The Furies

Plot synopsis:
Fifi Sands (Wilson) is married to Mr. Sands (Love), an unpleasant millionaire, who is constantly cheating on her. Being fed up with his affairs, Mrs. Wilson, who is in love with Owen McDonald (von Eltz), asks Love for a divorce but he constantly refuses. Mr. Sands's lawyer (Warner), manages to prevent Wilson from filing for divorce for a while.
One evening, at a dinner party given by Smith (Brooke), Wilson announces that her husband has finally granted her a divorce. McDonald, however, is disappointed to find that she did not ask for a settlement or alimony. Later, Alan Sands (Sage), Wilson's son, discovered that his father had been murdered with poison and accuses McDonald of the deed and chastises his mother for protecting him. Sands' s lawyer accuses McDonald of being a penniless fortune-hunter. This further blackens the case again McDonald. Dr. Cummings, who is the family doctor (Birmingham). is also suspected because of his unusual interest in Fifi.
Fifi is also a suspect because she seems distraught during the dinner party, which occurred on the night that Mr. Sands was murdered. Fifi at first quarrels with Oliver Bedlow (Warner) and orders him out of her house. Later on she turns to him for help. He at first seem uninterested in helping, but when he discovers that Fifi is not in love with McDonald, he agrees to help her. Bedlow then locks the apartment door and begins to discuss the case. Mrs. Sands's loyal servants are coached in their testimony by Warner but they are unable to remember their lines. After an intensive investigation of suspects in the death of Mr. Sands, Bedlow breaks down and confesses to the crime. Bedlow declares his love for Fifi, but is rejected and commits suicide by falling out of a window.

Tags: revenge

Review:
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.
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.
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".
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.
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.
Barbara Stanwyck, in the role that must have influenced her "Big Valley" character for TV, is both tough and tender as Vance Jeffords, the western princess of TC Jefford's (Walter Huston) empire.
There are also Gilbert Roland as a Mexican squatter, her life-long friend who becomes a tool in her father's revenge against her; Blanche Yurka, the great Hungarian stage actress, plays the bit role of his vengeful mama; Even in the small role, we are reminded of her excellent performance as Madame DeFarge in the Ronald Colman version of "A Tale of Two Cities" years before.
The great Judith Anderson, who played many of the types of roles on Broadway that Stanwyck did on screen, is subtle as she tries to worms her way into the role of Queen of the Furies, but it is Stanwyck's ultimate revenge which prevents this from happening.
This, ironically, was the second film in which one of Stanwyck's characters had an impact on Anderson's character; In the 1946 film noir, "The Strange Love of Martha Ivers", it is young Martha (who as an adult is played by Stanwyck) who pushes matriarch Anderson down some stairs to her death, giving that film its motivations.The one problem with this casting is the performance of Wendell Corey, perhaps one of the dullest leading men in Hollywood history.
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.
It is a shame that Walter Huston was dead a year before this, his final film was released.
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.
The Furies shows Mann bringing a lot of his noir skills to the Western genre.
Another of author Niven Busch's psychological westerns (preceded by "Duel in the Sun" and "Pursued"), this one has a dynamic father/daughter duo, a pretty and meek son (the late John Bromfield), and a smooth gambler seeking revenge for the death of his father.
In his final film, Huston plays a larger than life character who owns a big ranch that he is struggling to maintain financially.
One can imagine her character later became Victoria Barkley in "The Big Valley." Mann specialized in Westerns and he does well enough here, but the problem is that the script is not very interesting.
5 - Walter Huston, Barbara Stanwyck & Wendell Corey do an excellent job of bringing their characters to life.
It stars Barbara Stanwyck, Walter Huston, Wendell Corey, Judith Anderson and Gilbert Roland.
. .who wrote this flaming page in the history of the great Southwest."Anthony Mann was a fascinating and talented director, his career in direction of films can be broken into three sections.
The 40s where he progressed from "B" movies to film noir, the 50s where he can be credited as a main player in taking the Western to a new and more adult level, and finally the 60s where he would helm two enormous historical epics.
With Devil's Doorway, in this writers' opinion, actually a better movie than Winchester '73.The Furies serves as the perfect bridging movie between Mann's film noirs and his Westerns because it blends the two courtesy of the Western setting and the story, taking both and cloaking it neatly with noirish atmospherics.
To which it is underpinned by two very strong and passionate father and daughter characters played by Huston and Stanwyck.
But ultimately this above all else is about the story and the flawed characters within.This was to be Huston's last film appearance, he would sadly pass away shortly after filming of The Furies had wrapped.
Stanwyck is excellent as Vance Jeffords, an actress capable of putting many layers to any character she was asked to play, here she two folds it by being utterly unlikable with ease, yet in a blink of an eye garnering our sympathy by way of child like vulnerability.
Charged with the task of playing a character who threatens to take Vance's place in her fathers world, Anderson nicely combines subtle underplaying with emotive driven thesping.
Probably a rarity as I can see it: Anthony Mann's The Furies would fit in just as well on AMC or TCM as it would, if it would ever screen old movies from the 40s and 50s, on the Lifetime network.
