dougdoepke No need to recap the sprawling, epic-sized plot. As another reviewer points out, it's like the screenplay is trying to shoehorn the novel's 1000-pages onto the screen. Instead, it's fascinating to watch the different acting styles compete with one another in this operatic western. The thespic turns run the gamut from cold under-playing by Corey to white-hot bravura from Huston to Stanwyck calibrating nicely somewhere in between. The movie's real showdown is between Anderson and Stanwyck, featuring two of the screen's premier tough- cookie women. It's a doozy. Then add the Medusa-like Blanche Yurka (Mother Herrera), and I was ready to crawl under the couch.Anyhow, looks like Paramount was going all out in the production. So why b&w instead of the more logical Technicolor. My guess is the producers were caught up in the film-noir fashion of the time since the results suggest shadowy effects. Then too, none of the major characters, except maybe Herrera (Roland), is morally uncompromised, a key feature of noir. That may also account for Anthony Mann as director since he had cut his teeth on a succession of outstanding crime noirs.Be that as it may, it's the actors that hold this narrative sprawl together; otherwise, it's easy to get lost in the many financial manueverings unusual for a western. I expect director Mann was just trying to hold things together since the overall results bear little of his usual stamp. Because of TV's popular pull, this sort of epic format would soon turn to Technicolor with productions like The Far Horizons (1955) and The Big Country (1958). All in all, the Furies remains an oddball obscurity, maybe too bleak and crowded for its own good, but a good vehicle for Huston to go out on.

madcardinal One of the best Westerns ever made. Superior to other films of its time because it possesses more realism and authenticity and shuns the silly, false and simplistic moralizing which was almost a requirement for American films of this period. This is a film about real, complex people involved is realistic, complex events. Film-maker Anthony Mann hailed from Great Britain - perhaps this had something to do with the unusual realism. Positives are: 1 - The beautiful cinematography alone is enough reason to rent. The lighting is superb, there is sumptuous use of darkness, and the twilight and night scenes are ravishingly beautiful. 2 - Strong, resourceful female characters instead of the usual phony, helpless, wilting flowers. These women are people in their own right, not merely appendages of some male character. 3 - The characters are an honest mix of good and bad qualities - not artificial cardboard cut-outs simplistically meant to serve as types. 4 - Minorities are portrayed as real people. The Mexicans are portrayed with sensitivity and understanding, instead of the usual condescending caricatures. 5 - Walter Huston, Barbara Stanwyck & Wendell Corey do an excellent job of bringing their characters to life. The other actors are solidly top drawer. 6 - Excellent story-telling at its finest. With repeated viewing, you see more deeply into the complex and surprisingly subtle motivations of the characters. The only negative is that the sensuality of real life was artificially pre-filtered out of the film; but in full fairness to "The Furies," this is true of all American films of this period, due to the de facto censorship which held sway at the time. In sum, a complex, vivid depiction of love, hate, greed, loyalty, betrayal, devotion, affirmation of life and the inexorability of death, as they course through the lives of real, breathing people. Anthony Mann was far ahead of his time in crafting this truthful gem. What a special achievement!

calvinnme This film about the feud between a megalomaniac rancher T.C. Jeffords(Walter Huston) and his daughter Vance (Barbara Stanwyck) is an unusual but excellent western. Jeffords and his daughter have a complex relationship with even a hint of the sordid that had to remain unstated in 1950, when this film was made. In middle age T.C. takes a wife, Flo (Judith Anderson). Vance sees Flo as a threat to her relationship with Daddy, and in an angry moment hurls a pair of scissors at Flo's face. In revenge T.C. kills someone who means a great deal to his daughter, the squatter Herrara (Gilbert Roland).From this moment forward the battle between father and daughter shifts from being one of violence to one of wits. Wendell Corey plays Rip Darrow, Stanwyck's love interest in this film. He quickly finds that as long as Daddy is alive that he will always come in second. Daddy has ownership of all of the emotions Vance has to give - both love and hate.This film is basically a film noir played out on a Western landscape. It is often "Mourning Becomes Electra" from the father/daughter angle versus mother and son. Directed by Anthony Mann, maker of the thinking person's Westerns, it is a shame that Walter Huston did not live to see the release of this - his final film - in which he gives so great a performance.

deng43 just have to add some leavening to the loaf of praise this film is getting on IMDb. the film is difficult to sit thru; you don't quite know where it is going - which should be a plus, except you don't really care. each performer seems to enter the set with the avowed intention of being larger and hammier than anyone else in the take. these are performers i like, usually, but their bloated excesses are pretty boring here. i suppose the film wanted to show the swaggering folk who tamed a raw land, but the result is ridiculous.the one performance i found convincing and liked was anderson's; her scenes with stanwyck bring out the best in them both, at least until stanwyck's fling with the scissors.if you liked lust in the dust, aka 'duel in the sun' the sprawling sort of movie with elbows and egos flying then this might actually be your cup of tea.