435 The Furies

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HerrSchreck
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#26 Post by HerrSchreck » Fri May 30, 2008 2:06 pm

I am so down for this movie. All the posts are pretty much reinforcing my hope for it... and as I said I'm ga-ga for Mann, I love the stuff that feels rough to others like Railroaded & Strange Impersonation. I sense a disc that in a few years will be worn down to the metal.

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souvenir
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#27 Post by souvenir » Fri Jun 06, 2008 5:29 pm

DVD Beaver review - Pictureboxed and a little light on digital supplements, but my enthusiasm is still off the charts.

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Jean-Luc Garbo
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#28 Post by Jean-Luc Garbo » Sat Jun 07, 2008 9:35 pm

Can anyone comment on the quality of Stanwyck's acting here? I'm primarily interested in the film because of her. However, comments from Herr Schreck have intrigued me as well. I'm just curious because I keep thinking of Joan Crawford! Does anyone like this film as a Barbara Stanwyck movie?

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Morgan Creek
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#29 Post by Morgan Creek » Sat Jun 07, 2008 10:59 pm

Jean-Luc Garbo wrote:Can anyone comment on the quality of Stanwyck's acting here? I'm primarily interested in the film because of her. However, comments from Herr Schreck have intrigued me as well. I'm just curious because I keep thinking of Joan Crawford! Does anyone like this film as a Barbara Stanwyck movie?
Elemental is the only word for Stanwyck in this one. Check out the YouTube post of a scene between her and Judith Anderson (though spoiler alert may apply). If you've seen Scorsese's Personal Journey Through American Movies, you may recall that he also featured a particularly striking clip from the The Furies, which is remarkable not only for Mann's beautiful compositions but for Stanwyck's hair-raising performance.

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cdnchris
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#30 Post by cdnchris » Fri Jun 13, 2008 2:47 am


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Tom Hagen
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#31 Post by Tom Hagen » Fri Jun 13, 2008 3:14 am

Is this going to be a recurring feature? Excellent work. =D>

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Jean-Luc Garbo
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#32 Post by Jean-Luc Garbo » Fri Jun 13, 2008 11:08 am

cdnchris wrote:The Furies
Good work there. I liked the screencaps you put in there - the Barbara Stanwyck ones made my day.

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Belmondo
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#33 Post by Belmondo » Mon Jun 23, 2008 9:56 pm

Got mine and watched all the extras - I'm saving the movie for the weekend to share with friends.

All good, although you probably only need to see them once. The television interview from London (1967), took place while Mann was filming "A Dandy in Aspic", and that movie is talked about a bit. All the westerns are discussed except for "The Furies", which is never mentioned. Mann believes that great drama needs violence and is interested in "the problem of heroes". His movies are about "men with a purpose". He cites Murnau as his strongest influence and nicely articulates how to compose a scene, however, other discussion causes me to conclude that we, the audience, know a lot more about moviemaking than we did in 67. It falls to his daughter to discuss the movie in question, and the new interview with Nina Mann gives us a cultured, intelligent woman - however, she knew little of her father's work growing up, and then studied the movies later.

The so-called "On Camera Interview With Walter Huston" is a light hearted, scripted short subject.

The Preview was very enjoyable.

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jbeall
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#34 Post by jbeall » Tue Jun 24, 2008 9:25 am

Critic's Choice - New DVDs
Dave Kehr wrote:Based on a 1948 novel by Niven Busch — included as a paperback in the Criterion Collection’s superb new edition of the film — “The Furies” is shot through with Freudianisms fashionable at the time, including a scene worthy of Buñuel, in which Vance discourages a rival for her father’s affections (Judith Anderson) by flinging a pair of scissors and piercing her eye.

But Mann gives the action a metaphysical dimension that overwhelms easy psychoanalytic readings. As in his films noirs (“Raw Deal,” “Desperate”), he systematically composes his shots to create a sense of instability, using lines of perspective or boldly massed foregrounds to pull the images off balance. The titanic struggle between father and daughter has knocked the world off its axis.

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HerrSchreck
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#35 Post by HerrSchreck » Tue Jun 24, 2008 4:23 pm

Unsurprising that he cites Murnau as an influence. But wonderful to have confirmed nonetheless. His dp for the features of his that are my primary faves-- Alton-- is (along w Sternberg) my favorite cinematographer after Karl Freund... who rose to excellence with Murnau.

Love love love the mise en scene and directorial conceits of Anthony Mann, and cannot wait to get my claws wrapped around this release.

