Monday, June 08, 2009

Walt Bids Movita Casteneda Good Night

The Furies (1950)
directed by Anthony Mann
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix

Talky domestic melodramas – even set in New Mexico just as I grow wistful for the place – aren’t exactly my cup of western whisky (I know, I’m repetitive). How nice, then, that the scenery-chewing promise of Barbara Stanwyck vs. Walter Huston assumes a far more congenial aspect than the warring father/daughter plot could ever lead one to suspect. Back-and-forths between the two are played more like a screwball comedy than a boxing match, with enough breathing space between laugh-ins for that wholly unrelated wistfulness – greatly aided by beautiful black and white location shots - to set firmly in my eyes.

Better than the movie, though, is a visit to Walter Huston’s home that Criterion includes as an extra. Some plucky female reporter plays cat and mouse with the pot-bellied, trunk-attired Walt. This was as close as the audience got in 1950, I gather, and “seeing the home” means sitting poolside while Anjelica’s grandfather takes a dip. For those in the theater in love with Mr. Huston, his efforts to charm the pants off the reporter were no doubt appreciated as a better fantasy than the hulking, unapproachable sneer he grins through from The Furies’ very first frame.