Desert Fury

Lewis Allen's 1947 film is a strange fusion of noir and desert melodrama, and being shot in Technicolor puts it outside the genre's habits. In Nevada, the daughter of a casino owner becomes involved with a racketeer everyone is trying to keep her from. That triangle is the surface; the film's real tension lies elsewhere. The relationship between the racketeer and the man who has been at his side for years was written and played, within the censorship rules of the period, as a bond between two men; the domestic life they have built together, and the language of threat and jealousy, is close to explicit. That is why the film later acquired a distinct place in queer film history. The mother played by Mary Astor carries the power relations between the women. Burt Lancaster's role is the least interesting part of the story. Who it's for: viewers interested in the coded language of classic Hollywood under the Production Code and in colour noir. Who it's not for: anyone who will find the melodramatic tone excessive, or who expects the central couple to be the interesting one.