Everything is a little bent about this film (pun indented)... to a degree that, with the exception of Edgar G. Ulmer's Detour (1945), Desert Fury is a singular anti-social statement unlike practically anything the American screen produced in the 40s. Take the central character for example. It's a woman - an anomaly in film noir - and the woman, in the guise of Lizabeth Scott's barely legal horniness, is the one driving this Technicolor narrative, which the archetype femme-fatale has been replaced by John Hodiak's male-fatale (there is a long scene with him sunbathing with his shirt off, Barbara Stanwyck-like just in case you need a pointer).
- Excerpt from Vigen Galstyan's liner notes on the DVD
I caught this film by happy accident on TCM while sick at home quite a long time ago.. It's always stayed on my mind. Even in my cold medication induced stupor I remember thinking WTF?!?! Male sexual relation ship undercurrents, odd female mother and daughter relationship roles, the director couldn't seem to decide who should really be turned on by who.
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