Desert Fury (1947)
6/10
An almost Noir with another case of bad acting by Lizabeth Scott
2 February 2013
Warning: Spoilers
Wow Lizabeth Scott was no winner of an actress. She is just dreadful. I can't see how any producer thought she was gonna be the next big thing back in this day and time. She's basically a short version of Lauren Bacall with half the talent.

A noted gambler comes back to town to lay low. The town holds bad memories for him because his wife died in a supposed car accident there. It haunts him all the while he's there. He gets involved with a lot of the old friends he knew from there including an old flames daughter. She's young and stupid and is basically clueless about everything. The local deputy likes her and she the same but she decides to take to the local thug/gambler instead. Her mother and the deputy warn her about him but she doesn't care. She goes against their advice and soon...sparks will soon fly.

I didn't go into this one with high hopes because I saw Lizabeth Scott's name in the cast. She was never anything special and in this she show's why. Her portrayal of a 19 year old "I'll do what I want" daughter of a local gambling house owner is just laughable. We get a young Burt Lancaster as the Deputy and the great Mary Astor as the mother but when your working with Lizabeth Scott, all the talent there was in this oozed away with her terrible performance. I mean this one had a really decent cast. With John Hodiak and Wendell Corey playing the heavies I thought maybe it could work but nope. The really unbelievable performance by Ms. Scott threw all that other talent right out of the window.

I personally have no problems telling any one to save your time and watch something else but this film has one good thing going for in that there's a little twist in the film you try and try to figure out but won't...until the end. The twist is actually pretty good and after I learned it I had one of those "A-ha" moments. It may be a nothing moment to other viewers of this film but it sewed up a lot of questions I had.
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