just watch it!

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Scott was a beautiful actress but in this film, she became increasingly annoying - that is, the teenage character she played was financially supported in style by her mother and spent her days swanning around in cars flirting with men. She was clearly in heat and needed a man to satisfy her physical needs but otherwise, she had no purpose in life. Aside from her looks, she was vapid. The studio dressed her in a wide range of expensive outfits.. on one occasion she was confined to her bedroom and changed her attire no less than three times. The theme of homosexuality has been cited in other posts. I thought that the mother's insistence she was not to marry the crime boss was because he was her father - this would have made the plot more interesting.

****SPOILERS****It's when both not still out of her teens 19 year old Paula Haller played by 25 year old and looking much older actress Lizabeth Scott meets by the rickety old bridge gambler Eddie Bendix, John Hodiak,sparks start to fly in all the wrong directions. It seems that young Paula is a dead ringer for Eddie's late wife Angela who was killed in an accident two years ago at that very same bridge when her car was forced off the road! And the person responsible for that tragedy was Eddie Bendix himself! We get to see Paula's mom Fritzi, Mary Astor, who runs the town of Chuckwalla Nevada's casino furious at the sight of her daughter being in town instead of collage which she had dropped out of.This leads to tension between mother & daughter that in the end erupts to a fever pitch.With the now in love with Paula Eddie eloping with Paula to Las Vages that in fact ends , to everyone in the cast, in disaster.To round things out there's former rodeo rider now deputy sheriff "Handsom Tom" Hanson, Burt Lancaster, who's got his eye on Paula as well as his suspicions about Eddie whom he feels drove his wife Angela off the road two years ago killing her. It's in fact Eddie's friend Johnny who pulling the strings in all this which by manipulating the confused, about his sexuality, Eddie to stay with him at all costs and not get involved with anyone, man or woman, else. It was Johnny who had Eddie kill his wife by forcing her off the road and now plans to have him do the same thing with Paula! That in order for him-very possibly a closet gay-to have Eddie all to himself!***SPOILERS*** Strange for a movie in 1947 to have all these hidden subplots that at the time confused many of those in the audience watching it. It was Eddie break with Johnny that lead to the eruption of violence that happened at the end of the movie. Johnny got gunned down by Eddie and he later shared the very same fate that his wife did which opened the door for "Handsom Tom" Hanson to walk off into the sunset with Paula who realized that he , not Eddie, was the man for her!

Sporting a title that is better suited to an exotic Western or an Arabian Nights romp, it is small wonder perhaps that this noir-ish melodrama turns out to be more of a glossy soaper. This combination – and, indeed, the plot itself – seems to indicate an attempt at another MILDRED PIERCE (1945) but the end result is certainly less rewarding. In fact, all-powerful businesswoman/mother Mary Astor gets to experience her student/daughter Lizabeth Scott's hard-headed ungratefulness with the appearance of ex-flame John Hodiak. Local cop Burt Lancaster (third-billed in his third movie) is enamoured with Scott himself and does not take Hodiak's unwarranted attentions sitting down. Unfortunately, for most of the time, the film resolves itself into a series of clashes between these four characters but, thankfully, Paramount's unusual decision to film 'in glorious Technicolor' (to use the famous advertising term) makes the rather dreary proceedings more easy on the eye than they would otherwise have been. This is not to say that the film is without interest: Lancaster is always worth watching, Mary Astor is fine in a character role not too far removed from her trademark role of the scheming Brigid O'Shaugnessy in John Huston's THE MALTESE FALCON (1941) and Miklos Rozsa's musical accompaniment is typically brooding. Besides, to counter the (no pun intended) somewhat colorless central relationship between Scott and Hodiak, we are treated to the highly ambiguous one between Hodiak and his long-suffering sidekick (an impressive turn from a debuting Wendell Corey): not only is Corey relegated to doing the house chores while Hodiak sunbathes topless but, in the admittedly strong climax, we see the reality of their interchangeable personalities two decades before Ingmar Bergman's PERSONA (1966) and Cammell-Roeg's PERFORMANCE (1970)!

I've always wondered why Lizabeth Scott never became a big star;part of the reason can be found in the fact that she resembled Lauren Bacall.She plays opposite a bossy Mary Astor and a young Burt Lancaster with whom she would team up again the following year in " I walk alone" .But neither her nor Lancaster have interesting characters in "desert fury".The real meat lies in the John Hodiak/Wendell Corey relationship.It seems sometimes that Johnny is in love with Eddie and is jealous of the women he woos."He's a bad man,he might have killed his wife " Johnny warns Paula ,but he cannot hide his misogyny and he tells her so:he hates her,and never Eddie will leave HIM for HER.