What this means is that for the film being technically classified as a Wetern, it really has a lot more to offer for audiences of hardened men looking for another memorable performance from Walter Huston, and for women looking for a tough but conflicted heroine with Barbara Stanwyck's character.
The 'Elektra complex' issue touched on by other reviewers isn't misplaced, but there's more to it.This isn't quite to say it's entirely one of Mann's best films, or a masterpiece on the Western genre.
The father, TC (Huston), says he'll give all he has to his daughter, Vance (Stanwyck) to run, but it might not be that easy of a transition.
We see this tangled web develop, of Stanwyck's two love interests, one from way back with the Herrera's (still very bitter with TC for taking their land) and another with a banker who has a real love-hate thing for the fiery daughter of a big-bad baron like TC.
And both the Jeffords' characters being what they are- really big, amazing personalities- require the actors to pull them off.Luckily, Mann has the right two people with Huston and Stanwyck, especially with the latter the star projects such confidence and darkness and, at the same time, vulnerability it's not hard to see how she could have been the star in her day.
If you're not strapped-in for some almost soap-opera-ish touches, look elsewhere.But overall, Mann directs all of this with a fine eye for the darker corners of the western landscape, of the dry and barren lands of the deserts- some of these look shot at night, or developed to look darker than they are- with the cacti and horses riding on in them striking as something more evocative to go along with the big rooms and typical locations of a circa 1870 New Mexico set.
For some good stretches of time, and particularly for the second 2/3 of the running time, The Furies does its job well on its audience, drawing in both sexes for various reasons into its story of land ownership, love and loss, and a father and daughter bond that is touchy and amusing at most pleasant moments.
The thespic turns run the gamut from cold under-playing by Corey to white-hot bravura from Huston to Stanwyck calibrating nicely somewhere in between.
The movie's real showdown is between Anderson and Stanwyck, featuring two of the screen's premier tough- cookie women.
That may also account for Anthony Mann as director since he had cut his teeth on a succession of outstanding crime noirs.Be that as it may, it's the actors that hold this narrative sprawl together; otherwise, it's easy to get lost in the many financial manueverings unusual for a western.
Vance Jeffords plans to inherit the ranch, but when her father brings home a new wife she finds herself being pushed out.
That's what you've got in Barbara Stanwyck and Walter Huston in Anthony Mann's The Furies.The title is the name of Walter Huston's spread, like the Ponderosa for the Cartwrights.
And therein lies how Barbara Stanwyck after Huston hangs one of her childhood friends, Gilbert Roland, for horse stealing she vows vengeance on the father she loves above all.
This film with more than a hint of incest going on here marks Walter Huston's farewell performance.
It's quite a contest between him and Stanwyck to see who out act each other.Stanwyck has her own moment of fury when she goes after the elegant Judith Anderson who Huston has taken a fancy to and is planning to marry.
Others in the cast are Wendell Corey, Thomas Gomez, Beulah Bondi, and John Bromfield.Bromfield plays Stanwyck's brother a weak character who is disposed of rather early.
I can't understand why his character wasn't developed more.The Furies has some interesting moments, but as a western it's not half as good as Mann's work with James Stewart later on or with Devil's Doorway with Robert Taylor..
As in Pursued and Duel in the Sun it is about love and hate.There are three magnificent performances here: Walter Huston, Barbara Stanwyck and Judith Anderson.
I've seen only a few of Anthony Mann's films; I find him to be an engrossing story teller but not in the first circle of American directors--Welles, Hawks, Ford, Ray. The Furies held, my attention for the first hour or so, then some of the unlikely elements of the story started to distract me.
Otherwise the acting especially by Huston, Anderson and Stanwyck was excellent.
The scissor scene is shocking because we don't realize until too late the hatred between the two characters played by Anderson and Stanwyck.The camera work by Victor Milner is superb.
Barbara Stanwyck, Barbara Stanwyck everywhere.(Sheesh!) I honestly can't say that I've ever been very impressed with Barbara Stanwyck as an actress.But, after having to put up with her here (as the Vance Jeffords character) as she completely dominated this Western (and dragged it down to the level of being a snivelling, petty Chick Flick), I now loathe her with an undying passion like no other.Personally, I think that director Anthony Mann made a monumental error by allowing Stanwyck's spoilt, vain, rich-girl character to completely take control of The Furies' story.With its excellent location shooting and A-1 camera-work, this Western certainly had a lot of potential to be a really first-rate tale, focusing in on T.C. Jeffords (Vance's father), an arrogant, demanding cattle baron.Set in New Mexico (in the 1870s) - Instead of The Furies being a rough and tough Western yarn, it was all frills and lace with the two-faced, treacherous, spiteful Vance Jeffords forever appearing in one ridiculously expensive gown after another.
(Talk about being a total clothes-horse!) I'm certainly pleased and relieved to know that with all of the subsequent Westerns that Mann directed throughout the 1950s, he thankfully kept the tone of his pictures totally masculine and rugged, sans Barbara Stanwyck..
