Plenty of sparks fly in (this) nifty potboiler.
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To understand the sometimes effusive critical praise lavished upon "The Furies" (1950) you have to take into account three factors. First, it´s directed by a favored auteur, Anthony Mann who, at least to the public, has often been eclipsed by the shadow of John Ford as one of the great directors of Western. His collaborations with Jimmy Stewart are his best-known in the genre: "Winchester ´73" is the finest, but "Bend of the River" and "The Naked Spur" are also superior works.
Second, film criticism´s first great flowering as an independent academic discipline owed a great debt to both psychoanalytical theory and the genre of melodrama. Though "The Furies" is a Western in setting, in tone and subject matter also qualify it as a melodrama that centers on an unmistakably sexually charged relationship between father and daughter. T.C. Jeffords (Walter Huston) is the larger-than-life patriarch of the sprawling ranch that lends the film its title. Vance (Barbara Stanwyck) is his adoring daughter. I may have already introduced a spoiler because in the opening scene of the film, as Vance prepares for T.C.´s return home, you´d think for all the world you were watching a young wife eager to greet her sugar daddy who´s been gone for far too long. This complex, super-heated relationship provides the fuel for the entire narrative.
The third point is a simpler one: "The Furies" is a good movie though, in all honesty, not nearly as good as its reputation would lead you to believe. Stanwyck, 43 at the time of the release, stretches credulity as a 30-ish woman torn between clinging to her powerful father and breaking away to latch onto another equally powerful man, a gambler and cheat named Rip Darrow (Wendell Corey). Stanwyck imbues every line of dialogue with the staggering importance of her own epochal stardom, though her mugging is more than mitigated by her undeniable charisma.
T.C. is the sort of authoritarian beloved in Texas lore (though the film is set in New Mexico). He is beholden to no authority and even goes so far as to pay suppliers in his own currency, humbly known as "T.C.s." T.C. takes guff from no man… except for his daughter who he is grooming in his own image to eventually take over ´The Furies." His sycophantic son, seen skulking about in a few scenes, is certainly no match. Vance, relishing her special status in daddy´s world, frequently overplays her hand, showing up T.C. in public time and again, and latching onto the disreputable Rip precisely because she knows how much T.C. hates him.
As psychosexual tensions mount, relationship dynamics shift with the dizzying and often inexplicable speed of a day-time soap opera. Just about everyone takes their turn at loving and hating everyone else, sometimes both in the same scene. Even the secondary relationships are puzzling. The film´s B-plot involves T.C.´s efforts to placate the bank by driving the squatters off his land, including the Herrera family whose elder brother Juan (Gilbert Roland) has loved Vance since they were both children. Sometimes Vance returns the emotion though in an "I think of you as a friend" way, but just as often she exploits Juan´s affection whenever it suits her plans. The story becomes even more bizarre when it reaches what appears to be a (literally) explosive climax that turns out instead to be a jarring transition into a distended third act.
Stanwyck would repeat the role of the woman-ranch-owner-trying-to-make-it-in-a-man´s world in Samuel Fuller´s outrageous and brilliant "Forty Guns" (1957) and I find her performance in that film as a "high-ridin´ woman with a whip" more compelling than her turn as Vance Jeffords. Stanwyck at her best can bring tears to your eyes ("Stella Dallas") or lay a man low ("Double Indemnity" and "Forty Guns.") In "The Furies," Stanwyck strikes an awkward middle ground. Her machismo comes off as mere bluster. Likewise, her shrew´s taming at the hands of Rip (the first man who ever knocked her around) is not only a sexist relic of the time but also completely unconvincing; Stanwyck humbled by a milquetoast like Corey? Inconceivable! Walter Huston, by contrast, is a true standout here though, to be fair, his role is a bit simpler than Stanwyck´s.
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[release]24144[/release]