Fury at Furnace Creek (1948)

Very Cool!!!

Absolutely the worst movie.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

It's always amazed me that this lavishly produced, excitingly scripted and thrillingly staged western has no following. Perhaps it's the cast that has failed to attract the fans. Victor Mature is always acknowledged to have delivered a fine portrayal in Ford's My Darling Clementine, but he's just as effective here, even if the role is less showy. Heroine Coleen Gray is never numbered among the greats, yet she too has given a number of telling portraits. We enjoyed her characterization here. With the support players of course there are fewer cavils. No critic in his right mind would fail to praise the likes of Reginald Gardiner, Albert Dekker, Fred Clark, Charles Kemper, Charles Stevens and company. Gardiner has the most showy role, but all contribute engrossing performances.Lucky Humberstone has directed in an appropriately bravura style, assisted by Harry Jackson's striking studio and Arizona location cinematography. The large sets are equally impressive. So is Newman's score. This is a handsomely mounted and produced western which still comes across with tremendous force and power.In fact, despite its catchpenny title, to my mind, Fury at Furnace Creek rates as director Bruce Humberstone's masterpiece, breathtakingly photographed with a strong plot line and spectacular action sequences. The large cast acquits itself well and production credits are honorable in all departments. Humberstone's forte is action, but he handles the dialogue confrontations with equal ease. The script is peopled with interesting characters and only a somewhat conventional romantic interest dulls an otherwise really outstanding production. The climax is a tour-de-force of edge-of-the-seat excitement, the absence of music and the high contrast photography contributing to the dramatic effect. Both stationary camera angles and running inserts are used in the chase sequences - in Humberstone's expert hands, both are equally effective.

Fury At Furnace Creek is a richly textured Western from 1948 starring charming second-tier leads Victor Mature and Coleen Gray. The mid to late 1940's, the Golden Era of Hollywood movies, produced such Western Classics as Red River (1948), My Darling Clementine (1946), and San Antonio (1945) (see my review). While not in a league with those blockbusters, this picture reaps the benefits of a big studio industry that was at the absolute peak of movie-making artistry. Though a medium budget picture, it gets the same glossy production values as any top-dollar 20th Century Fox number.Mature and second lead Glenn Langan play long-estranged brothers uneasily reunited in a effort to clear their late Army General father of charges he caused an Indian massacre. Ms. Gray, as a pretty, but spunky diner waitress whose enlisted man father died in the massacre, makes a lovely romantic interest for the appealingly laid-back Mature. Formidable villainy is provided by Albert Dekker as a suave crime boss with henchmen Roy Roberts, Fred Clark, and the ever sinister Charles Stevens. Stevens, who claimed to be the grandson of Geronimo, was an asset to any Western. With his beady eyes, his weathered ferret-like face, and his wiry, stooped physique, he seemed the quintessential Western villain. Reginald Gardiner plays a pivotal supporting role as an alcoholic retired Army captain possibly involved in a conspiracy to frame the General.Though director Bruce Humberstone directed only two other Westerns, he nevertheless shows a nice touch for the genre here, getting fine performances out of a diverse cast and brilliantly setting up the scenes for some dazzling cinematography. He and film editor Robert L. Simpson move along the critically acclaimed Charles Booth/David Garth story with silky smooth scene transitions and nary a wasted camera shot in a lean 88-minute running time. The colorful score, credited in the movie's opening graphics to Alfred Newman, not David Raksin as IMDb indicates, consists mostly of pervasive period honky-tonk music but works quiet effectively. Sets are lavishly detailed and costumes are colorful and authentic looking. All of which along with intelligent, colorful dialog, and Harry Jackson's stylish cinematography creates a rich, layered, ambiance. The style of Jackson's atmospheric cinematography, abounding with night scenes and starkly shadowed, obliquely angled camera shots, shows the influence of the dark, Gothic crime melodrama, now known as film noir, which was all the rage of the late 1940's. Look for some some real knock-out camera work in this modest Western, particularly the following: 1) a lengthy sequence of panicked Garder stalked through, dark streets, boardwalks, and alleys by Stevens -- 2) a shot of Mature descending a stairway viewed between the silhouetted hats of the two villains watching him -- 3) in the final reel horseback chase a pose of villains galloping across the top of a rugged cliff while the two fleeing brothers ride parallel to them at the bottom of the cliff, all in the same frame. And surely the climatic shoot-out scene in the ruins of the old fort accompanied by whistling wind, tumbling tumbleweeds, and screeching gate hinges, has served endless inspiration for a later generation of Spaghetti Western directors.If you are a Western fan, or just a fan of classic movies, don't miss this one. Fury At Furnace Creek is a skillful blend of drama, intrigue, and action, exciting, atmospheric, and engaging from beginning to end. First-rate Western entertainment from Old Hollywood's Golden Years.

