No need to recap the sprawling, epic-sized plot. As another reviewer points out, it's like the screenplay is trying to shoehorn the novel's 1000-pages onto the screen. Instead, it's fascinating to watch the different acting styles compete with one another in this operatic western. The thespic turns run the gamut from cold under-playing by Corey to white-hot bravura from Huston to Stanwyck calibrating nicely somewhere in between. The movie's real showdown is between Anderson and Stanwyck, featuring two of the screen's premier tough- cookie women. It's a doozy. Then add the Medusa-like Blanche Yurka (Mother Herrera), and I was ready to crawl under the couch.
Anyhow, looks like Paramount was going all out in the production. So why b&w instead of the more logical Technicolor. My guess is the producers were caught up in the film-noir fashion of the time since the results suggest shadowy effects. Then too, none of the major characters, except maybe Herrera (Roland), is morally uncompromised, a key feature of noir. That may also account for Anthony Mann as director since he had cut his teeth on a succession of outstanding crime noirs.
Be that as it may, it's the actors that hold this narrative sprawl together; otherwise, it's easy to get lost in the many financial manueverings unusual for a western. I expect director Mann was just trying to hold things together since the overall results bear little of his usual stamp. Because of TV's popular pull, this sort of epic format would soon turn to Technicolor with productions like The Far Horizons (1955) and The Big Country (1958). All in all, the Furies remains an oddball obscurity, maybe too bleak and crowded for its own good, but a good vehicle for Huston to go out on.
Anyhow, looks like Paramount was going all out in the production. So why b&w instead of the more logical Technicolor. My guess is the producers were caught up in the film-noir fashion of the time since the results suggest shadowy effects. Then too, none of the major characters, except maybe Herrera (Roland), is morally uncompromised, a key feature of noir. That may also account for Anthony Mann as director since he had cut his teeth on a succession of outstanding crime noirs.
Be that as it may, it's the actors that hold this narrative sprawl together; otherwise, it's easy to get lost in the many financial manueverings unusual for a western. I expect director Mann was just trying to hold things together since the overall results bear little of his usual stamp. Because of TV's popular pull, this sort of epic format would soon turn to Technicolor with productions like The Far Horizons (1955) and The Big Country (1958). All in all, the Furies remains an oddball obscurity, maybe too bleak and crowded for its own good, but a good vehicle for Huston to go out on.