

Most of the character/acting relationships are handled very well. Liked the tension between Stanwyck and Anderson and Stanwyck is far more convincing with Roland than she is with Wendell Corey, much more of a sense of them being in love. The most interesting is the father-daughter relationship, which had furious intensity and at times creepiness. Excepting Vance, the characters are interesting. TC being the meatiest and quite larger than life while not unbalancing the film.

Furthermore, Mann directs brilliantly, and the atmosphere and evocative setting is enhanced by Victor Millner's magnificently atmospheric, beautifully crafted cinematography that was deservingly Oscar-nominated. And by Waxman's rousing and at times haunting score. The script is intelligently written and taut while allowing breathing space and the story is always absorbing and tense, there is melodrama here but it is not overwrought.

Despite all those great things, a couple of things could have been done better. Corey is very stiff and a complete blank as the main romantic lead. He and Stanwyck have no real chemistry either, which is something of a moderately big problem as he has more screen time than Roland (who has far more charm and easier chemistry with Stanwyck).

Also thought that Blanche Yurka was a bit too theatrical and out of place here, though her screen time was not near as big as Corey's so wasn't as distracting.

Shortcomings aside, all in all this was a very good film because the acting, direction and photography are so good. 8/10

There's a lot of Freudian subtext in this unusual 1950 Western, but what resonates most is how director Anthony Mann so smoothly transcends the testosterone-driven genre to come up with an entertaining hybrid of a woman's picture and a Greek tragedy. At the dynamic core of this film is the masterstroke of casting Walter Huston (in his last screen role) and Barbara Stanwyck as a spendthrift father and his headstrong daughter at odds over running the expansive ranch that gives the movie its name. In Roman mythology, the Furies were supernatural personifications of the anger of the dead. As females, they represent regeneration and the potency of creation, which both consumes and empowers. It is this single-minded sense of empowerment that drives Vance Jeffords to usurp her wily father T.C. while seeking his approval at the same time.

Set in 1870's New Mexico, the story written by Charles Schnee ("The Bad and the Beautiful") is steeped in not-so-indiscreet psychological baggage. T.C. lives by his own rules by borrowing liberally from banks, paying hired hands with his own script, and allowing Mexican settlers to live off his land. Unlike her weak-willed brother, Vance enjoys provoking her father but to what end is never clear as an unacknowledged cloud of incest hangs over their strange relationship. At the same time, T.C. has a sworn enemy in gambler Rip Darrow who is looking to avenge his father's death at T.C.'s hands. Vance falls for Darrow, but she's also drawn to Juan Herrera, a childhood friend and one of the Mexicans now considered squatters. Complicating matters even more is the arrival of T.C.'s pretentious fiancée Flo Burnett, a devious socialite out to rid the ranch of the Mexicans and push Vance aside as the female head of the beleaguered family. This ploy leads to a most shocking scene that fits well within the story's noirish shadings.

As T.C., Huston gives a grand performance evoking both as the old prospector in his son John's "The Treasure of Sierra Madre" and the conflicted industrialist in William Wyler's "Dodsworth". Although a bit old for her role at 43, Stanwyck combines her no-nonsense manner with a childlike vulnerability in illuminating Vance's most complex psyche. This is excellent work from an actress who always seemed home on the range. Generally a pliable third lead in films ("Rear Window"), Wendell Corey doesn't lend charisma or a convincing edge to his swagger as Darrow, but Gilbert Roland shines in the smallish role of Juan and strikes sparks with Stanwyck that should have happened with Corey. However, it is Judith Anderson (Mrs. Danvers in "Rebecca") who steals her brief scenes as Flo bringing out a palpable tension with Stanwyck in their almost-comically cutting scenes together (pardon the pun!). Veteran character actress Beulah Bondi also has a nice near-cameo as a banker's wife fully aware of her husband's prideful shortcomings.

The intensely passionate movie swirls in all its psycho-sexual emotionalism and Shakespearean-level acts of murder, revenge and greed, but oddly (and perhaps due to the edicts of studio censors), Mann applies the brakes in the disappointing final portion of the film. Still, it's well worth viewing in the new Criterion Collection's 2008 release chock-full of extras. First, there is the meticulously academic commentary track by Western author Jim Kitses ("Horizons West"). Then there is an interesting 17-minute interview with Mann ("Actions Speak Louder Than Words") conducted just prior to his death in 1967. Another interview is offered with Mann's daughter Nina specifically for this release as she recalls her father's often underrated body of work. More of a curio is a silly, obviously scripted 1931 interview with Huston where he evasively responds to the vacuous questions of a pretty reporter. The original theatrical trailer and a stills gallery round out the extras.