Don't be put off with the misnomer of the title to this little known picture! Fox's FURY AT FURNACE CREEK (1948)is a neat little atmospheric western with a literal screenplay by Charles Booth from a story by David Garth. Expertly directed by Bruce Humberstone it is crisply photographed in Monochrome by Harry Jackson and well played by a good cast. In the leading role is Victor Mature playing a man, who with his estranged brother (Glenn Langan) sets out to clear the name of his army Colonel father (Robert Warwick) who dies suddenly during his military trial after being accused of leaving the fort at Furnace Creek undefended against marauding Apaches resulting in the massacre of its occupants.Humberstone directs in commanding fashion and the story is fully fleshed out with an array of interesting characters - the likes of leering baddie Albert Dekker, the nervous Reginald Gardiner and two players fresh from the studio's "Captain From Castile" the year before Jay Silverheels as the Apache chief Little Dog and Roy Roberts as Dekker's equally crooked associate. In the female lead is Colleen Grey who rejoins Mature after "Kiss Of Death" the year before. And there's an amusing turn from Charles Kemper as the town drunk who, because the town has no jail, is chained to an enormous tree trunk which he must carry on his shoulder if he wants to move around. The only problem I had with the movie is the poor music score. I am hugely surprised at composer David Raksin who cheapens the movie with his awful music which consists of nothing more than orchestral versions of the cowboy ditty "Don't Bury Me On The Lone Prairie". Perhaps Fox music head Alfred Newman was responsible - who knows? But there is no dramatic scoring whatsoever in the picture which I found to be apathetic and doctrinaire. And it could have done with a little musical help here and there!Nevertheless, it's Mature's movie and as usual he gives a likable, workmanlike performance. An actor who never had his fair dues from critics Mature was one of the most underrated actors in the business. He never won any major awards or plaudits for his work and once said of himself "I'm no actor and I've got a scrapbook at home full of reviews to prove it". Yet he was more than convincing in such films as "Kiss Of Death", "Cry Of The City", "My Darling Clementine" (great as Doc Holliday), as the Greek slave Demetrius in "The Robe" and its sequel "Demetrius & The Gladiators". And lest we forget his iconic portrayal of Samson in DeMille's "Samson & Delilah". DeMille insisted that Mature was the only actor who would look the part. He turns in a surefooted and admirable performance here too in "Fury At Furnace Creek" which will not be out of place in any western collection. It is a good looking DVD too with nice and sharp black & white imaging. Extras include a poster gallery, a behind the scenes gallery and there's a good trailer which is somewhat marred by the excessive hard sell of the movie by one of the studios' top stars none other than Gregory Peck would you believe?

I like old westerns and sometimes I think I saw all the good ones, so finding this one was quite a surprise. The story is about a region where they start finding silver. As it was Indian property, they conceive a plot to grab the land from them. General Fletcher Blackwell gets his name dirty because they think he is behind this plot. Victor Mature and Glenn Langan are the General's sons who go to Furnace Creek to try to clean his name. There is a very funny character called Peaceful who likes to drink and gets arrested, but as there is no jail they tie him to a tree trunk. Peaceful still manages to go to the bar carrying the enormous trunk on his shoulder. Coleen Gray is the girl who falls for Victor Mature but is not certain that he is a good guy. An above average western.