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cdnchris
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#36 Post by cdnchris » Tue Jun 24, 2008 5:40 pm

HerrSchreck wrote:Love love love the mise en scene and directorial conceits of Anthony Mann, and cannot wait to get my claws wrapped around this release.
I think you're going to get a big kick out of it.

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#37 Post by Haggai » Sat Jun 28, 2008 9:04 pm

Watched this one today, first time I've seen the film. I liked it a lot, although I don't think it's quite on the same level as Mann's best work in the genre. It seems to have more in common with something like The Big Country (which I love), an epic family saga, as opposed to the dark psychological approach of Winchester '73, Devil's Doorway, The Naked Spur, etc.

I did really enjoy the clashes between Stanwyck and Corey (I thought the movie suddenly got a lot better when he showed up) and, in particular, between Stanwyck and Huston, once they ended up at complete loggerheads after Judith Anderson arrived on the scene. The Stanwyck-Huston battle is almost like a cross between the Wayne-Clift duel in Red River and the wacky Jean Simmons-Hebert Marshall relationship in Otto Preminger's insane (and brilliant) Angel Face.

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HerrSchreck
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#38 Post by HerrSchreck » Sat Jul 05, 2008 2:46 pm

Loving this... the whole cast appears to be having such a blast in this.. as if they can feel the spell that Mann's direction is weaving. More thoughts when finished.

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GringoTex
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#39 Post by GringoTex » Mon Jul 07, 2008 8:55 am

This one of the strangest and most fascinating Hollywood products I've seen. It's a crazy mix of western, noir, gothic melodrama, and Shakespeare. And added into the mix are some rancheros who appear to have escaped from Bunuel's Mexican studio asylum and are eager to take it out on gringos.

I've read a lot of complaints that the film doesn't hold up narratively, and indeed, after the the great second act climax around the 85th minute (which I won't spoil here), the whole enterprise falls to pieces. But where else does it have to go? The love story is over and the traditional Mann battle for the mountain is over. It ceases as an action movie and a psychological thriller and becomes a treatise on the mechanics of money. Almost like two different narratives in one.

Obviously, the stopgap third act rehabilitation of T.C. and Rip are ridiculous and repugnant, but Abuelita Herrera Loca takes care of that, doesn't she?

One other thing- the representation of Mexican resistance against U.S. territorial imperialism was shockingly uncompromising. I'm not sure I can think of another Hollywood film that even approaches it.

Queiroz
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#40 Post by Queiroz » Mon Jul 07, 2008 10:49 am

Having admired “Winchester '73” and “The Naked Spur” (although its been a while since I’ve seen both) I must confess that this left me cold, and somewhat disappointed. Certainly, aspects of it - brooding, psycho-dramatic exteriors in particular (my interest grew as a result of seeing “Personal Journey….”) - tell me I’ll come back to it some time down the line, where I can offer a more appraised evaluation. But for now, after months of anticipation, I found it laborious (and it falls to bits in the last third). Its unusual, and faintly schizophrenic, but not to the degree I had envisaged. I wonder was anyone else underwhelmed?

And I hate to say it, because I’ve always liked Barbara Stanwyck, but from about 20 minutes in, her superior smug really began to piss me off. Apologies.

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Belmondo
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#41 Post by Belmondo » Mon Jul 07, 2008 5:38 pm

Yeah, the movie is open to criticism, but, I enjoyed it with all of its real or alleged flaws. I used to collect rare books and many of the best have a nearly fine grade "with all noted flaws", and they are still highly desirable.

I've seen at least two million westerns and this one is good, has terrific photography, and Stanwyck can give me a smug expression from now until the end of time and I'll die happy.

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Finch
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#42 Post by Finch » Mon Jul 07, 2008 6:54 pm

Got my copy last week and while I haven't delved into any of the extras yet (save a read of the Mann interview with Cahiers and Robin Wood's eloquent essay), I'm very pleased with this release: it's true that the third act is unsatisfactory and softens Stanwyck's and Huston's characters but I still found The Furies a unique blend of melodrama and western. Thought Wendell Corey was miscast (Judith Anderson on the other hand was excellent in a vital supporting role) but other than that, I found the first two-thirds of the pic superb. A curiosity, almost great but not quite there, and yet, to me personally, more involving and intriguing than some of the canon titles in the collection (for what it's worth, it helps that B Stanwyck is one of my favourite actresses, second only to Carole Lombard).

