As far as Hollywood quickies go this is full of hysterical verve as another reviewer aptly points out. It's billed as film noir on here and that's how I came to it but it's not, it's romantic soap opera.
Its first of two real charms is the lush Technicolor, that always gasp-worthy window into a world of splashy color and make-believe light. I've never seen a color film noir that lets us take in the city; whenever producers decided to splurge for it in this milieu, it seems like it needed to have a pastoral desert background, pristine skies in the distance, Nevada here.
Its other charm and probably the real reason you might decide to visit is the story of rebellious young daughter falling for the gangster bad boy in the rural small town. This is against her mother's warnings and really the warnings of every mother in the audience.
He spits insults to anyone who might tell him what to do, she won't stand for her mother's attempts to tell her how to live her life. Both are fresh back in town, both fret with the limits of the established smalltown order. Hodiak and Scott are both superb. We get the sense that in spite of everyone's warnings, she'd jump in his car in a heartbeat to go to LA.
Interesting to note here that the idyllic desert of westerns in her case means a narrative of being married to the good, sturdy guy and settling down together in a ranch, but through her eyes this is seen as stifling. In the usual mode Lancaster would have been the hero and romantic interest, their love would have been thwarted because he doesn't have any prospects.
It's a Bonnie and Clyde origins story, the same story that would resurface in countless other films from Gun Crazy to Badlands. With a temper like his, we get the sense that it would not take much for him to leave dead bodies behind and it would not take much for her to accept it as part of furious passion that rages against the world.
Eventually she does jump in his car and they're off to LA, having spurned her mother. Badlands would go on to give us the violent spree and poetic journey.
Here we are turned back on the road. This is shown as previous life catching up with them. In a diner an odd bit of psychology takes place where he's revealed as never having been the flippant, cocksure guy she was attracted to but an actor strutting on a stage others had prepared for him. The film accepts this as the final verdict, because in spite of everything just seen, we really need her to be back home to reconcile with her mother. In the end she looks over the desert at sunset with the good, sturdy guy, pining for that ranch together.
It's not even the sermonizing type; her mother is portrayed as someone who has known danger and passion like she wants to indulge and came out tired but on her feet There's a youthful yearning here to burst out from the idyll of rural America into dizzying modern life. It wasn't yet time but that would come.
Its first of two real charms is the lush Technicolor, that always gasp-worthy window into a world of splashy color and make-believe light. I've never seen a color film noir that lets us take in the city; whenever producers decided to splurge for it in this milieu, it seems like it needed to have a pastoral desert background, pristine skies in the distance, Nevada here.
Its other charm and probably the real reason you might decide to visit is the story of rebellious young daughter falling for the gangster bad boy in the rural small town. This is against her mother's warnings and really the warnings of every mother in the audience.
He spits insults to anyone who might tell him what to do, she won't stand for her mother's attempts to tell her how to live her life. Both are fresh back in town, both fret with the limits of the established smalltown order. Hodiak and Scott are both superb. We get the sense that in spite of everyone's warnings, she'd jump in his car in a heartbeat to go to LA.
Interesting to note here that the idyllic desert of westerns in her case means a narrative of being married to the good, sturdy guy and settling down together in a ranch, but through her eyes this is seen as stifling. In the usual mode Lancaster would have been the hero and romantic interest, their love would have been thwarted because he doesn't have any prospects.
It's a Bonnie and Clyde origins story, the same story that would resurface in countless other films from Gun Crazy to Badlands. With a temper like his, we get the sense that it would not take much for him to leave dead bodies behind and it would not take much for her to accept it as part of furious passion that rages against the world.
Eventually she does jump in his car and they're off to LA, having spurned her mother. Badlands would go on to give us the violent spree and poetic journey.
Here we are turned back on the road. This is shown as previous life catching up with them. In a diner an odd bit of psychology takes place where he's revealed as never having been the flippant, cocksure guy she was attracted to but an actor strutting on a stage others had prepared for him. The film accepts this as the final verdict, because in spite of everything just seen, we really need her to be back home to reconcile with her mother. In the end she looks over the desert at sunset with the good, sturdy guy, pining for that ranch together.
It's not even the sermonizing type; her mother is portrayed as someone who has known danger and passion like she wants to indulge and came out tired but on her feet There's a youthful yearning here to burst out from the idyll of rural America into dizzying modern life. It wasn't yet time but that would come.