The Furies (The Criterion Collection)
by Anthony Mann
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Actor: Barbara Stanwyck, Gilbert Roland, Judith Anderson, Walter Huston, Wendell CoreyDirector: Anthony Mann
Brand: Image Entertainment
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Black & White, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 109 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-06-24
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Criterion
DVD Reviews of The Furies (The Criterion Collection)
DVD Review: Mann's Compelling Prairie Psychodrama Given the Deluxe Criterion Collection Treatment
Summary: 4 Stars
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 the old prospector in his son John's The Treasure of the 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 scholar Jim Kitses (Horizons West: Directing the Western from John Ford to Clint Eastwood). 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.
Description of The Furies (The Criterion Collection)
Barbara Stanwyck and Walter Huston are at their fierce finest in master Hollywood craftsman Anthony Mann?s crackling western melodrama. In 1870s New Mexico Territory, megalomaniacal widowed ranch-owner T. C. Jeffords (Huston, in his final role) butts heads with his daughter, Vance (Stanwyck), a firebrand with serious daddy issues, over her dowry, choice of marriage, and, finally, ownership of the land itself. Both sophisticated in its view of frontier settlement and ablaze with searing domestic drama, The Furies is a hidden treasure of American filmmaking, boasting Oscar?nominated cinematography and vivid supporting turns from Judith Anderson, Wendell Corey, and Gilbert Roland.SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:
? New, restored high-definition digital transfer ? Audio commentary featuring film historian Jim Kitses (Horizons West) ? A rare, 1931 on-camera interview with Walter Huston, made for the movie theater series Intimate Interviews ? New video interview with Nina Mann, daughter of director Anthony Mann ? Stills gallery of rare behind-the-scenes photos ? Theatrical trailer ? PLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay by critic Robin Wood, a 1957 Cahiers du cinéma interview with Mann, and a new printing of Niven Busch?s original novel ? More!
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