Walter Huston, in his final film, plays a larger-than-life, overbearing father to Barbara Stanwyck and John Bromfield.
The only scenes I liked were the romantic ones between Barbara and Gilbert Roland, but I could tell immediately that they weren't the intended couple; in 1950, Hollywood deferred to sensitive audience prejudices, and since Gilbert played a Mexican, it was pretty clear he wasn't going to be the romantic lead paired with a white woman.
Father and Daughter, Two Peas in a Pod. Barbara Stanwyck has some serious daddy issues in this weird cross between a women's picture, western and film noir from 1950.Walter Huston plays the daddy, and he steals the show in a vibrant performance.
Tensions boil over to the point where father and daughter hate each other, and Stanwyck hatches a scheme to bankrupt her father and take the ranch away from him.It's an uneven movie at best.
Characters seem to turn on a dime -- Huston and Stanwyck go from idolizing one another to hating each other back to idolizing each other -- but maybe that's the point.
They're both ruled by their passions, and those passions extend to the father/daughter relationship, and sometimes confuse it, as much as to their business practices.Anthony Mann provided the noirish direction, and Franz Waxman delivers a frenzied, out-there score.Grade: B+.
Two big, bold brash characters clash, making for fascinating entertainment in this gorgeously photographed B&W western directed by Anthony Mann.
Vance (Barbara Stanwyck) is a firebrand, and that's the way her equally iron-willed father, T.C. Jeffords (Walter Huston), likes her.
Predictably, father and daughter clash over Rip, but their lively relationship doesn't turn ugly until T.C., who hasn't been serious about a woman since his wife had the effrontery to die, meets an attractive widow (Judith Anderson) who schemes to take control of The Furies herself.Anthony Mann directed this gorgeously photographed black-and-white western with his usual skill at bringing out the psychological complexities of a story and its characters.
The big, bold, brash characters zestfully played by Stanwyck and Huston (in his last role) are handled deftly enough to be fascinating without being campy, despite the roiling undercurrent of an incestuous attraction between them.
Walter Huston's last film and a great western.
This film about the feud between a megalomaniac rancher T.C. Jeffords(Walter Huston) and his daughter Vance (Barbara Stanwyck) is an unusual but excellent western.
Wendell Corey plays Rip Darrow, Stanwyck's love interest in this film.
Daddy has ownership of all of the emotions Vance has to give - both love and hate.This film is basically a film noir played out on a Western landscape.
Directed by Anthony Mann, maker of the thinking person's Westerns, it is a shame that Walter Huston did not live to see the release of this - his final film - in which he gives so great a performance..
i suppose the film wanted to show the swaggering folk who tamed a raw land, but the result is ridiculous.the one performance i found convincing and liked was anderson's; her scenes with stanwyck bring out the best in them both, at least until stanwyck's fling with the scissors.if you liked lust in the dust, aka 'duel in the sun' the sprawling sort of movie with elbows and egos flying then this might actually be your cup of tea..
And, coming from petite Stanwyck who made a bazillion films about tough old broads, it just felt too familiar.At the same time, I loved part of the film's plot.
Seeing Stanwyck's character have a WAY too close relationship with her father (it looked like it was bordering on the incestuous--with their kissing each other on the lips and overly familiar manners) was exciting.
And, what I really LOVED was how this eventually played out--when another woman (Judith Anderson) wanted the father (Walter Huston) sparks really, really flew.
Well, some of the acting (not just Stanwyck's) was very far from subtle--especially the crazy old lady who played Gilbert Roland's mother (Blanche Yurka)!
However, considering what great westerns Mann directed, I cannot agree with one reviewer who felt this was his best film.
What about "Winchester '73" or "The Naked Spur" or "The Tin Star"?By the way, the aging Walter Huston does some amazingly macho things for a guy who died before the film debuted.
Despite its poor overall ranking, there were quite a few things to like about the movie: Barbara Stanwyck may have played a lot of strong women in her career, but her character is quite unusual for a Western.
A kinky western with Barbara Stanwyck, Walter Huston & a lot of psychological baggage.
He marries Judith Anderson for her money, alienating clingy daughter Barbara Stanwyck in the process.
In addition to Anderson, Stanwyck's victims include unsavory saloon owner Wendell Corey, ranch hand/lover Gilbert Roland and John Bromfield as her milquetoast brother.
I like to know where I'm going." Vance Jeffords, played by Barbara Stanwyck, not only likes to take the reins, she's also capable of turning most men into counter tenors just by staring at them.
What makes it memorable is the first two-thirds, which features an arrogant, man-eating performance by Stanwyck and an equally arrogant, blasting performance by Walter Huston as Vance's father, old T.
The movie is a tangy, well-salted, par-boiled western with great performances by Stanwyck, Huston and Anderson.
Anderson previously played the cold aunt of Stanwyck's character (as a child) in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, though the actresses did not share screen time in that earlier movie.
I think The Furies works mainly because of the dynamic between Stanwyck's character and Huston's character.