FURY AT FURNACE CREEK

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 479, 27 August 1948, Page 24

FURY AT FURNACE CREEK

(20th Century-Fox) . A PART from Pastoral Symphony the week in Wellington was a barren one for new films, and I went along to see Fury at Furnace Creek simply for want of something better to do-and as so often happens in such circumstances I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Fury, etc., has most. of the classic ingredients of the horse-opera-fights with and without guns, thundering hooves, a platoon of yowling Injuns (Appa-chees in this case), and the black sheep who makes good-and how exciting these unpretentious and time-tested devices can be when they are well handled. Those’ terrible grey horsemen (everything at Furnace Creek is grey with dust), how they ride! And it comes as a rather pleasant surprise to find that when they are riding you‘ hear nothing" but the muffled sound of hooves on dusty roads. There are even comparatively long stretches of film unspoiled by any sound at all, and background music is used only twice in the entire film. This return to naturalistic treatment (which we noticed a week ago in Naked City) is the most arresting fedture of Fury and one which does much to raise the film above the Western average. The historical (sic) background to the goings-on at Furmace Creek is dealt with at tedious length, and Reginald Gardiner (who is irrevocably associated in my mind with iron horses) seems particularly unhappy in the part of a renegade cavalry officer. But I was pleased to make the acquaintance of Charles Kemper, as Peaceful Jones, surely the happiest fugitive from a chain-gang you ever did see, while Victor Mature has, if anything, matured slightly.