SON OF FURY is one of the most fondly remembered adventure films from Hollywood's Golden Age. Produced by William Perlberg for 20th Century Fox in 1942 it was directed with a positive flair by John Cromwell. Based on the classic novel by Edison Marshall it had a cracking screenplay by Philip Dunne and the perfect leading man in handsome Tyrone Power who was still enjoying the great success of his popular pirate swashbuckler "The Black Swan" released just prior to this. SON OF FURY is also notable for an excellent performance from the ill-fated Francis Farmer who plays the spoilt and priggish daughter of slimy villain George Saunders. Farmer looks quite lovely in the picture and is probably her best remembered role.
Ty Power is in his element as the young Benjamin Blake in the early part of the nineteenth century seeking restitution after being cheated out of his proper inheritance by his roguish uncle (Saunders). As a boy he becomes his bond servant and grows into manhood in a cruelly treated existence. But after a fierce beating and many other indignities under the uncle's tutelage he flees home. He joins a ship sailing for the South Seas and with a colleague (John Carradine) jumps ship and comes ashore on an exotic Polynesian island. After some time he meets and falls in love with a beautiful Polynesian girl (Gene Tierney). Some years pass and after amassing a fortune in pearls he returns to England. He hires a lawyer (Dudley Diggs) who clears his name (in an excellent courtroom scene) and restores his rightful inheritance much to the chagrin of his uncle resulting in a well staged fist fight between Power and Saunders (an interesting analogy - some 15 years later in a fight scene with the same two actors while filming "Solomon & Sheba" (1959)- Tyrone Power would die on set from a massive heart attack. He was only 44 years old!) SON OF FURY ends with him returning to the island and taking up where he left off with the native girl.This is my only complaint about the movie - the casting of Gene Tierney as a Polynesian native girl! She doesn't look Polynesian nor native! She looks just like Laura in a grass skirt on holiday on a South Sea island!
Gloriously photographed in black & white by the great Arthur Miller the picture is also buoyed by a terrific score by Alfred Newman featuring a great swashbuckling main theme and an arresting love motif for the picture's softer moments. Newman's score can be enjoyed for its own merits isolated on the DVD's audio track. Also on the disc is a featurette about Power with a nice contribution from the director's son - modern character actor James Cromwell.
In 1953 Fox remade the picture - this time in Technicolor - and called it "Treasure Of The Golden Condor" starring Cornel Wilde and Constance Smith but it had only minor success. Unlike the splendid SON OF FURY it is now virtually forgotten!
Ty Power is in his element as the young Benjamin Blake in the early part of the nineteenth century seeking restitution after being cheated out of his proper inheritance by his roguish uncle (Saunders). As a boy he becomes his bond servant and grows into manhood in a cruelly treated existence. But after a fierce beating and many other indignities under the uncle's tutelage he flees home. He joins a ship sailing for the South Seas and with a colleague (John Carradine) jumps ship and comes ashore on an exotic Polynesian island. After some time he meets and falls in love with a beautiful Polynesian girl (Gene Tierney). Some years pass and after amassing a fortune in pearls he returns to England. He hires a lawyer (Dudley Diggs) who clears his name (in an excellent courtroom scene) and restores his rightful inheritance much to the chagrin of his uncle resulting in a well staged fist fight between Power and Saunders (an interesting analogy - some 15 years later in a fight scene with the same two actors while filming "Solomon & Sheba" (1959)- Tyrone Power would die on set from a massive heart attack. He was only 44 years old!) SON OF FURY ends with him returning to the island and taking up where he left off with the native girl.This is my only complaint about the movie - the casting of Gene Tierney as a Polynesian native girl! She doesn't look Polynesian nor native! She looks just like Laura in a grass skirt on holiday on a South Sea island!
Gloriously photographed in black & white by the great Arthur Miller the picture is also buoyed by a terrific score by Alfred Newman featuring a great swashbuckling main theme and an arresting love motif for the picture's softer moments. Newman's score can be enjoyed for its own merits isolated on the DVD's audio track. Also on the disc is a featurette about Power with a nice contribution from the director's son - modern character actor James Cromwell.
In 1953 Fox remade the picture - this time in Technicolor - and called it "Treasure Of The Golden Condor" starring Cornel Wilde and Constance Smith but it had only minor success. Unlike the splendid SON OF FURY it is now virtually forgotten!