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HerrSchreck
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#43 Post by HerrSchreck » Tue Jul 08, 2008 9:33 pm

I found the film to be a firebreathing riproaring hoot of wonderfully exaggerated narrative on high visual style, whose third act (or fourth quarter) suffers-- for me at least-- more from settling into a more staid sense of standard believable melodrama than it does "lack narrative sense/resolution".

The whole freight & cargo of the thing is wildly out of control, made even more seething and crazy by the manic tempo of Huston's boiling performance, Stanwick's delicious schadenfreude and the mercilessness of the plot & dialog. The film is shot in Mann's uniquely gothic style-- unique for the sound era anyhow.. like Sternberg (the filmmaker he can oft remind me of) he combines rampant exaggeration in his mise en scene punctuated by the finest silent-era style chiaroscuro, bathing his shots in pools of shadow, setting suns blasting from behind cliffs, cacti, clouds etc throwing deepest silhouettes... the man could film a box being assembled in a factory and the end result would load with ominous, sinister significance. I just love his style, I can never get enough of it. A critical difference between Sternberg (the only sound-era visual storyteller I can think of on his level of atomic talent) and Mann is that Sternberg creates a psychological sense of place, of mood, of cinematic hyper-reality, of surroundings that speak in a thousand different mysterious languages that can be heard in a variety of ways depending what country your mind is in when coming to it... whereas Mann's visual statements are just that: ironbound writs of action, stamping a moment of script in unmistakable visual terms whereby words are hardly necessary. He said in his interview (paraphrasing) "the audience will come out of the theater probably not remembering what a character said in a film, but they'll remember what he did, they'll remember what happened from what they saw.. and that's what I try and get my camera to do: show my audience what's what in a scene-- to show in visual terms unmistakably what is going on in a given scene," and goes on about methods of communicating by purely visual means various narrative cues & facts.. who is the most important person in a scene, the sense of what the action or dialog is communicated even if there were no sound.

The end of the film lacks the wild sense of "hanging out" with all that schadenfreude and shifts to a straight point a-- point b-- to C, D etc unfolding of Stanwicks/Vance's plan and it's execution. And of course whats most unsatisfying is that
SpoilerShow
after her success, she wreaks no real revenge, and TC even feels as though her bamboozling his property's finances to her posession may be for the good in the end
though of course, as Gringo points out, the final bit of delicious savagery is carries out by Mama Witch...

Call it a slightly compromised masterpiece, but those first 2/3 or 3/4 are wilder, more satisfying, and snarlingly original than the whole 3/3 or 4/4 of the majority of cinemas sum of titles.

And doesn't the end seem so typical, in a way, of human nature of birds of a feather like TC & Vance. They talk a big game
SpoilerShow
about fucking each other up... but in the end, they need each other and thus chicken out of doing real damage... the alternative is total aloneness, and this scares them just ahead of the final nail in the vengeance coffin
Love love love this film, and Anthony Mann. I've yet to see the man fail. Perhaps the most powerful/most underappreciated master filmmaker in all American cinema. Next on deck is El Cid restored which I've never seen.

If CC really wanta knock the socks off the world of cineastes, it should get hold of (the apparently pd) The Black Book.. this rarely seen masterpiece would blow the eyeballs out of their viewership, 99% of whom I'm sure have never seen it... and for icing if they could acquire the rights of T-Men & Raw Deal (two masterworks screaming for clean HD transfers), this Mann/Alton trilogy of noirs, the very finest ever made (surpassing Premingers, Dassins, J. Tourners, surpassing everybody and anybody who toyed with the style), would constitute one of the most satisfying box sets of American film yet produced.

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zedz
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#44 Post by zedz » Tue Jul 08, 2008 9:46 pm

HerrSchreck wrote:If CC really wanta knock the socks off the world of cineastes, it should get hold of (the apparently pd) The Black Book.. this rarely seen masterpiece would blow the eyeballs out of their viewership, 99% of whom I'm sure have never seen it... and for icing if they could acquire the rights of T-Men & Raw Deal (two masterworks screaming for clean HD transfers), this Mann/Alton trilogy of noirs, the very finest ever made (surpassing Premingers, Dassins, J. Tourners, surpassing everybody and anybody who toyed with the style), would constitute one of the most satisfying box sets of American film yet produced.
I haven't got around to viewing The Furies yet, but I'd just like to note that Schreck's utterly outrageous, completely over-the-top statement above has been fact-checked and is scrupulously correct. The PD discs of these films are generally awful, but they're cheap, so put on those rose-tinted spectacles and see for yourself.

