MovieChat Forums > Desert Fury (1947) Discussion > Daughter of Who?

Daughter of Who?

posted 16 years ago by Venturedp
2 replies | jump to latest

I just saw this film last nite thru the American Cinemateque's series of film noir films being shown in LA at the Egyptian theatre. Very intriguing material here..and am quite amazed as to how the producers got away with the material that was being presented without the censor boards going crazy. To shoot this type of film in Technicolor was not cheap! This film even though obscure should definitely be elevated as a controversial classic!
Now i have noticed from the many comments that no-one got the strong hints throughout the movie that the daughter (Lizzie Scott) in the film may actually be the daughter of the deceased wife of John Hodiak the Gambler/Gangster and not of Mary Astor who was playing her mom 15 years after the accident..
....... i believe there was some reference that Mary Astors husband may have had a tryst with the deceased woman who had the accident....
.or...
And this is a scenario that i think is most hinted at in subtext with this film... Keep in mind that John Hodiak the Gambler/Gangster was married to the deceased....Remember that Mary Astor had a love affair with Johnny......and may felt obligated to take care of this girl when Johnny skipped town.
Now then...if Lizzies character truly was the daughter of the deceased who was married to John Hodiak 19 years ago ...then the love tryst that they have when they meet in the present is truly incestuous...and you know its hinted at that they consecrate their relationship!
Great stuff! This is one of those films where there are so many layers of dark secrets and world of denial that it will just make your head spin.

[–] edward-miller-1 16 years ago

You've got some misconceptions going on here. The Hodiak character is Eddie, not Johnny. Wendell Corey played Johnny. And Angela can't possibly have given birth to Paula Haller (Scott); she would have been just a few years older than Paula, at most. The fatal accident was just a few years before the action of the movie, not decades. No one says that Eddie and Angela were married nineteen years before the current action. I have this movie at home, and I've seen it hundreds of times in my lifetime. I know the dialogue by heart, and you've heard things that aren't there. There are some really bizarre sexual subtexts in it, for 1947. There is not, however, the kind of incest that you're hinting at.

"Don't worry. I'm not on the side of the saints yet."

[–] Skrbi 11 years ago

Another reason Angela isn't Paula's mother; Tom said he was assigned to investigate that accident as a cop. Given Tom's youthful look, that accident must have only been several years ago while Paula was old enough to remember her mother. Also Fritzi has been raising Paula for 19 years !