Post-War Western noir
H Bruce
Humberstone was one of those jack-of-all-trades film directors who from the
mid-1920s to the mid-60s did every kind of movie for Fox. There were Betty
Grable comedies and Carmen Miranda musicals, half a dozen Charlie Chan films, a couple
of Tarzans – whatever was required. He was probably best at films noirs and thrillers such as I Wake Up Screaming in 1941 with Grable
and Victor Mature. Curiously, though, he only directed three Western movies: Lucky Cisco Kid with Cesar Romero in
1940, Ten Wanted Men with Randolph Scott
in 1955 and in between, Fury at Furnace
Creek. But all three were more than competently done.
In 1948
Westerns were in full spate, and all the studios, including Fox, were in on the
act. There were truly great ones like Fort Apache, Red River and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. There were
very good ones like Four Faces West, Yellow Sky and The Man from Colorado. There were large numbers of cheapo Hopalong
Cassidy, Roy Rogers, Lash La Rue and other programmers. But there were also
some really good B-Westerns that got overshadowed and are definitely worth
watching again today. I am thinking of fine movies such as Coroner Creek, Blood on the Moon or Return of the Badmen. Fury at
Furnace Creek is such a one.
It
starred Victor Mature. Now Mature was the classic Hollywood hunk and was to
become famous in sword-and-sandal pictures. He was Samson in Samson and Delilah as well as playing various
other exotic roles in movies about biblical times or ancient Egypt. He was not
one you would naturally think of for a Western. But in 1946 he had been a
stunningly good Doc Holliday in Fox’s Wyatt Earp picture My Darling Clementine, directed by John Ford. So in 1948 they gave
him another go in the saddle. He was really powerful.
The
story starts with a 6th Cavalry general court-martialed for having withdrawn an
escort from a wagon train and caused a massacre by Apaches. We do not see the
massacre of the settlers. The train is seen being abandoned by the soldiers,
then pulling into Fort Furnace Creek (one of those imaginary wooden forts that
Hollywood loved). Suddenly Indians jump out and slaughter the soldiers of the
fort. It’s an effective and punchy beginning.
The
general has a heart attack and dies on the stand and is thus unable to prove
his innocence. But he has two sons who are determined to do so: Rufe, a young
Army captain (Glenn Langan) who turns out to be as stupid as he is obnoxious
(i.e. very) and Cash, a disreputable frock-coated gambler, the black sheep of
the family, whom we first see in jail, doing that excellent trick (which I am determined
to perfect one day) of flipping cards across the cell into his upturned hat. You
can tell right off the bat that Cash is going to be the one to solve the crime,
clear his daddy’s name and of course get the girl. He heads West. In that coded
moment that all we Westernistas recognize, Cash swaps his black frock coat for
buckskins, and thus changes from the city slicker into the Western hero.
Really, Furnace Creek is a classic
Humberstone/Fox film noir. Its crime plot has Mature almost as a private eye
and its black & white, shadow-filled photography with many night scenes and
dark interiors add to the atmosphere. In this way it reminds me of another '48 Western, RKO's Station West, with Dick Powell as hard-boiled investigator. At the time, in the late-1940s, noir Westerns were very much in vogue (Pursued, Blood on the Moon,
Coroner Creek, several others) and
this one is a worthy addition to the genre. It was a remake in Western key of Fox's 1938 John Ford mystery Four Men and a Prayer.
The town
of Furnace Creek, near the now abandoned fort, is owned by slimy bad guy Albert
Dekker. Wasn’t Dekker good? The double-crossing gang leader in The Killers in 1946, he was notably, for
us Western fans, the horrible railroad detective Harrigan in The Wild Bunch, his last role. Furnace Creek was his twelfth of
seventeen Westerns and time again, as here, he was the bad guy, usually rich,
powerful and corrupt.
Reginald
Gardiner is quietly moving in a way as the Army man descended into drunkenness
and losing what shreds of self-respect he has left. Gardiner was a RADA-trained
Englishman who retained his clipped accent through his many years in California
(he arrived in 1935). From being a dancer at a ball in The Lodger in 1927 to a butler in a 1968 episode of The Monkees (I'm sure you remember both), Gardiner was always a
delight to see. This was his only Western film.
The girl is played by Coleen Gray as Molly the waitress. She's perky and bright in a rather two-dimensional part. She was Fen in Red River the same year. She was in thirteen Western movies and a lot of TV shows.
The
comic relief is provided by Charles Kemper, entertaining as Peaceful Jones, the
town drunk who, for the lack of a town jail, is regularly chained to a massive
log in the main street. He is so big, however that he is able to shoulder the
tree trunk and go back to the saloon. He and Cash take a shine to each other
and Peaceful helps out when the action climax comes.
Buried
down in the uncredited extras as an Army sergeant is Ray Teal. What a waste of
a great Western character actor. Naughtier, as far as lack of credit is
concerned, is the fact that we have a young Jay Silverheels as Little Dog, the
Apache chief, whose “master was old Geronimo himself.” Little Dog plays a
crucial role, especially at the end (I say no more) so he really ought to have
got a mention.
The
score by David Raksin, billed as “original music”, isn’t. It seems to be a
straight reworking of the Gerard Carbonara soundtrack from Stagecoach. It’s jolly, though, and gets nicely dark in the
appropriate places.
The luminous
black & white cinematography is by Harry Jackson (eight Westerns from Cimarron in 1931, where he worked with Cronjager, to Pony Soldier in 1952). The locations were at and around the famous
Kanab movie fort in Utah.
Fury at Furnace Creek is a minor but nice little noir Western which compares well with,
say, Yellow Sky, even if Victor
Mature wasn’t quite Gregory Peck. I’d give it a go if I were you.
You know .... everything in my gut tells me that I should dislike Victor Mature in almost anything; and yet, I'm often surprised by how many things I like him in. He's quite good in The Big Circus, and his westerns are often fun. (I can't quite buy him as Doc Holliday, though...)
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