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HerrSchreck
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#45 Post by HerrSchreck » Tue Jul 08, 2008 10:15 pm

The sick part is that TMen & Raw Deal exist in newer (vs the VCI) "official" editions from Sony which look exactly the same as the VCI's, which have the advantage of a nice bonus feature re the two films, called "Dark Shadows". But these titles need updating in a Real Bad Way.

Not to mention the abysmal Alpha The Black Book, for which you'll, I'm afraid, need strong prescription rose colored glasses.

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#46 Post by jaredsap » Tue Jul 08, 2008 10:24 pm

HerrSchreck wrote:If CC really wanta knock the socks off the world of cineastes, it should get hold of (the apparently pd) The Black Book
Sony still has theatrical rights to THE BLACK BOOK (aka REIGN OF TERROR). Interesting that home video rights have apparently fallen into public domain -- I'll check on that tomorrow.

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HerrSchreck
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#47 Post by HerrSchreck » Tue Jul 08, 2008 10:31 pm

"Still"? They never released it to begin with.

The only edition I've seen is the pd edition from Alpha, linked in above in my last post.

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#48 Post by jaredsap » Tue Jul 08, 2008 10:43 pm

HerrSchreck wrote:"Still"? They never released it to begin with.
It was released by Eagle-Lion, but somehow THE BLACK BOOK's theatrical rights wound up in Columbia's hands and have stayed there ever since.

Haggai
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#49 Post by Haggai » Tue Jul 08, 2008 11:27 pm

HerrSchreck wrote:Love love love this film, and Anthony Mann. I've yet to see the man fail. Perhaps the most powerful/most underappreciated master filmmaker in all American cinema. Next on deck is El Cid restored which I've never seen.
I still need to see those '60s epics that have been coming out on DVD of late. TCM had a tribute to Mann two years ago with most of his early films. A couple of them stunk--Sing Your Way Home and The Bamboo Blonde were two lousy B-musicals that probably no one could have saved.

But a couple of other early assignments where he was on much more solid footing are well worth seeing: The Great Flamarion is a very nicely executed early noir starring Von Stroheim, and Two O'Clock Courage is a briskly funny '30s-style murder mystery with fun chemistry between Tom Conway and Ann Rutherford, plus a great drunk scene for Jane Greer!
HerrSchreck wrote:If CC really wanta knock the socks off the world of cineastes, it should get hold of (the apparently pd) The Black Book.. this rarely seen masterpiece would blow the eyeballs out of their viewership, 99% of whom I'm sure have never seen it... and for icing if they could acquire the rights of T-Men & Raw Deal (two masterworks screaming for clean HD transfers), this Mann/Alton trilogy of noirs, the very finest ever made (surpassing Premingers, Dassins, J. Tourners, surpassing everybody and anybody who toyed with the style), would constitute one of the most satisfying box sets of American film yet produced.
I've seen high-quality prints of Black Book and Raw Deal at the last couple of Noir City film festivals in San Francisco. Black Book is an incredible visual achievement with a weirdly ridiculous script. Several of the actors seemed like they were in different movies. T-Men is a great film that would definitely be elevated by a proper DVD release, and Raw Deal is a B-movie masterpiece, arguably one of the 10 greatest noirs.

I would really be in heaven if those last two could be combined in a boxset with the last Mann-Alton collaboration, Devil's Doorway, which takes a similar approach to post-Civil War Native American/white settler relations as The Furies does with the Mexican-American conflict. Devil's Doorway focuses the entire film on that issue, with all sorts of dark and complex things bubbling to the surface. It can't hold a candle to the cast of The Furies--Robert Taylor as a native warrior is, well, not exactly ideal casting (although I think he does a good job)--but the plot is really uncompromising, and Alton works plenty of his dark magic to make it all even more powerful.

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HerrSchreck
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#50 Post by HerrSchreck » Tue Jul 08, 2008 11:39 pm

I love the script of the Black Book-- it's a taut excercise in brainbending suspense, and warps the "French revolution melodrama" to precise noir/suspense styling needs. It's quite simply one of the most effective suspense films I've ever seen, and the paranoia is ratcheted to overdose thru the script and the obscene layers of deception and meanspiritedness. Frankly I've never heard a bad word on the script or film, but there's a first time for everything I guess.

I've mentioned here before I had a pristine vhs of a rare broadcast of a clean print of the film.. which was lent out and promptly grew legs.

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