Desert Fury (1947) on Netflix
Paula Haller drops out of college and returns to Chuckawalla, the Nevada mining town where her mother, Fritzi, runs the Purple Sage casino. Eddie Bendix arrives with his henchman, Johnny Ryan.
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- Netflix3.4/5
- IMDb6.5/102,544 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes70%
Trailer
Plot summary
Chuckawalla, a small mining town in northern Nevada, is where Fritzi Haller owns the Purple Sage casino and oversees the local gambling trade. Her daughter Paula comes home from college, and the two are at odds; Paula insists she will make her own choices. Tom Hanson, a deputy sheriff and former rodeo performer, has loved her for years, and Fritzi offers to buy him a ranch if he proposes to her. A racketeer named Eddie Bendix arrives in town with his henchman, Johnny Ryan, hoping to cash in on the gambling. Eddie's wife died in a car crash at the bridge into town, and he left under suspicion in the matter. Paula gives him a ride to the ranch where he is staying.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Desert Fury (1947)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Most of Desert Fury was shot on studio sets built to look like desert locations, and the production had red sandstone and gravel hauled from Arizona to Los Angeles to dress those sets.
- The production entirely leased the Arizona city of Cottonwood for filming and used local residents as extras, while other exteriors were shot in Palmdale and the nearby Arizona city of Clarkdale.
- In the small Ventura County, California town of Piru, the northwest side of Center Street at Main doubled as the exterior of Fritzi's saloon and casino, and the Piru Mansion stood in as the Haller home.
- Desert Fury gave Wendell Corey his first screen appearance; he was, like Burt Lancaster, a contracted discovery of producer Hal Wallis, and John Hodiak's casting alongside Lizabeth Scott had been announced in July 1946.
